Relationship Wellness Check

relationships are a major part of high school life, but how can you make sure yours is healthy?

Maddy Martin, Staff

Relationships are a vital part of life. Everyone has relationships whether it’s with family, friends or a significant other. Relationships can cause someone to feel joy, love, and comfort. However, like everything in life, relationships are not perfect. They can come with stress, anger, and sadness, which are all basic human emotions and natural things that happen in a relationship. But how much of these negative emotions are too much?  

A healthy relationship is when, although there is stress in the relationship, you experience more happiness than stress. According to the University of Washington, “Every relationship will have stress at times, but you want to prevent prolonged mental stress on either member of the relationshipas stated in Healthy vs. Unhealthy Relationships. In a healthy relationship, each person involved helps create a bond of trust, respect, and honesty. Support, fairness and good communication help create a healthy relationship. It is important to have a healthy relationship with every relationship.

Unhealthy relationships happen more frequently than most people believe. When in an unhealthy relationship there is so much stress involved that it builds up tension between the people involved. University of Washington’s article, ‘Healthy vs. Unhealthy Relationships’, it states “tension is unhealthy for both members of the relationship and may lead to problems in other areas of your life meaning that unhealthy relationships could cause a domino effect of bad things to happen. Some examples of what happens in an unhealthy relationship are that arguments are not settled fairly, some may feel pressure to change who they are, that they may be worried to disagree with their partner, and that physical and verbal violence occurs during arguments. Unhealthy relationships should not be taken lightly for they could lead to worse things.

If you find yourself, or someone you know in an unhealthy relationship, there are countless amounts of resources to help. Some resources include the Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Information Service (SARIS), Counseling centers, UW Women’s Center and 24-hour National Domestic Hotlines. If you ever feel unsure about the relationship you are in, talk to someone about it to make sure you get the help you need.