College students have many opportunities to meet new friends and develop enriching relationships. Such relationships can make the difference between a positive and negative college experience. It is important to know the difference between healthy and unhealthy relationships, and to know how to make choices to preserve the former and improve the latter.
Some Hallmarks of a Healthy Relationship
•Mutual respect and civility
•A sense of reciprocity, or "give and take"
•Feeling supported and supporting the other
•A significant degree of trust and honesty
•Fairness and equality as adults
•Comfort with emotional intimacy or closeness
•Comfort with distance and "separateness", or being able to have your own life apart from the other
•Open, direct communication without fear of reprisal, hidden agendas, or manipulation
•Good "boundaries", or being able to set personal limits with self and others
But if you are in an unhealthy relationship:
•You care for and focus on another person only and neglect yourself or you focus only on yourself and neglect the other person.
•You feel pressure to change to meet the other person's standards, you are afraid to disagree, and your ideas or criticized. Or, you pressure the other person to meet your standards and criticize his/her ideas.
•One of you has to justify what you do, where you go, and who you see.
•One of you makes all the decisions and controls everything without listening to the other's input.
•One of you feels unheard and is unable to communicate what you want.
•You lie to each other and find yourself making excuses for the other person.
•You don't have any personal space and have to share everything with the other person.
•Your partner keeps his/her sexual history a secret or hides a sexually transmitted infection from you or you do not disclose your history to your partner.
•You feel scared of asking your partner to use protection or s/he has refused your requests for safer sex. Or, you refuse to use safer sex methods after your partner has requested or you make your partner feel scared.
While no relationship is perfect and we all have bad days, students should be able to evaluate their relationships and feel, on the whole, that they are positive and healthy. If they are less than healthy, steps should be taken to improve them. Such steps involve assertiveness and listening.