The hardest part about being in a healthy relationship

Last weekend, my partner said to me, “it’s kinda boring to be in a healthy relationship sometimes… like I wanna throw a tantrum and be mean when I’m really mad. But I know I won’t, because we just don’t treat each other like that.”

I laughed, and said “yeah, I get it… it happens to me too.”

Now, I don’t think I had ever been in a truly healthy relationship before.

And I’m no relationship expert, but I can say I’ve been in a healthy and happy relationship for a little over a year now.

Honestly, I’d say that being in a healthy relationship is harder (in many ways) than being in an unhealthy relationship.

It requires a lot more from you.

What’s required for a relationship to be healthy?

John and Julie Gottman are the founders of the Gottman Institute. They have dedicated their lives to researching relationships: what makes them last, and what makes them end.

They found something they call “The Magic Ratio”:

Relationships that last maintained this over and over: within conflict, for every instance of negative interaction, there were at least five instances of positive interaction. Or, for every second of being in a negative emotional state, they had five seconds together in a positive or neutral emotional state.

This meant that even within conflict, for every moment spent feeling angry, or frustrated, there were five moments of feeling heard, connected, safe, loved, etcetera.

This allowed them to predict if a couple would separate or last with 90% accuracy.

But there’s a second “magic ratio”, one that may even overpower that first one and make conflict less frequent: they found that in everyday life, for every instance of negative interaction (let’s say, for every conflict) they had 20 instances of positive interaction.

The first ratio makes a relationship last. The second ratio makes a relationship happy. There’s a difference, right?

What you think will happen when you have a healthy relationship:

We’ve all imagined what our ideal relationship looks like.

But what happened to me (and I’ve found it’s very common) is that this is what I imagined:

I imagined a healthy relationship as a relationship that is easy.

I imagined that we’d never fight. That we would both always be patient, and gentle, and know the right thing to say. I imagined that I’d feel amazing every single day.

And well… that’s not really what it’s like.

So what is it actually like?

Now, being in a healthy relationship does feel good most of the time. (Going back to those Gottman ratios, right?)

But it’s not always sunlight and flowers.

The first thing that is hard about healthy relationships is that you feel safe in an intimate environment, probably for the first time.

Because of this, when something triggering for you happens, that safety feels threatened. It still feels fragile to you. This fear turns a small conflict in the present moment to a huge threat.

It tells you that you’re going to lose this safe space you’ve found in the other person.

In a way, this is scarier than any unhealthy dynamic you’ve experienced before has been.

You have something to lose now. Something you deeply care about. And that’s scary.

The second thing that happens is that since you feel safe, a lot of pain and wounds from your past will come up. These may be childhood or relationship wounds.

They had never come up before, because you had never felt safe enough for them to come to the surface. And so, you’d never had to face them.

This is scary and frustrating. It makes you face the fact that you weren’t fully “healed” yet.

And that’s not even the hardest part.

The hardest part of it all…

When your unhealed wounds show, you will get triggered by things you didn’t know would trigger you.

And the hardest part is that you choose to still show up respectfully. I wanna highlight that word: choose. It doesn’t happen naturally, and it is often not easy. It comes from a conscious choice.

You do it because it’s what they deserve. After all, it’s what you’re committed to doing, and it’s what you want for your relationship and your life.

It makes you put your respect for the other person and your relationship over the fear that this situation generates in your inner child.

When we face complicated emotions, the part of us that reacts with fight-or-flight impulses is our inner child. The part of us that doesn’t feel strong enough to deal with this challenge. The part of us that can’t stand feeling uncertain or unsafe.

So the hardest part is that in which you choose to do what’s necessary: to react from your adult self instead.

To react from the part of you who can talk rationally and calmly. The part of you who is willing to face the truth and take responsibility for your part in the situation. The part of you that can look for solutions, not drama. The part of us that takes responsibility for self-regulating.

Committing to a healthy relationship forces you to grow into your adult self. Yes, even when you’re mad, sad, or triggered.

The final challenge: you can’t always be that person

As committed as you are to having a healthy relationship, it’s impossible to act perfectly all the time.

You will sometimes (hopefully, rarely) have moments when you don’t show up as the adult side of you.

Times when you do whine, blame the other, throw a tantrum, and can’t talk rationally.

And it sucks.

Not even because of the situation itself, or how this behavior may escalate it. It sucks because you know, at that moment, you have let both yourself and the other person down.

It’s embarrassing, honestly, to know you’ve done it. You’ve acted from your wounded child, instead of being the responsible adult you’re so committed to being.

It makes you feel smaller and dumber than the initial trigger did.

It’s a feeling of regret and guilt that I can’t really compare to any other. All I can say is it’s very frustrating and angering. And the hardest part isn’t being forgiven, but forgiving yourself.

All you can do is apologize, own up to it, and do better next time. (i.e. act as the adult again).

This probably doesn’t sound fun at all to you.

But there’s another side to this coin.

The silver lining of conflict

I used to be terrified of conflict. Growing up, a single conflict would likely end up in months of silent treatment, screams, or someone crying. 

My current relationship has shown me a different side of conflict.

It has let me reframe it into something I never knew conflict could be:

An opportunity to know and understand the other person better.

An opportunity to:

• connect

• have a deep conversation

• listen to both people’s needs

• and move forward doing better.

In fact, I would even say that when managed maturely, a relationship can become stronger and healthier after every conflict overcome.

It’s worth it. Every single day.

As I’ve said, having a healthy relationship doesn’t equate to having an easy relationship. You will have fights. You will have to face unhealed parts of yourself. You will have to grow into more.

But you will learn from it. You will learn about yourself, and the healing you still have to do. About the other person, and how you can love them better. About the connection and what parts of your relationship need more attention.

A conflict can (and should) end in you knowing where to do better.

And it will be worth it, every single day.

Because every single day, you know you are dating a person who is also putting in the effort to build a healthy relationship with you.

And that’s a stronger manifestation of love than any gift, poem, or hug could express.

It’s something that goes above and beyond any of the 5 love languages: commitment and effort to be better for each other, and ourselves.

Now, I don’t write this to brag. I write this because a little over a year ago, I didn’t even believe this was something that existed. Much less something I could have.

And I want you to know that it does exist.

That you can have it.

And that you can deserve it if you do your part in building it.

I hope the rest of your week feels like chicken soup when you’re sick, like your mom blow-drying your hair because you’re too tired, like the first sip of water after a good night’s sleep.

Until next Wednesday!

-Vale, The Friendly Artist