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Greetings. It is 2015 and this year I want to focus on this theme: Healthy versus unhealthy relationships. As you know, as a relationship counselor, I want to help people pursue and have healthy relationships. Understanding and knowing the difference between what is healthy and what is not healthy traits and patterns for all your relationships is the goal of this year’s blog.

In my last blog, I asked you to sit down and consider what you want and what do you not want when it comes to healthy relationships. What are the traits and features that you would want for a healthy relationship? What are the healthy features and traits for you that you would like or not like?

For example, if I were to ask of you to follow a recipe for Lasagna. One of the recipes asked you to purchase items such as cheese, tomato sauce, noodles, ground beef, and sausage. For the most part, these are typical ingredients you would look for and purchase at your local grocery store. These are features and traits of a typical meat Lasagna.

But what if I gave you a recipe for Lasagna that asked you to purchase lima beans, cabbage, prunes, grape juice and papaya? If you were to see these ingredients and I asked you to go to the grocery store and buy these for the sake of this lasagna, would you choose this? Would you be able to say to yourself: That is not a healthy recipe for lasagna and those ingredients are not what I want? Perhaps you would choose the first recipe and say to yourself, that is a much healthier recipe with the typical ingredients that for you would make up a healthy recipe.

You see, what you would like or choose for a healthy or unhealthy recipe for lasagna is your own individual choice and your own personal preference. All of us need to figure out what do we all want when it comes to healthy or unhealthy ingredients for a lasagna recipe. What might be healthy and what might be not healthy is up for all of us to choose.

So when it comes to choosing and wanting healthy relationships, one also needs to think and choose what you want or don’t for your relationship. For example, do features and traits such as honesty, faithfulness, commitment, listening, love, acceptance and trust sound like they might be important traits and features for a healthy relationship? Are these traits and features something you would like and want to have to make up a healthy relationship?

Perhaps you would also think about unhealthy features of what makes or leads to an unhealthy relationship. It might be the opposite of the traits I described above and it could include cheaters, liars, someone who does not listen, hates and proves to be untrustworthy. Can you recognize the difference between what it is like to be with someone who is faithful (healthy) and someone who is not faithful and cheats on you (unhealthy)?

So continue to stop and think about what do you want and what are the traits for you of what makes up a healthy or unhealthy relationship. As a relationship and marriage counselor, I know that I listen and read and observe the mess my clients and friends get into when it comes to being in a unhealthy relationship. And I know people can choose and pick healthier people. So be patient with yourself as this year unfolds and I hope you will find ideas about this subject will motivate you to pursue and want healthy relationships. Thanks for reading.