How Healthy Are Your Relationships?

The health of your relationships can greatly impact your mental health and feelings of security and self-worth. Beyond romantic partnerships, your family dynamics, communication with coworkers, and friendship hierarchies all affect your perception of yourself and your role in your community.

If an essential relationship in your life drains your social battery, seems toxic, or leaves you feeling insecure or disrespected, isolating yourself or breaking up are not the only options. Improving the strength and quality of these connections requires some emotional labor that’s well worth the effort.

Healthy relationships thrive on honest communication.

Open communication can be especially challenging in relationships with power dynamics, such as those between coworkers and supervisors, and between adult children and their aging parents. “Effective communication in these relationships requires intentionality,” says Daniel E. Jimenez, Ph.D., a psychologist and behavioral health provider with the University of Miami Health System.

Try the following strategies to improve communication, encourage open and honest dialogue, and manage negative reactions during tough conversations:

• Choose the right time and setting to sit down, look each other in the eye, and talk.
• Identify/name your emotions before you express them.
• Use clear, non-accusatory “I” statements: “I feel frustrated” rather than “You never listen.”
• Try to avoid escalating conflict. When something feels upsetting, pause before responding.
• Ask for clarification rather than assuming their intent.

“In power-imbalanced relationships, psychological safety is key,” Dr. Jimenez says. “Both parties need to feel that honesty will not be punished.”

Healthy relationships feel emotionally secure and safe.  

“Couples can strengthen their emotional safety and trust by regularly checking in about how each person feels in the relationship,” says Dr. Jimenez. “When asking a question, it needs to be genuine. Be prepared for any and all honest answers.”

• Validate each other’s experiences.
• Repair ruptures quickly after conflict.
• Execute your promises and commitments to each other.

“Safety is built less through grand gestures and more through consistent, predictable, respectful behavior over time,” he says.

Are you in a toxic relationship?

A toxic relationship involves manipulation, control, and/or constant criticism. This unhealthy dynamic can build over time in long-term relationships such as lifelong friendships and between siblings — leaving you feeling unsupported, disrespected, and devalued.

If this describes one of your relationships, Dr. Jimenez insists that everyone involved must be willing to acknowledge their role in the toxic dynamic and commit to the following changes.

• Reset expectations.
• Set firmer boundaries.
• Change old patterns of behavior, such as habits.
• Avoid falling into familiar roles.
• Have honest conversations about what feels harmful.

“Without mutual effort, attempts at repair will most often fail,” he says. “In some cases, improving the relationship may mean redefining it rather than returning to the way it once was.”

Codependency does not mean being able to depend on your partner.

A codependent relationship is another type of imbalanced, unhealthy dynamic. In this situation, “One person enables their partner’s controlling behaviors, poor mental health, addiction, etc., while sacrificing their own happiness, needs, wants, and self-care to feel valued, wanted, loved,” Dr. Jimenez says. “In a codependent relationship, one partner consistently takes while the other constantly gives, thereby losing their sense of self in the process. Over time, the relationship can become more about maintaining emotional equilibrium than supporting mutual growth.”

Common signs of codependency include:

• feeling responsible for another person’s emotions or behavior
• prioritizing the relationship at the expense of your needs
• deriving a sense of purpose primarily from fixing or caring for the other person
• having difficulty saying no to the other person
• feeling less than or of lower status than the other person
• having poor boundaries between you and them
• fear of abandonment

If you are in a codependent romantic relationship, it probably developed over a long period of time. To break this pattern and change the dynamic, Dr. Jimenez recommends entering couples therapy.

“The goal of therapy is to increase self-awareness, establish and maintain healthy boundaries, practice assertive communication, tolerate discomfort when your partner is unhappy, and build a broader social support system beyond your partner and their friends,” he says. “The goal is not emotional distance, but rather healthier interdependence. While these things can be done outside of therapy, it is usually helpful to have a mediator/referee to even the dynamic. In most cases, one or both individuals in the relationship can benefit from individual therapy, as well.”

Your attachment style does not limit the health of your relationships.

Have you heard of the four attachment styles: secure, anxious, avoidant, and disorganized? These terms describe the way you typically connect with the most important people in your life. Your attachment style is an adaptive response to your early experiences with loved ones and authority figures, but it is not fixed.

The “secure attachment style” is generally associated with better relationship satisfaction and emotional regulation.

To determine which attachment style you have, reflect on your patterns in close relationships. You can take an online questionnaire or discuss your attachment style with a therapist to better understand how you typically relate to and depend upon your loved ones. You will be asked how you respond to emotional closeness, distance, conflict, and reassurance.

“Identifying your attachment style is most helpful when you use it as a tool for insight rather than a label,” Dr. Jimenez says. “Simply knowing your attachment style cannot improve your relationships unless you are committed to changing the patterns of behaviors that are leading to recurring conflicts or emotional reactions. With insight and effort, you can move toward greater security over time.”

Written by Dana Kantrowitz. Medically reviewed by Daniel E. Jimenez, Ph.D.

Tags: Attachment styles, Dr. Daniel E. Jimenez, Emotional safety, Relationship communication tips