Healthy relationships are characterized by respect, sharing and trust.
They are based on the belief that both partners are equal, that the power and control in the relationship are equally shared.
Some of the characteristics of a healthy relationship are:
1. Respect - listening to one another, valuing each other's opinions, and listening in a non-judgmental manner.
- Respect also involves attempting to understand and affirm the other's emotions.
2. Trust and support - supporting each other's goals in life, and respecting each other's right to his/her own feelings, opinions, friends, activities and interest. It is valuing one's partner as an individual.
3. Honesty and accountability - communicating openly and truthfully, admitting mistakes or being wrong, acknowledging past use of violence, and accepting responsibility for one's self.
4. Shared responsibility - making family/relationship decisions together, mutually agreeing on a distribution of work which is fair to both partners. If parents, the couple shares parental responsibilities and acts as positive, nonviolent role models for the children.
5. Economic partnership - in marriage or cohabitation, making financial decisions together, and making sure both partners benefit from financial arrangements.
6. Negotiation and fairness - being willing to compromise, accepting change, and seeking mutually satisfying solutions to conflict.
7. Non-threatening behaviour - talking and acting in a way that promotes both partners' feelings of safety in the relationship. Both should feel comfortable and safe in expressing him/herself and in engaging in activities.
So, Is Your Relationship Healthy?
A. Can you say what you like or admire about your partner?
B. Is your partner glad that you have other friends?
C. Is your partner happy about your accomplishments and ambitions?
D. Does your partner ask for and respect your opinions?
E. Does she/he really listen to you?
F. Can she/he talk about her/his feelings?
Relationship Killers
1. Annoying habits
Bad habits have a way of destroying marital relationships. Habits such as gossips, lying, anger, pride, partying, and the likes can hinder the success of marital relationships. Every healthy relationship is built on character. Your constant habits are what form your character.
2. Cheating
Having extra marital relationships is the source of most breakdowns in marriages. When you cheat, you heat up the relationship with your partner. Infidelity can’t help any marriage.
3. Different goals or vision
When partners do not share the same goals or vision, there will always be tension. Two visions will always create division. In a healthy relationship, both partners see the same thing and are headed in the same direction.
4. Friends and Family MARITAL SECRETS – SEX AND FINANCE
Not knowing where to place friends and family can also hinder the success of marital relationship. Marriage first demands a departure before a cleaving. In marriage, father, mother, sister, brother, uncles and aunties are not a factor. Family issues must remain family issues, except you are seeking genuine counsel from those who have worthy testimonies in their marriage.
5. High comfort levels
Excessive comfort can sometimes become an enemy of success in marriage. When you stop thinking, learning and stretching, you may make a ship wreck of your marital relationship.
6. Life Stresses
Overworking yourself at the expense of your partners comfort can also be a source of marital failure. Learn to spend time with your family. Give to your spouse the same quality of devotion you give you your job or business.
7. The past
The mistakes of the often times lessons for the now. Rather than hold on to the past, let go of it and use the lessons learnt to forge ahead in life. Those who keep remembering their past might soon pass away with it. Yesterday is the womb of today, today is the womb of tomorrow and tomorrow is the womb of unfathomable possibilities.
8. Lack of Finance
- Anointing without money always leads to annoyance. Money issues are at the root of most family crisis. Couples who fail in this area can’t have enduring marital relationship.
- When people marry to achieve their quest to make money, they seem not to escape financial challenges.
- Couples that have a track record of greed can’t make the most of their marital relationship.
10 Solutions to Financial Crisis in Families
One of the greatest sources of chaos in Relationship is Money
Money problems can start even before the wedding vows are exchanged.
They can stem, for example, from the expenses of courtship or from the high cost of a wedding.
Problem-solving strategies:
1. Be honest about your current financial situation. If things have gone south, continuing the same lifestyle is unrealistic.
2. Don't approach the subject in the heat of battle. Instead, set aside a time that is convenient and non-threatening for both of you.
3. Acknowledge that one partner may be a saver and one a spender, understand there are benefits to both, and agree to learn from each other's tendencies.
4. Don't hide income or debt from each other
5. Don't blame. Construct a joint budget that includes savings.
6. Decide which person will be responsible for paying the monthly bills.
7. Allow each person to have independence by setting aside money to be spent at his or her discretion.
8. Decide upon short-term and long-term goals. It's OK to have individual goals, but you should have family goals, too.
9. Talk about caring for your parents as they age and how to appropriately plan for their financial needs if needed.
10. Be committed tithers and kingdom investors.
9. Unhealthy Sex Life
This is yet another major cause of marital challenges.
In every marital relationship, three things play vital roles, money, fulfilment and Sex.
A marriage that is void of sex is void of life.
A marriage without sex is like a radio without batteries.
A marriage without sex is like car without engine oil. Petrol, which is passion, may keep the car moving, but after a while, the engine will knock.
It is sex that powers marital relationship.
Sex is not meant only for procreation, it is intended for pleasure.
Sex is a divine mandate – be fruitful and multiply
o And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. Gen 1:22
o And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth. Gen 1:28
o And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins;
Gen 35:11 Gen 8:17, Gen 8:9, 9:7,26:22, 28:3,
What is Sex?
Sex is knowing, your partner’s nakedness without having any form of shame.
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Gen 2:25
Sex is knowing your partner intimately for conception.
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. Gen 4:1, 4:17, 4:25, Gen 31:32,
Sex is two people becoming one flesh
What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. 1 Cor 6:16
And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Mat 19:5
It therefore means that Sex or knowing your spouse is what makes you one flesh. It didn't say one spirit nor one soul, it says one flesh.
Devotion in marriage makes one spirit; vision in marriage makes one soul while Sex makes one flesh. They all weigh the same thing.
4 Laws of SEX
1. Never deny your partner of sex
2. Never use sex as a tool to punish your partner
3. Never have sex with anyone you do not want to become one body with.
4. Never exchange sex for money.
Are you a youth who desires self-mastery in:
o Public Speaking
o Relationship Skill Development
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o Spiritual Enlightenment
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