How do i learn how to have a healthy relationship when I dont know what that even is?

Welcome to Fluther.

What a great question. This has to be one of the best first questions I’ve seen here.

One way to start to answer your question is to mirror your Q back to you, “If you don’t know what a healthy relationship is, then how do you know that you put yourself into unhealthy ones?” If you don’t really know what one is, then how would you recognize the other?

Well, I guess that answering that (to yourself) will help you to develop a checklist (either mental or actual pen-and-paper) of attributes to look for in a healthy relationship, and things to look out for from bad ones. Figure out by trial and error what personality traits in a partner will suit your own personality traits, and look for those. And at the same time, do some self-analysis of those personality traits of your own that could use some work and modification.

So I think that’s how you’d have to do it. (And even those of us from relatively ‘healthy’ and intact nuclear family situations still need to ‘learn’ this; it’s not automatic just because your parents loved each other, stayed together and nurtured you as a child. The knowledge doesn’t get into your psyche by osmosis.) You have to develop the self-awareness of what (for you) is ‘healthy’ and what is ‘unhealthy’, and act accordingly.

This is a great question and I don’t think an easy question for people to answer. What constitutes “health”. Is some of the unfolding dysfunction representative of how most people live nowadays “health”? People can live in what is referred to as dysfunctional homeostasis. It means that the things that are unhealthy are what the family members are glued together by. They are building coping mechanism within their individual system in order to survive or “function” (even though in another family system what they are doing wouldn’t work).
If you live, work and play in one place…healthy and functional is going to look entirely different then it would in another context.
For this reason I like to think very cognitive behaviorally about what is healthy in terms of relationship. What might work for one couple, won’t work for another. The basic thing most of use can probably agree upon is that healthy in romantic relationships usually means there is a high level of reciprocity…another words give and take in equal measures between the partners. The things that they agree upon within this might be different couple to couple but what is important is that they have come to an agreement regarding what exchanges are made that make them feel valued, committed, and invested.
In a dysfunctional relationship usually one or more members eventually want out and if they find the means to do so they end the relationship OR they find a secondary relationship that fills the gaps.
A mistake many people make is to pick a relationship they think they would like to emulate without realizing one or the other partner is being disenfranchised within that. So they pick a relationship where the same gender partner appears to be getting what they want…but they fail to recognize that it’s at the expense of what they partners wants or needs and so they recreate another problematic relationship.
The more equitable the measures of reciprocity and the acknowledgement of contribution that their is the more likely you will be pouring the foundation for a favorable return for both parties in the relationship.
If you want to get a handle on what to do and not to do, John Gottman and his wife do extensive research in this area and have a number of books out that are pretty easy reads.
I recommend them highly.

Join the club. I’ve been in couples counseling for three years, and I don’t see any end in sight.

There are so many books to read. Books about codependency; rescuing; fear of intimacy; neediness and on and on and on.

I’m hardly one to give advice on the topic, because I can barely keep my own marriage together. I am acting out on all kinds of mishegosse from my past. My own failings are driving most of it.

I think we all have issues of our own that we have to work through and around. However, if there is some universal skill that will help relationships, I think it is knowing how to listen, and know how to hold in your own crap while you listen.

If you both can listen, then you can begin to understand problems. If you understand problems, you car figure out if there’s something to do about them.

There’s one other thing, which really has to do with intimacy. It isn’t enough to just be able to talk, you also have to talk about the important stuff. I think of it as not having fear. I think I need to be able to bring up any issue without fearing that it will cause the end of the relationship. If I hold back, then I can not truly be known and intimacy isn’t possible.

I’m afraid that I have done too many things that I cannot tell my wife. So my relationship with her can only go so far. All along, I have been afraid, afraid of my thoughts, and afraid to tell her my thoughts or acknowledge them, and I think I am lost. I don’t even know if I have it in me to be different, even if I was starting from zero again.

There are a lot of people out there who offer relationship advice. I think that they try to offer hope, and I guess that I’m not sure hope is warranted for all of us. I think some us just have to do the best we can, and we hold our relationships together with Elmer’s glue and scotch tape.

I guess what I’m saying is to throw yourself in and see how far you can swim. I think you can get pretty far in a leaky boat. Don’t be like me. Don’t beat yourself up for your relationship failings. Let it go. Always believe you can fix it, or if not fix it, make it better. Remain committed to trying your hardest. And don’t worry about “healthy” or not healthy. I think that if we all thought about that, half of all relationships would fall apart like sad gravestones where you can’t even read the writing enough to see who was buried there. And those are the healthy relationships.

You might consider reading Getting the Love You Want by Harville Hendrix. He explains how we pick our partners and what we are trying to do to heal our own wounds.

Wow thanks for all the awesome answers. I think im going to have to re-read these a few times to soak it all in. Thanks again!

To break it down to stages:

1. Know yourself. If you don’t know yourself, how can you expect to find someone who will match you? ( there are many ways to do this, but that’s another question )

2. Get to know women as friends first. If you have women as friends, not only will you feel more comfortable around them, but you will learn what it is about each woman that you like.

3. Make friends with the woman who best combines chracteristics you admire from your other female friends.

4. Cultivate this woman by sharing your feelings and ideas with her, Start out sharing mostly surface things at first. As the relationship matures and changes from “just friends” to “best friends,” share more deeply until you both feel comfortable sharing your most intimate feelings and ideas.

5. If this woman continues to be your best friend despite knowing virtually everything there is to know about you, warts and all, marry her. : ))

REMEMBER: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and women admire both courage and men who take the time to find out who they are! : )

Captain Harley, you took the words right out of my mouth. great answer for you. john

I can only give one lurve to @CaptainHarley but agree with all he wrote. You might ask, how do I know myself? Start writing stuff down that you want from others, doesn’t matter if you think they’re good things, reasonable things, frivolous or whatever- just write them down. From there, ask yourself if you can give yourself any of those things and if so then will it feel good enough and fulfilling or do you really want it from another instead? Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want from a partner and to ask what they want, really want because you can be stronger that way but only if you get past the stage of being afraid you’ll have to justify why you want what you want.