Mutual understanding and respect are the pillars of a good relationship. But let’s face it. Without honesty and openness, none of that will be possible. Honesty is the most important thing that two people need to have if they want their love to thrive.

If you are not open about your wants, needs, fears, insecurities, expectations you cannot reach mutual understanding. And if you cannot understand yourself with the person you are with, then you most definitely cannot find love.

The sad reality is, a lot of people overlook this because they are afraid to show their true colors. They called that love and convince themselves that what they’re doing is right.

If you recognized yourself in this article, keep reading. Here are 5 things that will happen to you once you find a real and honest relationship:

1. You will grow emotionally and spiritually. Stepping into an honest and open relationship will help you grow in many aspects of your life. Loving someone from your heart will enrich your life and will make you realize that you’ve never really loved someone before this person. The love that you two share will give you the strength and courage to be exactly who you are and become the best versions of yourselves. You will grow both mentally and spiritually.

2. You will allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of your partner. This will come naturally. Once you enter a real relationship and start falling in love with a person who genuinely cares about you, you will no longer feel afraid to show them how fragile your heart is. You won’t be scared to undress and expose your soul to them. Revealing your wounds and scars will no longer terrify you. Because the trust you have in this person will make it all much easier. There will be no guessing games. Only love.

3. You will understand how important it is to communicate and make compromises. Entering a loving and honest relationship will make you a selfless person. It will open your heart and make you more considerate of other people’s feeling and needs, starting with your partner’s. You will learn that making compromising, cooperating and communicating are essential if you want to have a happy and thriving relationship.

4. You will learn to love yourself. Being loved by someone, and by loved, I mean truly, genuinely, unconditionally loved, will open your eyes and make you see your worth. The truth is, self-worth is something we must always be aware of, but you have to admit. The reality is often different. You cannot say that being in love never made you feel good about yourself. You cannot tell me that knowing someone loves you and wishes you well didn’t make you realize just how much you are worth it. 

5. You will learn to forgive easily. Last but not least, when you love someone from the bottom of your heart, there is no such thing as holding grudges. You start practicing the art of agreeing to disagree. You accept your differences. You stop holding anger in because now there is something more important than your ego. The love that you share is more sacred than anything else.

We all want to find that one person with whom we’ll experience genuine, pure, raw, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. The person who will accept and cherish us exactly the way we are. The person who will be able to understand our insecurities and fears and who will be willing to help us overcome them.

We all want to find that one person who will make us feel warm when it’s cold, safe and supported when others criticize us, strong when we feel weak, and important when we doubt our worth.

We all want to find that one person with whom we’ll form a close, deep bond – a bond that will last a lifetime. But, not everyone is lucky enough to find that person.

Unfortunately, some people end up in poor, troubled, toxic relationships. Some people end up in a relationship with a person who takes their happiness away and sucks all the energy out of them. Someone who brings distress and emotional pain into their life instead of joy and a sense of fulfillment. Someone who is controlling and radiates toxicity.

Do you have a nagging suspicion that the guy you’re currently in a relationship with fits this description? Well, if he displays most of the following 8 behaviors, know that your suspicions are well-founded – he is controlling and toxic.

1. He makes you a scapegoat for all your relationship problems.

Controlling and toxic people never show their true colors at the beginning of a relationship. Instead, they pretend like they’re the most mature, most decent, and most responsible person you can ever meet. But, once you fall deeply in love with them, their mask falls down and they start showing their true face.

This is exactly what you’re going through in your relationship. You’re having trouble understanding how your partner has managed to turn from someone who was so sweet, compassionate, and loving into someone who makes you a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in your relationship.

Whenever he makes a mistake or says something hurtful to you,  he lays the blame at your door for it. Instead of admitting his mistakes and taking personal responsibility for his bad actions, he makes you feel like it’s your fault.

Even when you did make a mistake, he doesn’t bother to assure you that he’s not mad at you for it and that you can correct it. Instead, he rubs your nose in it. 

2. He avoids committing to you.

He has no problem telling you “I love you” every single day, but he’s always coming up with excuses as to why not to commit to you. He feeds your hope with all kinds of big promises and grandiose stories about his love for you to keep you hooked.

When you’re in a relationship with this kind of guy, you can’t help but keep hoping that one day he’ll finally feel ready to commit to you. You keep fantasizing about the wedding party you two are going to have, the big house you’re going to live in and the kids you’re going to have. But, chances are that this big dream of yours is never going to come true.

3. He makes snide comments about your vulnerable sides.

The man who truly loves you and cares about you will never criticize you for or make fun of your weaknesses and fears. He’ll never call you “overly sensitive” when he notices you’re crying at a sad movie. He’ll never accuse you of being “dramatic” or “paranoid” when you get jealous because you found some “suspicious” messages from another woman on his phone. He’ll never make you feel weak or needy when you get emotional around him.

So, if your guy treats you in the opposite way, please, know that you’re not weak, you’re not unimportant, and there’s nothing wrong with you. He’s just toxic and unable to see your worth.

4. He keeps you waiting for him for hours to respond to your texts.

He can always find time to update his statuses on Facebook, but he rarely finds time to answer your calls or respond to your texts. When you try to complain to him about this, he’s always ready to come up with all kinds of excuses as to why he’s keeping you waiting for him for hours to text you back.

Usually his most commonly used excuse is: “Oh, I’m sorry, honey, I didn’t answer your call this morning because I was busy doing …” Yes, he always has more important things to do than answer or return your calls.

