The Bare Minimum for Your Relationship

In a culture where hyper-independency is expected and co-dependency is discouraged, the line between “asking too much” and “expecting too little” can become blurred.

Personally, I’ve found myself questioning if I was asking too much of my partners, or if my expectations were perfectly reasonable, more than once. Being someone who has been labelled as a door mat, a pushover, anxiously-attached, and co-dependent, I’ve often found myself confused regarding what I have the right to ask for in a relationship. I have been left wondering if I should just fulfill the need on my own — is that what I’m supposed to do? — or if asking for more would be standing up for myself and an act of self-respect.

Dating is confusing, exciting, difficult, and not black and white; there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to love. Every individual is unique, and every relationship is unique. That being said, the following are the three things I have grown to believe are necessary in every relationship (if it is to last and be fulfilling, that is), and which I no longer question if I deserve or not:

1. RESPECT

You can’t have love without respect, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself — and everyone around you — that “they really do love you” despite disrespecting you in the same way for the 999th time.

It’s easy to say “leave someone if they keep disrespecting you,” but what does that really mean?

They Avoid Accountability

Your partner is going to hurt you, and you’re going to hurt them. That’s inevitable. What you want to look for is how they apologize, if they apologize, and how their actions change in the future:

Do they defensively gaslight you when you try to tell them something they said or did hurt you (examples of gaslighting: “you’re too sensitive,” “OMG it was a joke,” “that never happened,” “oh, I guess I’m always the ‘bad guy’”), sometimes to the point that you end of comforting them, or do they hear you out without reacting?
Do they excuse their behavior, or do they understand what they did wrong and how it could have affected you negatively?
After their apology, do they get angry when you don’t forgive them/feel better immediately (indicating that they are only apologizing to diffuse the conflict and not to take accountability), or do they give you time to feel your emotions despite their discomfort?
Do they keep repeating the same mistakes (indicating that their apology is manipulation), or are they actively working toward changing their behavior (there may be few slip-ups, but you can see that they are improving)?

They Disrespect You During Conflicts

For a relationship to have healthy communication during a conflict, one — or both — partner(s) cannot dehumanize or look down on the other. This creates an unbalanced power dynamic and is a blatant act of disrespect.

Disagreements can be scary, especially to those with abandonment wounds. It is crucial for both partners to feel respected, heard, safe, and understood, which is why conflicts should never include any of the following:

Threats (this includes threats of separation, which will inevitably lead to one partner bottling everything up and growing resentful)
Name-calling (or any other condescending behaviors, such as mocking or poking at someone’s triggers)
Yelling & Raging (ranging from raising your voice to talk over the other, to punching holes in walls)
Manipulation & Gaslighting (even if it’s a defensive mechanism that they are unaware they’re using, this issue needs to be resolved ASAP)

If you and your partner are having heated arguments, it might help to create some mutually agreed upon rules and boundaries concerning conflicts. This includes:

Taking a small breather if things are getting too intense.
Writing your thoughts on paper and reading each other’s perspective so you both feel heard (this works well if one partner seems to “take over” conflicts or if one shuts down).
Remembering that you are two people looking for a joint solution — not two people fighting for the upper hand — by positioning your bodies in a loving and equal way (such as sitting across from each other and holding hands, or sitting back-to-back while your arms are interlocked).

Many couples have conflict issues because discord has a tendency of bringing trauma responses to the surface, and due to a lack of healthy communication skills. However, if your partner is showing no signs of wanting to improve their conflict resolution skills — or if things have become abusive — it’s time to leave the relationship.

They Cross Your Boundaries; Even the Small Ones

If they respect your boundaries, they respect you.

If they continuously forget or cross your boundaries, they don’t.

This includes everything from respecting when you’re not in the mood for sex, to not borrowing your clothes without asking, to always expecting you to pick up their dirty socks for them, figuratively and literally.

If you find that you need to constantly remind your partner of not only what your boundaries are, but why they’re important to you, you’re potentially dealing with someone who doesn’t care for your needs or consider them all that important.

A caring partner will consider every boundary you set as necessary without demanding a list of reasons why, they will not need daily reminders, and they will not view your boundaries as a thing to be tested, pushed, or broken. Perhaps they think they can still get away with it after doing so for so long. Maybe they want to push your boundaries to see how far they can go or to prove how much you “love them.”

Either way,

That’s not respect, nor is it love.

2. LOVE

The most important aspect of being loved, I believe, is being understood. You cannot be loved if you are not known, otherwise they are in love with their own projection of how you should be.

Here are two ways that can help determine if your partner loves you… or the idea of you:

They Try to Understand You

In my opinion, one of the highest acts of love is trying to deeply understand someone; to understand someone, is to love them.

