Every new relationship goes through the honey moon phase. And it’s this time, it’s somewhat the norm for women to ignore their needs and intentionally blind themselves to their partner’s red flags, assuming it can be dealt with it after a strong emotional connection has been established. This is usually the beginning of the end. There are certain things you shouldn’t compromise or settle for especially at the start of a relationship because, the beginning, more often than not, sets the pace for the end. For your peace, stability and sanity, here are 12 non-negotiables necessary for a healthy relationship.
Honesty
When you’re with a person who lies to you, peace will become non-existent in your life. You will doubt everything they say to you. Whenever you’re not together you will constantly wonder where they are and even the most logical explanation will sound like a lie to you. You will lose one of the glues to a relationship; trust. When there is no trust, there is no relationship.
Respect
No two people are the same. No matter how alike you are, there will come a time when you will disagree on something. This is where respect comes in. It simply means that even if you don’t agree with or understand them, you accept them as they are. If there’s no respect in a relationship, it will begin to fall apart from its roots. Trust, communication, patience and yes, even love, will begin to dissipate. Your partner doesn’t have to like everything you do or agree with it but they sure as hell better respect it. This applies to you as a person, to your family, to your goals, to your lifestyle and so on.
Having A Life Outside The Relationship
As beautiful as it is to always want to be around each other, you both need your own lives. You need a break from each other, and to be able to maintain a strong enough sense of self, you’ll need to have some independence from each other. It’s important to love yourself as much as you love each other, maybe even more. You can’t do that if you don’t have some independence. If you can’t take the time to work on your personal growth individually, it will eventually sour the relationship.
Equal Effort
You can’t be the only one setting dates, asking when they’re coming over, asking if you should come over, making plans to communicate more or intentionally setting out time for you both. It’s not fair to you or your partner. At a certain point, if the cycle continues and you’re the only one putting in the work, resentment will slowly start to build and eventually damage the relationship. Do your part but make sure your partner does theirs too because you deserve a person who is willing and actually does put in the work.
Emotional Maturity
We’re all humans. What this means is we all make mistakes. You need a partner who understands and in many ways accepts it. A partner who can handle their emotions, no matter the circumstance and can at the very least respect yours too. A person who knows when to take your hand and stand by your side or behind you or in front of you. A partner who knows when to be soft and strong, bold and modest, big and small. A partner with the emotional maturity to be a true partner to you because when you have an emotionally immature partner, they can get super defensive, argue pointlessly, refuse to meet you in the middle and so on. It breeds frustration and eventually, you will get tired.
Financial Stability
Money isn’t everything but neither is love. You can adore every inch of a person’s soul and still not work out. Unfortunately, we live in a world that in one way or the other, revolves around money. You need to eat, to put a roof over your head, to clothe yourself and to some extent, to enjoy this one life. You need money to survive. It’s not something you can negotiate away. Now your partner doesn’t need to be the richest person in the world but they do need to have a source of income and a growth mindset and so do you. None of you should become a financial burden to the other. It will cause problems, where there shouldn’t be any.
Zero Tolerance For Violence
Abuse of any kind is a no-no. Be it verbal, physical, emotional, whatever it is. No matter what form it comes in, be it aggression, gaslighting, jealousy, beatings, insults and so on. You deserve so much more. You deserve a soft, kind, open love. You are not an animal and even animals deserve better. Never forget that.
Communication
I feel like the whole world sings this now. If you do not com-mu-ni-cate your needs, feelings, thoughts and so on to your partner, cracks will begin to strategically appear in your relationship. Pay for counseling if you must, but a HUGE key to successful relationships is COMMUNICATION. It’s more important than most people realize.
Open-Mindedness
I genuinely don’t see how a relationship with a close-minded person can work. Except, you do not mind being a slave to your partner’s whims, ideologies, idiosyncrasies and general view of life. You may not have the same values, religion, or views on politics but if you want to try to make a relationship work despite that while maintaining your stance on your beliefs, you both need to have an open mind. You especially don’t want to be in a relationship with someone sexist, homophobic and/or racist. It says a lot about who they are and none of it is good.
Commitment
This is a no-brainer. Except you are in an open and/or polyamorous relationship, no one wants a partner who cheats. That’s it.
Prioritizing Each Other
I have been in a relationship where I didn’t feel prioritized. It made me feel unloved and unwanted. It made me slowly but surely pull away until there was no going back. You chose each other for a reason. So earn each other, love each other (with each other’s love languages) and prioritize each other.
They Should Be A Feminist
First things first. The term feminism is given a bad rep so men, women and some enby’s alike tend to shy away from it but really, it simply means “equality of the sexes”. If your partner does not believe that every sex deserves to be treated largely equally or with equity then your partner does not deserve your love, respect and/or to be in a relationship with you.