9 Awesome Habits of Emotionally Stable Couples

Those who are the happiest are not necessarily those for whom life has been easiest. Emotional stability results from an attitude. It is refusing to yield to depression and fear, even when black clouds float overhead. It is improving that which can be improved and accepting that which is inevitable. — James C. Dobson

In a previous article, I shared sordid details about how my solid relationship with my sister went south. I was in a relationship with an abusive partner that I thought was my forever.

When my sister lovingly tried to tell me about the obvious red flags I refused to see, I got into a heated argument with her that created a void between us. Because of that conversation, we went a whole three months without talking. My sister that I used to talk to every single day prior to that.

Our argument stemmed from an accusation I felt she had no right to make.

I was in love and the last thing I wanted to hear from someone whose opinion I valued so much was that I was being emotionally abused.

She said all the signs were there in our relationship. She said I had gradually grown into a different person, for the worse. She claimed she was only telling me these hurtful things because she loved me and knew that I deserved better.

Her advice fell on deaf ears. I was in love. It was easier for me to cut her off than to break up with my boyfriend.

A few painful months later after my partner successfully dismantling the rest of my support system, I knew I was wrong. And it was at that point that I had to decide whether to continue on that downward spiral or end the relationship and find my way back to me.

I chose myself.

And when I eventually found emotional stability in a relationship, I knew how to appreciate the green flags.

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There is a general misconception that some people are wired to be more emotionally stable than others because they were blessed with a mild or balanced temperament since childhood, and their counterparts are doomed to deal with strife and instability their whole lives.

This is not true.

Admittedly, there is a bit of biology that dictates how emotional we tend to feel. However, emotional stability is more influenced by the habits you practice over the time than by the DNA your parents blessed you with.

According to the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, emotional stability enables the person to develop an integrated and balanced way of perceiving the problems of life.

This organizational ability and structured perception helps one to develop reality-oriented thinking, judgment and evaluation ability.

Emotional stability is important for us as individuals, and also extends into our love lives. And luckily, there are some cross-cutting habits that anyone can adopt and improve the emotional stability within all your relationships.

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Here are 9 Awesome Habits Of Emotionally Stable Couples

1. Emotionally stable couples are genuine when expressing their needs and wants to each other

We all have different desires and needs, but if we don’t discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. — Bill Watterson

We all have personal wants and needs.

Being able to pursue those wants and get those needs met is a major part of maintaining a balanced and healthy emotional life.

Unfortunately, many people are taught from a young age that it is selfish to ask for what you want or put your own wants and needs first. So over the years, they get in the habit of telling themselves that what they really want isn’t important.

Guess what happens when you spend a lifetime telling yourself that your own wants and needs aren’t as important as other people’s?

You will never feel worthy enough or good enough if you never stand up for yourself and your own wants and needs.

Many people are plagued by low self-confidence, chronic self-doubt because they either don’t know how to ask for what they want or are afraid to pursue it. Consequently, they’re racked by inner turmoil, resentments, self-directed anger, and chronic anxiety.

Emotionally stable couples are willing to stand up for themselves and ask for what they want assertively.

What you can do to adopt this habit:

Be open to expressing your needs and wants to your partner with genuineness. Stand up for yourself and ask for what you want assertively.

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2. Emotionally stable couples manage their expectations of each other

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine. — Bruce Lee

Most expectations are a form of wish-fulfillment: We confuse what we want to be the case for what is. And the consequences are almost always not good!

An example: you care so much about your children and their future happiness. As a result, you have high expectations of them to do very well in school — anything under an A is a disappointment.

The problem is your expectation that your children should get As and do well in school (because it will — theoretically — lead to a happier life) isn’t necessarily based on reality.

What if they have a bad teacher? What if they have an undiagnosed learning disability? What if they just do not thrive in the environment that our school structures are set up to be?

In reality, unrealistic expectations are a recipe for excessive frustration, disappointment, and high-conflict relationships. No matter if it is your child, your friend, your sibling, your parent, or your partner.

If you set expectations so high for other people you relate with, you are bound to disappoint yourself and you will be the one to blame.

In the short-term, your expectations make you feel good because they give you a false sense of control and certainty which alleviates your anxiety. But in the long-run they only lead to pain because they are so often at odds with reality.

Emotionally stable couples manage their expectations of each other.

What you can do to adopt this habit:

Be open to managing your expectations of your partner and of your relationship. It is only when you stop expecting people to be perfect that you can like them for who they really are.

