Nurturing your Relationship

Wondering what a healthy relationship looks like, how to create one or if you actually are in one isn’t all that weird considering the ever changing dating climate. A healthy relationship is one where both partners feel happy, respected,  and uplifted by each-others consistent support. The relationship does not have to be perfect, but it’s must have trust, kindness, and honest communication as a part of its foundation.

Nurturing your relationships

Key ingredients that help form a solid foundation for a healthy relationship:

  • Mutual Respect: Being together does not mean you will always agree with your other half but it means you will listen to their opinions, even when you don’t share them, simply because you value  and respect them as an individual.
  • Trust: It is essential both of you feel safe and confident about the your partner following through on promises and being honest with you.
  • Good Communication: A healthy relationship is one where neither partner shuts down or bottles thing up. You should be able to talk openly about your feelings, but you should also be listening when your partner is talking.
  • Mutual Support: The good times or bad times don’t determine when both of you are with each other. You’re there for each other through all of it; the good, the bad and the ugly. There is a mutual desire to see the other succeed and be happy.
  • Time Shared and Apart: You enjoy spending time together while still respecting each other’s need for space and personal time or friendships that aren’t shared.
  • No Abusive tendencies or behaviour: A healthy relationship is never about controlling or belittling each other. It’s about care, not manipulation or harm.

Nurturing a healthy relationship takes more than just planning romantic gestures for your other-half; it’s about creating a deep emotional bond with each other. While fights or disagreements are inevitable, after all both of you are humans, the key is working through conflict calmly and with each other in a collaborative way. You should be focusing on reaching an understanding or solution instead of playing the (useless!) blame game. Small acts of kindness, like being vocal about your gratitude for your partner or offering support in the tough times, go a long way in strengthening your emotional connection. You should be focusing on reaching an understanding or solution instead of playing the (useless!) blame game. Small acts of kindness, like being vocal about your gratitude for your partner or offering support in the tough times, go a long way in strengthening your emotional connection. 

Both of you should be comfortable with each other pursuing personal interests without the compulsion to involve each other to help  maintain a strong sense of self personality and preserving what makes you unique.

Having open and honest communication is the cornerstone of a healthy relationship. Active listening, an empathetic approach, and understanding each other’s perspectives are vital for conflict resolution and building/maintaining trust. Respecting each other’s boundaries can make or break a relationship, it is a big part of the line between a healthy and unhealthy relationship. Acknowledging both of your individual needs is  equally important in creating a healthy relationship. While physical affection plays an obvious role in relationships, emotional intimacy is just as important to sustain a relationship.

Emotional intimacy is expressed and deepened through 3 out of the 5 love languages (words of affirmation, acts of service, and quality time).

It’s important to remember that no relationship is perfect, no matter what people make it seem like on social media, and both partners may make mistakes. A healthy relationship involves forgiveness, understanding, and a willingness to grow with each other from both partners. A long lasting and fulfilling relationship requires both of you to love each other despite the imperfections or flaws while celebrating individual strengths. Ultimately, a healthy relationship is a partnership where both individuals feel heard, valued, supported, and loved.

Nurturing your relationship is important because it helps keep the bond strong, healthy, happy and most importantly alive. It is comparable to taking care of a plant: it requires you to water it, give it sunlight, and make sure it gets what it needs, it grows and thrives. If you are careless with it or you neglect it, it will wither.

Here’s why nurturing a relationship is crucial:

  1. Keeps Your Connection alive

Relationships, like almost everything in life, need your attention. If you don’t put in the effort, a gap will develop between you and your partner and you’ll start to drift apart. Nurturing your relationship keeps you close to each other and ensures you stay emotionally connected to each other.

  1. Helps You Handle The Difficult Times (together!)

Life is a rollercoaster, with the best of times come the worst of times. And it isn’t always easy to get through them just by yourself. So when things get tough (it could be work stress, family issues, healthy scares or anything else) a strong, nurturing relationship gives you a shoulder to cry on if needed and someone you can rely on each for support. With time it helps you get better at tackling life’s rollercoaster together, because you’ve shared trust and solid communication.

  1. Prevents Misunderstandings

As everyone in the world has heard, communication is key. Nurturing your relationship means talking things out so that they do not become bigger issues further down the line. Staying in touch with your feeling and communicating how you’re feeling and listen to your partner, helps prevent confusion, miscommunication, fights, perceived slights and feelings of neglect.

  1. Keeps the Spark (Love and Affection) Alive

With time, it’s easy to get caught up in your day-to-day life and its demands. And sometimes you might forget to show love or appreciation. Nurturing the relationship requires you to regularly express affection, gratitude, and care to your other half. It helps keep the love alive as it allows for both partner to feel valued and special.

