09/09/2025
CSUSM students and staff, here is a refreshing reminder of how to create and maintain healthy relationships.
Key components of healthy relationships are:
Trust, both having trust in your partner and giving them adequate reason to have trust in you.
Independence: Receiving support from and giving support to your partner toward autonomous hobbies and external relationships. Permitting the freedom for space.
Equality:
-A feeling of balance between effort.
-Having no one be domineering with preferences and opinions.
-Making compromises on split decisions
-Even if one partner contributes more in one way than others
Taking Responsibility:
- Avoiding placing blame while being able to admit when a mistake is made
- Genuine apologies when wrongdoing and consistently trying to make improvements to the relationship
Fun:
-Bringing out the best in one another
- Let loose, laugh together and be yourselves
-Cheering one another up, letting the good times outweigh the bad.
Comfortable Pace:
-No rush or pressure in a way that makes either person feel overwhelmed.
Honesty:
- Being truthful without having to worry about how the other person will respond
- Feeling good about sharing whatever feelings or life matters even if they may not like hearing some of what is said, they respond considerately.
Signs of an Unhealthy Relationship
Intensity:
-Overwhelming feelings from extreme behavior and an obsessive attachment
Manipulation:
-Trying to control decisions, actions and emotions
- Someone is trying to convince you to do things you don’t feel comfortable doing, ignores you until they get their way, or tries to influence your feelings.
Volatility:
-Strong, unpredictable reaction that makes you feel scared, confused, or intimidated.
- Feelings of walking on eggshells for fear of triggering an extreme reaction.
-Overreactions, major mood swings, losing control by getting violent, yelling, or making threats.
Possessiveness:
-Jealousy to the point where they try to control who you spend time with and what you do. Though jealousy is a normal human emotion, it becomes unhealthy on the grounds of control. This means getting upset when you text or hang out with people they feel threatened by, wrongly accusing you of flirting or cheating, or even going so far as to stalk you. Possessiveness is often excused as being overprotective or having really strong feelings for someone.
Guilting:
-Being made to feel responsible for another's actions or being made to feel like it’s your job to keep them happy.
-Being blamed for things that are out of your control.
-Being subjected to threats of self-harm or harming others if you don’t do as they say or stay with them.
-Pressure to do something uncomfortable by claiming that it’s important to them or that it’ll hurt their feelings if you don’t do it.
Deflecting Responsibility:
-Repeated excuses for unhealthy behavior
-Blame on you or other people for their actions.
-Excuses may include substance abuse-induced behavior and mental scars from past experiences.
Isolation:
- Being kept away from friends, family, or other people.
-Being asked to choose between them and friends, insisting you spend all your time with them.
-Feelings of dependence on your partner for love, money, or acceptance.
(image description: At the top of the page, the title is Healthy Relationship There is a red rectangle on the left titled unhealthy, Listed below are the words: intensity, manipulation, volatility, possessiveness, guilting, deflecting responsibility, and isolation. Green rectangle on the right titled Healthy, listed below are the words: trust, independence, equality, taking responsibility, fun, comfortable pace, and honesty. At the bottom right corner of the page is the CSUSM logo)
