Healthy Relationship - Sign #3

In a healthy relationship you not only know your thinking and words will be valued and respected, but you also have the freedom to share your feelings.

An example of this is if someone shares their feelings and the other person states, " I can't believe your saying that! You are always so sensitive!" or one person says, "I'm worried about how this is going to work out" and the other person says, "Come on lighten up! You're making such a big deal about this!"

This is belittling the persons true feelings. As I'm sure I have stated in this post before we have to realize that feelings are real - they may be wrong but they still are real to the person experiencing the feelings. It doesn't mean we don't deal with our feelings but if a spouse is going to create a safe place in the relationship they have to validate that those feelings are real.

So how do we do this? We listen to the feelings of the person without making them feel like their feelings are not valid. We listen to the feelings of another without criticizing or belittling.

Most of the time we do these thing with out thinking. In a marriage it many times becomes a habit.
So today be aware of what you are saying to those closest to you. If they express they are feeling a certain way do you affirm those feelings or do you discredit those feelings?

This freedom to share feelings is one the clearest indicators of the health of a relationship.