They listen to what you say, remembering it and applying it in the future.
They are engaged when you talk (not just waiting for their turn to speak).
They ask questions about your perspectives, opinions, likes, and dislikes.
They will participate in some of the activities and hobbies you love (what someone loves reveals a lot about who they are, and sharing in such things can make them feel closer to you).
If you struggle with something, they will ask questions and research it so they can understand your difficulty better and know how to help.

It can take a lifetime to get to truly know someone, and we are always evolving as people. What you’re looking for in a partner is someone who yearns to know your innermost self, and who loves you during every phase of your life.

They Give You Freedom to Be Yourself

In order to be happy in a relationship, you need to have the freedom to be yourself, while feeling safe and unjudged. This includes being goofy, making mistakes, and being sad — even if it’s about something seemingly ridiculous.

A loving partner will allow you your full range of (healthy) emotions, not impeding on them, overpowering them, or stomping them out; your feelings will be of equal importance in a healthy relationship.

This does not mean that your partner will approve of all your emotions. On the contrary, they will push you — when acceptable — to be your truest, highest self, while still being empathetic with where you’re at now, within reason.

If you are unsure if you have emotional freedom in your relationship, ask yourself:

Do you feel like you can fully be yourself around your partner, or are you self-restrained in any way?

If you do have self-restraint, where does it stem from? Is it due to a past toxic relationship, trauma, habit, or because of your experiences with the partner in question?

Are you allowed to have differing opinions from your partner, or are they constantly trying to change your beliefs to match theirs? (Sure, you can have occasional debates and discussions about conflicting ideas, but is it respectful or forceful?)

If you find that your partner shuts you down— often due to being unable to accept or process their own feelings— it might be time to have an open dialogue about it. After all, who wants to walk on eggshells and conceal their emotions for the rest of their lives?

3. EFFORT

Love is not just a feeling; it’s also an action. As we cannot experience another’s emotions, it is important for your partner to express their love through their deeds in order for you to feel and experience their love.

Your partner’s actions — or lack thereof — will reveal if your relationship is a priority to them. Too many people settle down after finding a partner, assuming that they no longer have to put effort in.

As you already know, that’s not even half of the work.

They Give You Attention

You’re on a date and your partner won’t get off their phone.
You get dressed up and your partner doesn’t bat an eye.
You’re lying in bed together, but your partner is rolled away from you.

You know the feeling, and the desperate attempts to justify their apathy:
“How much attention is too much attention, though?”
“They like their space.”
“I’ve asked for more attention before and they said I was being overbearing, so I backed off.”

The need for attention is a murky one, as everyone has varying degrees of sociability; there is no minimum or maximum time requirement a couple should share in order to have a happy relationship. This is dependent on both of your individual needs, and on how much you and your partner are willing to compromise.

That being said, here are some indicators that you are not getting enough attention from your partner to fulfill you:

You feel alone in the relationship.
You are constantly doing things out of the desire for recognition.
You almost never stop yearning for more.

Sure, you could get a hobby and try to enjoy your alone time more, especially if you struggle with being alone… but if your partner is completely absent and dismisses your need to spend more time together, it might be in your best interest to consider more fulfilling possibilities.

In other words, if you were less lonely when you were single, it’s time to be single again.

They Put Effort In

To maintain a happy and healthy relationship, mutual effort must be put into it. A partnership will not feel equally balanced if you are putting in 90% of the work, while they only contribute 10%.

Putting in effort doesn’t look the same for everyone; everyone shows their love differently, and everyone’s needs vary when it comes to receiving love. This means that it’s up to you to determine if your needs can be met by this person or not, and accepting that they are not inherently bad if they simply show love differently than what you desire.

Consider the 5 love languages, and how each type might display acts of love:

Words of Affirmation: giving you compliments, writing letters and notes for you
Acts of Service: cooking dinner, cleaning the house, doing errands
Quality Time: planning dates, playing games and watching movies together, going on adventures as a couple
Receiving Gifts: buying you presents, picking flowers and finding rocks to give to you
Physical Touch: cuddling at night, holding your hand in public, always having an arm around you, giving you massages and baths

However your partner prefers to put effort into maintaining the relationship, it is their way of showing you that they love you, that they value the union, and that they want to keep the spark alive.

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Respect, love, and effort. These seem like very simple and obvious answers, yet I used to convince myself that I deserved less than these three things, and I’ve seen many others do the same. The mental gymnastics some of us do to justify bad behavior is truly impressive, and the only way out is through learning self-respect and self-love — if we respect ourselves, how could we possibly allow someone to treat us with less than we deserve?

This article is for everyone out there who is struggling in an unhealthy or unhappy relationship, and who needs a reminder of their worth and what they deserve.

You deserve the same love you put out; you deserve the bare minimum.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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