6 Healthy Relationship Habits Most People Think Are Toxic

A while back I wrote a post titled 6 Signs You’re in a Toxic Relationship. In the months since I published it, the article has attracted a ton of comments—and you know it’s hit a nerve when big, grown-up websites who get paid to post smart grown-up things ask if they can copy/paste it, ostensibly to make a bunch of advertising money off people acting like assholes in their comment sections.

(I know, I’m such a sellout.)

But I think it’s helped a lot of people. Since writing it, I’ve received a staggering number of thank you emails, and around two dozen people told me that it had inspired them to end a relationship (or even in a few cases, a marriage). It seems it served as a kind of wake-up call to finally let go and accept that sometimes, relationships can gag you with a shit-spoon.

(So, I guess I’m a home-wrecker and a sellout. Sweet.)

But along with the praise, I also received a ton of questions like, “So if these habits ruin a relationship, what habits create a happy and healthy relationship?” and “Where’s an article on what makes a relationship great?” and “Mark, how did you get so handsome?”

These are important questions. And they deserve answers.

Granted, in my younger years

I had far more experience screwing up relationships than making them work well, but in the years since I’ve started to get it more right than wrong (yes, Fernanda???), so I didn’t want to just write yet another “learn to communicate and cuddle and watch sunsets and play with puppies together” type post. Honestly, those posts suck. If you love your partner, you shouldn’t have to be told to hold hands and watch sunsets together—it should be automatic.

I wanted to write something different. I wanted to write about issues that are important in relationships but are harder to face—things like the role of fighting, hurting each other’s feeling s, dealing with dissatisfaction, or feeling the occasional attraction for other people. These are normal, everyday relationship issues that don’t get talked about because it’s far easier to talk about puppies and sunsets.

Puppies: The ultimate solution to all of your relationship problems.

And so, I wrote this, that first article’s bizarro twin brother. That article explained that many of our culture’s tacitly accepted relationship habits secretly erode intimacy, trust, and happiness. This article explains how traits that don’t fit our traditional narrative for what love is and what love should be are actually necessary ingredients for lasting relationship success.

Enjoy.