  1. Building (and maintaining) Trust

Trust isn’t your amazon prime parcel, you can’t get it overnight. It needs  consistent actions (like keeping the promises you make, staying honest, and being there for each other). The more you nurture your relationship, the stronger the trust you share will get, which eventually leads to a much stronger connection.

  1. Grow Together, Not Apart

People changing with time is inevitable and as people change so will their relationship. Nurturing your relationship means growing together, not apart. It takes supporting each other’s goals and dreams while adapting to life’s unpredictable changes together. It allows you to keep evolving as individuals, but remain deeply connected.

  1. Makes Life More Fulfilling

A happy, healthy relationship can add wonder to your life feel and make it feel more meaningful. Having a partner you trust, enjoy, and feel supported by makes life all the sweeter.

What it Means to Nurture Your Relationship:

Nurturing your relationship means putting in effort to not just keep it alive but to keep it growing and make it a stronger connection that adds happiness to your life. A relationship is very comparable to a garden—in order for it to thrive, it has to be nurtured and tended to regularly. Here’s some things you do that nurture the garden of your relationship without you even realising:

  1. Regularly checking in with how you are feeling and don’t be afraid to communicate that to your partner. Spending intentional quality time together, and keeping communication open while taking the time to actively listen to your partners feelings as well.
  2. It’s easy to get carried away with our daily hustle while forgetting to appreciate what we have. While grand gestures are nice, they are also unsustainable, it’s the little things that make all the difference like showing that you care by saying thank you instead of just expecting your partner to do things for you, giving random yet meaningful compliments, or doing something thoughtful for your other half. So basically just being and staying grateful.
  3. Just remembering that everyone has flaws tends to go a really long way for relationships. You love your partner despite their flaws, while some days it’s easier to remember this, it is especially important to not loose sight of this on the rough days. Be patient and try to handle your disagreements as calmly as possible. Remember the love will remain but the anger will fade and the blame game will only hurt your relationship.
  4. Not letting the small issues turn into big problems. Talking things out (mindfully, with kindness and respect), finding solutions together, and not letting resentment seep into your relationship.

People who have healthy relationships have been found to feel more happy and satisfied with their lives. They are less likely to struggle with physical ailments or mental health problems. Healthy relationships tend to increase your sense of worth, belonging and help you feel less alone. Nurturing comprises of some key, interrelated components: loving without conditions, clear boundaries & respect, mutual growth, having self-awareness, sense of safety and security, consistency, responsiveness and never stop sincerely learning about your partner.

Before delving into the various methods of nurturing your relationship,  here are some examples of mindful/conscious nurturing behaviour to get a better understanding: being fully present in your interactions (verbally and non-verbally), validating their feelings, providing physical affection and comfort when sought by your partner, providing a safe mental space.

Ways to Nurture Your Relationship:

1. Effective Communication is a key foundational ingredient

  • Vulnerability & Honesty: Share your thoughts, feelings, and concerns openly, but kindly. Vulnerability and transparency are key for trust.
  • Active Listening: Listen to understand your partner, both of you are on the same team, do not to listen to only respond. Make an effort to truly hear and understand your partners point of view. Listen to them the way you would like to be heard.
  • Nonverbal Ques: Pay attention to body language, tone of voice, and other nonverbal, these may be nonverbal but hold the power to alter the context entirely. These cues are essential to ensure your messages are not misconstrued and that you don’t misinterpret your partner.

2. Respect and Boundaries

  • Personal Space and Time: Being a couple does not mean you stop being your own people. You should respect each other’s need for individual space, hobbies, and  (alone) downtime. It fosters a sense of independence within the relationship which prevents the relationship developing an unhealthy co-dependent dynamic.
  • Healthy Boundaries: You must understand and respect each other’s limits (reasonable ones, do not let yourself get coerced in the name of boundaries) both emotionally and physically, even if you do not understand it. Boundaries are essential for maintaining mutual respect and comfort. Violating your partners boundaries will be a breach of trust and can cause discourse and hurt.

3. Trust and Reliability

  • Consistency: Don’t make expectations you can’t live up to and promises you can’t keep. Trust is built through consistent actions and following-through. Be a dependable partner so that it creates a sense of safety and security in your partnership.
  • Being Trustworthy: While incredibly obvious, it is just as hard to find in todays dating climate. Make the promises and commitments you can and intend to keep. Not because you want to get your partner to do something or out of the need to come off as “cool” or the “ideal” partner. Trust is fragile and can take time to build but is damaged incredibly easily.