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3. Emotionally stable couples set healthy boundaries in their relationships

Love yourself enough to set boundaries. Your time and energy are precious. You get to choose how you use it. You teach people how to treat you by choosing what you will and won’t accept. — Anna Taylor.

While not asking for what you want can be a major source of emotional instability, the inability to say no to what you don’t want is even worse.

In relationships specifically, the failure to set and respect boundaries by both partners in the relationship can be a red flag. In case you are not sure what failure to set healthy boundaries looks like, here are a few commonplace examples:

Generally speaking, your whole life you’ve been stuck in the “best supporting actor” role because you’re afraid to tell people no and pursue your own goals and curiosities.

Regarding relationships:

You always “go with the flow” because you’re afraid that your partner will get upset with you if you suggest something they don’t want.
You’re terrified of being alone, so you never enforce consequences on the boundaries you set because you’re afraid your partner will leave you.

One of problems with failing to set healthy boundaries is that you gradually lose respect for yourself.

And when you don’t respect yourself, it becomes harder to maintain emotional resilience in the face of stressors and challenges.

Emotionally stable couples recognize that healthy boundaries are a precondition for a healthy sense of self and a healthy, happy relationship.

What you can do to adopt this habit:

If you want to have more self-confidence, higher self-worth, and the ability to navigate difficult moods and emotions gracefully, find the courage to set and enforce healthy boundaries. If someone throws a fit because you set healthy boundaries, that in itself is evidence that you do need to set boundaries.

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4. Emotionally stable couples embrace uncertainty about the things that matter to them

Embrace uncertainty. Some of the most beautiful chapters in our lives won’t have a title until much later. — Bob Goff

It’s really uncomfortable to be uncertain about things that matter to us: whether you did well enough on the interview to get that new job, or whether your partner still loves you despite all the weight you have gained on your stomach.

The problem is that because we dislike uncertainty (and all the anxiety that goes with it), we get into habits that briefly numb out our uncertainty anxiety.

Unfortunately, though, these quick fixes end up causing much bigger problems down the road. They have a tendency to result into reassurance seeking.

According to this article on Verywellmind, reassurance seeking is the need to check in with someone over and over again to make sure everything is OK with respect to a particular worry

Reassurance-seeking often gives us the illusion of certainty by getting other people to tell us “everything will be fine.” But ultimately this is just a form of denial.

While you might get some temporary relief in the moment, refusing to accept the fact of uncertainty, actually makes you less able to deal with uncertainty in the future because you miss out on the chance to build confidence.

Avoiding uncertainty feels good now, but in the long-run all it does is fragilize you.

Emotionally stable couples recognize that embracing uncertainty in their relationships is healthier in the long term. It teaches them to have the serenity to accept the things they cannot change, and have the courage to face the things they can change.

What you can do to adopt this habit:

Learn to tolerate the anxiety of uncertainty by building the habit of embracing uncertainty and building confidence in your ability to handle it as a couple. It is better than indulging the fantasy that uncertainty is avoidable or outsourcing that job to other people.

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5. Emotionally stable couples give a higher priority to their principles than their emotions

Good things happen when you set your priorities straight. — Scott Caan

On the deepest level, most forms of emotional instability come down to one big mistake: emotional reasoning.

According to Wikipedia, emotional reasoning is a cognitive process by which an individual concludes that their emotional reaction proves something is true, despite contrary empirical evidence.

Emotional reasoning creates an ‘emotional truth’, which may be in direct conflict with the inverse ‘perceptional truth’.

It can create feelings of anxiety, fear, and apprehension in existing stressful situations, and as such, is often associated with or triggered by panic disorder or anxiety disorder.

It makes you make decision based on your emotions rather than based on your principles.

For example:

Even if a partner has shown only devotion, a person using emotional reasoning might conclude, “I know my spouse is being unfaithful because I feel jealous.”
Staying on the couch and watching more TV because, “you feel too tired to go to the gym.”
Making a sarcastic comment to your partner because, “I feel like they deserve it after that nasty comment they made about you earlier in the day.”
Turning down an offer to hang out with friends because, “I feel kind of depressed and sad.

As in most areas of life, what feels good emotionally now often ends up making us feel worse later. Similarly for relationships, what’s difficult in the moment, is often profoundly beneficial long-term.

Emotionally stable couples know that their emotions will lead them astray just as often as they will help. As a result, they are careful to never take orders from their feelings, and instead, always verify them against their principles — the things they know to be right, true, and genuinely important.

What you can do to adopt this habit:

Learn to listen to your emotions, but do not act impulsively because of them. Prioritize your principles as a couple over whatever emotions you may feel burdened by in the moment.

