How to look for and be in a healthy relationship, especially after unhealthy ones!
Finding love and being in a healthy relationship is complicated enough without the added experience of being in past unhealthy relationships. I’m talking about all spectrums of an unhealthy relationship, this could be that love or respect was not reciprocated, some or multiple forms of abuse were present, partner was not faithful, would not respond to you, or maybe you had a ton of failed short-term relationships, or an unhealthy relationship with a parent. The list goes on! I was in a relationship with someone who had narcissistic traits and alcohol and marijuana dependency. He was angry, selfish, jealous, and a chronic liar. My abuse was long term of almost 10 years and increased in intensity over time. It was hard to decipher how abusive it was until after I had left the relationship I was able to see just how toxic it really was.
If you’re ready to be in a committed and healthy relationship, check out the steps below that can help you have more success. If you aren’t ready for a relationship then that is awesome too and keep focusing on showing yourself some self-love so when you are ready you are in a great place for it!
1. Take time to heal.
A person who has experienced any level of an unhealthy relationship will need healing. Healing can be a lifelong journey so don’t be hard on yourself if you don’t fully get there by the time you expected you would. Remember, you have already been through enough, why would add to your hardships by being hard on yourself?
Many people begin to work on themselves before a relationship ends which is why they are able to place a boundary and make a plan on how to exit the relationship. Personally, I began self work a year and a half before leaving my toxic relationship. Once I caught him cheating I had had enough. I knew my worth and it was far beyond what he was providing me. My healing journey took off right away. I didn’t want him to steal any more days from me that I could be feeling happy. I let myself cry, I was vulnerable, I reached out to friends, I accepted others help with gratitude, and I rose up. I focused on all that I still had and all the places I could now go without having someone manipulate and suck my time, emotions, and physical body dry.
Therapy is a great tool to help a person heal from an unhealthy relationship with certain approaches focusing solely on trauma if that is what you experienced. Another way to work on healing is using self-help resources such as reading material and trying new practices. Other ways to heal include increasing your community support such as joining a yoga studio, going to small groups of interest, being vulnerable in sharing, allowing received support, engaging in physical movement, meditation, and getting back in to your hobbies. It is so important to take the time to get to know yourself, relearn what you want, what you need and also what you envision for yourself.
2. Vision what you want in a person and what you want out of a romantic relationship.
Now that you have worked on healing, improving self-love and self-care, it’s so important to know what you want out of a relationship and qualities of a person. Do you want or not want kids? Do you want to get married? What’s your timeline like in your head? Are you wanting someone who is driven? Career focused? Similar interests? You name it. What do YOU want?
3. Get yourself out there.
Once you know what you want in a person and feel like you are ready to begin dating, have some fun! It’s important to trust the process, relax, and enjoy yourself. Don’t set these high expectations for a date because then it’s easy to become disappointed. You might have a vision how you would like for it to go but don’t let it hinder you actually getting there. For example, you may have a vision for the first date of hoping they are the one so you steam roll the person with 50 intense questions. That might come off real heavy to the other person. Instead, go in to it relaxed and have a casual conversation. Are you connecting? Are you attracted them? Through the conversation, are they checking off boxes in your head?
4. Babe, don’t settle.
You have made so much growth and now you might really, really want to take the next steps with someone for your own life plan. It’s important to not look at the next person who is interested in you as the one simply because you have a timeline for your life and ready to mold that person in to the person you want for yourself. Instead, put trust in the universe that the right one will come when it is the right time. It is important to see the person in front of you as who they really and if they truly are compatible with you.
Knowing when to cut off a relationship when you already know it won’t work is important. Don’t focus on the time you have already invested and seeing it as lost time. You learn something from every single relationship that makes you more and more ready to fall in love and be with the right person for you. So if you just started to date someone and they have major different views on life plans than you then it’s better to cut it off sooner than later. Why invest in someone you just met that has vastly different life goals or how they want to spend their time differently or its very clear they struggle with commitment? Choose to continue to spend time with someone that is checking all of the boxes not because they are the next person you are dating and you really, really are ready to get married and have kids. Continue seeing someone who you continue to connect with, feel safe with, have things in common, and share similar relationship expectations.
5. Once you meet someone, continue to work on yourself.
If you have had unhealthy relationships in your past and are now dating someone this is when you’ll see how those experiences play out in your new relationship. Learn your triggers and continue to process them. This could be seen in intimacy, in day to day behavior such as a partner being on their phone, assuming abandonment when a partner is upset, and so on. For me, just feeling genuinely cared for in a romantic relationship was foreign to me and at times I didn’t even know how to respond!
Another important avenue to explore is how you are contributing to the health in the relationship. You might really want a long-term healthy relationship but you could be holding on to a lot of fears. Fears can drive behavior. For example, fears can make you put walls up and it can make you set unrealistic expectations for your partner to meet. So it’s important to evaluate how you are contributing and how you could continue to work on yourself to improve the relationship.
6. Continue to evaluate the relationship.
Honeymoon periods wear off. As time passes, are feelings still mutual? Is there still respect? Are you still connected? Or are you seeing red flags and know you need to do something about it? Are you forcing it to go the way you want it to go?
You are not broken if you have experienced one or many unhealthy relationships. You one hundred percent can turn that around by following these tips. If anything, going through unhealthy relationships gives you the advantage of being able to see how good something really is and being able to shower your partner person with gratitude. Rise up, you got this, and I am rooting for you!!!