4. Show Appreciation and Affection

  • Express Gratitude: Acknowledging the small and big things your partner does, it will make them feel more valued in the relationship and will therefore strengthen it.
  • Physical Affection: Hugs, kisses, holding hands, or even a small touches like a warm pat on the back can communicate your love and support.
  • Words of Affirmation: Compliments, praise, and kind words go a long way in making your partner feel appreciated and loved. It also reassures your feelings for them without having to explicitly do so (though it is not wrong to reassure them with specific words when needed).

5. Quality Time Together

  • Shared Activities: Spending time doing things you both enjoy, like watching a movie, cooking together, hiking, or playing a game fosters a deeper connection and allows for both of you to spend intentional quality time together in creative ways
  • Uninterrupted Time: Put away distractions like phones and focus on one each other when spending quality time together. Spending intentional, uninterrupted quality time together is essential for a happy relationship.

6. Emotional Support

  • Be There During Tough Times: Support each other through difficult moments. Offer a listening ear, soothing words, a comforting hug or practical help depending on whatever suits your partners situation best.
  • Empathy: Understand where your partner is coming from and validate their feelings. Showing empathy will helps them feel seen and understood.
  • Celebrate Successes: No matter how small share in your partners achievements and milestones and include them as you celebrate yours. Encouraging each other’s growth will only strengthen your bond.

7. Compromise and Flexibility

  • Work Through Differences: Disagreements are natural, but being respectful as you are working to resolve a conflict is key to a healthy relationship.
  • Be Flexible: Life does not always work out as planned and while your frustration is valid, be sure to not take it out unnecessarily take it out on your partner. Adapt to changes in the relationship, whether it’s a shift in priorities, life circumstances, or growth in individual goals. Flexibility acts as resilience in the face of challenges and allows you to be proactive instead of being immobilised by the situation.
  • Stay Connected During Stressful Times: Life can get chaotic or stressful, but staying connected to your partner (emotionally and physically) helps alleviate distress while maintaining a sense of closeness.

8. Conflict Resolution

  • Address Issues Promptly: Don’t let resentment or misunderstandings build, address things as they happen. Tackle conflicts in a calm, respectful manner. This doesn’t mean you stop a party because your partner did something you have issue with, address things in private after the event instead of trying to address things then and there in order to ensure the best environment for your conflict resolution.
  • Avoid Blame: Instead of playing the blame-game, focus on the problem, not the person. Instead of “you did this or that”, use “I feel” statements to express how you feel. “I feel” statements help get your point across without making it come across as an accusation.
  • Take Responsibility: Be willing to acknowledge your own part in the conflict and amending it. Being open to growth and change allows for you to grow with your partner, instead of away from them.

9. Foster Individual Growth

  • Each Other’s Goals: Growth as individuals strengthens the relationship.
  • Support & Self-Care: Encourage your partner to pursue personal aspirations, hobbies, and career goals which will help them reach their best self. Both of you should engage in your own or shared forms of self-care to maintain your physical and emotional health. A healthy relationship thrives when both people are at their best and feeling their best.

10. Keep Your Relationship Fun and Exciting

  • Be Playful: A sense of humour and playfulness helps relieve stress and foster a sense of joy. Play games, joke around (mindfully of trigger points and sensitive moments), and be open to spontaneity.
  • Surprise Each Other: Occasionally surprising each other with thoughtful gestures, dates, or small gifts can help break up everyday monotony and sustain passion and affection.
  • Spontaneity: Try and regularly experience new things together to keep the relationship lively and preserve its meaningfulness. Occasionally breaking from routine to go on a surprise date night, a weekend trip, or just trying something new together will have quite an impact in the long run.

11. Maintain Intimacy

  • Emotional Intimacy: Do not forget about emotional intimacy, as most people tend to lose sight of their partners emotional needs in sight of their physical needs. Sharing your innermost thoughts and feelings (as you feel comfortable to do so) with each other creates a deep, emotional connection.

12. Have Patience and Understanding

  • Be Patient: Relationships take time to develop and mature. Give each other space to grow individually and as a couple, and be patient with each other’s flaws and imperfections.
  • Practice Forgiveness: Do not hold onto grudges and past wrong doings or hurt. Forgiveness is essential to moving forward and healing within a relationship (as long as there is remorse & consistent corrective actions, without repeating of the same mistakes.)

In short, a healthy relationship takes conscious work and is something you must actively strive for. It is rooted in trust, respect, and open communication. Growth is only possible when both partners support each other, practice kindness, stay patient, and work through challenges together. By nurturing your connection through conscious appreciation and effort, you can have a strong, happy, and lasting relationship.