5 Signs Your Friendships are Healthy

If you want your life to be as healthy and happy as possible, you need to ensure that your friendships are healthy. 

Unhealthy friendships are the source of so much stress, depression and misery that you do not need them in your life – they are bad for your health. Unfortunately, many people do not realise that their friendships are unhealthy until they have been consumed by a toxic situation. Don’t make that mistake, and be on the lookout for these signs you’re in a healthy relationship.

You can communicate openly

If you can talk about anything and everything with your friend, that is a clear sign you have a healthy relationship. If you are scared to bring up a given subject, that is a sign that you are in an unhealthy, unbalanced and potentially even abusive situation that you may want to reconsider.

You trust each other

If you’re starting to wonder what your friend says about you when you’re not there or questioning them about the people they spend time with, or they are doing the same to you, there is no trust there, which means you will never have peace of mind and your relationship will definitely veer into unhealthy. If, however, you feel completely safe, comfortable and sure of your friends intentions for you, it sound slike a healthy situation.

You are your own person

Many people, when they get a new best friend, merge their whole life with their pal and have no sense of separateness whatsoever. It’s almost like being in a new relationship – they stop doing the things they loved or seeing the friends they care about in favour of being with their spouse. This is particularly common in long-distance relationships were spending hours on the phone with each other, while waiting for the immigration lawyers to do their stuff and reunite couples, becomes all-consuming and totally expected, but it happens in many unhealthy close relationships too. This is not healthy! We are all individuals and we need to be able to spend time apart doing our own things to maintain our boundaries, keep our friends and be happy.

You enjoy intimacy

And by this, I don’t just mean physically! Of course you can hug your pals or offer your hand if that’s the type of friendship you have, but its more about emotional intamicy. If you feel comfortable talking about each other’s deepest most hidden thoughts and feelings, this is a sign of healthy intimacy. 

You can resolve conflicts like adults

If you or your pal is the type to sulk, behave passive-aggressively or get angry when you have a disagreement, this is not healthy. Adults in good solid relationships are able to talk through their issues calmly and come to a fair resolution for both. 

Spot these signs and you know you are in a healthy relationship; fail to do so and you know that for your own good, you may need to move on!