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6. Emotionally stable couples accept pain like they accept love

Some people think that to be strong is to never feel pain. In reality, the strongest people are the ones who feel it, understand it, and accept it. — Charlotte Dawson

It is human nature to avoid pain.

Your hand accidentally touches a hot pan and instantly recoils in order to avoid tissue damage from a burn.

And this is true of emotional pain as well. Humans naturally recoil from pain.

For example when we are feeling sad, our natural recoil reaction is to lose ourselves in a distraction. When we are feeling anxious, our natural recoil reaction is to seek reassurance from others.

Sometimes we just need a reminder that just because it feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad or that you are wrong for feeling how you feel about it.

When you work out and lift weights and your muscles feel sore afterward. That is not a bad thing — it’s actually good because it’s a sign you’re getting stronger!

Your physical health would flail if you avoided everything that is uncomfortable or painful. You might end up unhealthy and weak.

The same principle applies to emotional health and stability. It is important to embrace some level of emotional pain as a necessary part of the journey in your relationship of love.

That said, emotionally stable couples do not get in the habit of treating their emotions as bad things by avoiding them. That would train the human brain to become afraid of the person’s real emotions. And that’s a terrible setup for long-term emotional suffering and instability.

What you can do to adopt this habit:

Feel the pain, understand it, accept it, and move past it whenever you can. The pain will not go away by getting angry or bitter. It will go away when you learn to accept life’s challenges with grace and ease.

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7. Emotionally stable couples are comfortable with letting go of the things beyond their control

You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway. ― Steve Maraboli

Like uncertainty, helplessness is another one of those feelings that’s really hard to deal with.

It is incredibly hard to watch someone we love suffer through heartbreak or grief knowing that, ultimately, there’s not much we can do to alleviate their suffering directly.

Unfortunately, because humans are generally so eager to not feel helpless, it is easy to fall into the trap of doing things that make us feel in control even though we are not — the side effects of which might make things worse in the end.

Worry is a perfect example of this.

Imagine your partner is on a long flight during turbulent weather and you are afraid for their safe landing.

You do not actually have any control over that outcome. But worrying about it temporarily makes you feel like you can do something — exert some kind of control.

The problem, of course, is that it’s all side effect and no benefit: your worry won’t actually keep your loved one safe, but it will make you anxious and stressed.

Emotionally stable couples cultivate the courage to face up to the fact that we all are far more helpless than we want to believe. And they know that while it’s hard in the moment, letting go of the need for control makes things far easier in the end.

What you can do to adopt this habit:

Learn to embrace the reality of what is around you. This will always make you stronger than the indulgence of delusion.

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8. Emotionally stable couples allow each other the liberty of changing their minds

Everything is within your power, and your power is within you. Small shifts in your thinking, and small changes in your energy, can lead to massive alterations of your end result. — Janice Trachtman

Emotional instability almost always comes from getting lost in overly-negative and unrealistic thoughts:

Panic and anxiety come from losing yourself in spirals of worry and catastrophizing.
Depression and self-loathing come from cycles of self-criticism and judgment over past mistakes, failings, or perceived inadequacies.
Chronic anger and resentment come from endlessly ruminating over other people’s cruelty, insensitivity, or foolishness.

How we habitually think determines how we habitually feel.

So how do we end up with patterns of unhealthy thinking?

One of the biggest reasons is that you’re too trusting of your own thoughts. It is also sometimes embedded in the psychological reasoning behind why people never feel like they are good enough.

And 9 definite ways to refocus your thinking and find the value in loving yourself
medium.com

When an overly negative or unrealistic thought comes to mind, you immediately begin elaborating on it and acting as if it were true.

Emotionally stable couples allow themselves and each other the liberty of changing their minds. They know that sometimes our thoughts are misguided and self-destructive. Especially when their thoughts are extremely negative or harsh, they deliberately try to create more realistic and constructive alternative thoughts.

What you can do to adopt this habit:
Understand that you are human. Everything is within your power, and your power is within you. Cultivate thoughts that make you a better person and better partner.

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9. Emotionally stable couples are made of emotionally stable individuals

Find someone emotionally stable as you are. Any imbalance will affect duration of whatever emotions you are trying to feel with that person. — Unknown

Like Marianne Williamson so aptly said, if our emotional stability is based on what other people do or not do, then we have no stability.

If our emotional stability is based on love that is changeless and unalterable, then we attain the stability of God.

Emotionally stable couples seek and practice emotional stability in their personal lives.

What you can do to adopt this habit:

Seek emotional stability as an individual first.

This post was previously published on medium.com.

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