But, the truth is that the person who truly cares about you will never be too busy to talk to you. They will always find time to text you back or return your call.

5. He avoids solving your relationship problems.

Don’t worry, babe. There’s nothing wrong. This is something your guy tells you whenever you two have problems within the relationship. Instead of discussing your relationship problems with you and joining your efforts to solve them, he acts like everything is fine between you.

Instead of asking why you are worried when he notices that you’re upset, he tells you that it’s all in your head and that you have nothing to worry about. He makes you feel like you’re crazy and like you’re making things up.

But, here’s the truth: If he isn’t interested in resolving the problems that threaten to destroy your  relationship, it means he isn’t interested in you and your feelings either.

6. He only spends time with you when he wants.

When he needs your support or when he needs you to do him a favor, he always finds time to hang out with you. But, when you are the one who needs his help or support, he’s nowhere to be found.

When you call him on the phone because you want to talk to him about something important, he either returns your call after an hour or two or he doesn’t call you back at all. Why? Because your worries and problems are simply not his concern.

7. He rarely fulfills his promises.

When he’s alone with you, he tells you that he wants to introduce you to his family and friends, he wants to take you to that new restaurant that you’ve been talking about for ages and telling him that you’d like to visit, he wants you two to do this and that, but as soon as he leaves, he forgets about his promises. They turn into dust. It’s like they were never uttered. Why?

Because they were never real. They were never honest. They were just hollow, false promises.

8. He won’t let go of you.

Even if you try to end the relationship and leave him, he’ll do everything in his power to convince you to stay. But, no, don’t fool yourself. This is not because he’s madly in love with you. It’s because he doesn’t want to be deprived of his backup plan. He doesn’t want to lose the person who is always there for him and who makes him feel like he’s the most loved, respected, and important person in the world.

But, let me tell you something: If he succeeds in convincing you to stay with him, know he’ll never change and your relationship will never improve. Everything will just go back to how it was.

First things first, romantic relationships are not a smooth journey. And anyone who believes that relationships are supposed to be effortless and easy has obviously never been in one for longer than a year.

So, the question is: What exactly makes a good, healthy, successful relationship? Or perhaps I should paraphrase the question and put it this way: Why some couples are happier and stay together longer than other couples?

But, I want to emphasize that when I say a happy, successful couple, I’m not referring to those who post photos on social media in which they look so content and in love with each other. I’m not referring to those couples whose relationships are full of romantic surprises and date nights.

Because the truth is that while romantic things, such as watching sunsets together with your beloved on a beach or cuddling with them while watching a movie, are important as they keep the passion, positive energy, and spark of excitement alive in a relationship, they are not what makes a relationship strong, stable, and long-lasting.

It might sound surprising to you, but certain healthy relationship behaviors that most of us think are toxic and destructive are actually the prerequisite for a relationship to work and last long.

Here they are:

1. Accepting your partner’s weaknesses and imperfections.

If you and your significant other accept and cherish each other the way you are, never doubt that your love is genuine and that your relationship is going in the right direction.

Enjoying a healthy and happy relationship requires understanding that your partner’s annoying habits, insecurities, and fears are just one small part of them. It requires knowing that your partner’s flaws don’t define who they are. They don’t determine their worth. They just make them different and more interesting than everybody else around you.

2. Taking some time apart.

Spending time apart doesn’t equal breaking up. Instead, it’s a normal, healthy behavior. Every couple needs time apart to reconsider the relationship. Because if you want to build a healthy, harmonious, successful relationship, you should never allow yourself to depend on your partner too much. You should never let your identity be consumed by your relationship.

Therefore, don’t be afraid to get some distance from your beloved, have separate friends,  maintain interests, or practice hobbies which are just your own. Remember what made your partner fall in love with you in the first place and make sure you never let that be consumed by your relationship. Because once this happens, the love between you will fade away.

3. Leaving some conflicts unresolved.

There’s no such relationship in which couples never fight. You and your partner may have a deep connection and you may be dearly in love with each other, but this doesn’t change the fact that you’re two different individuals. You have different educational, working, and socio-economic backgrounds. You have different interests and goals in life.

Therefore, you will always find things that you don’t like about your partner or things you disagree with. You won’t always agree with or support your partner’s ideas, opinions, plans, and decisions.

But, what you need to remember is that you shouldn’t feel the need to change your beloved so as to love them. And most importantly, you shouldn’t start an argument with them every time you disagree with them about something. Because the truth is that trying to solve a conflict can sometimes cause more problems than it solves.

4. Not being afraid to hurt each other’s feelings.

They say truth hurts, but let me ask you something: Would you rather lie to your partner and make them believe in something that isn’t true, or would you be straightforward and openly tell them the truth, regardless of how hard or painful it might be?

It might sound cruel to you, but you and your partner will hurt each other’s feelings many times – this is simply unavoidable. For instance, they might tell you that your new haircut makes you look old or that your new jeans don’t look good on you. But, I’m sure you’d prefer to hear their real opinion more than have them lie to you, right?

Additionally, you shouldn’t be afraid to call your partner out on their behavior when they say or do something that offends or hurts you.  You shouldn’t be afraid to complain to them about things they do that bother you, even if that means that you’re going to hurt their feelings. Because it’s always better to be sincere and upfront than pretend that everything is fine in the relationship.

5. Not putting each other first.

Number one rule in the world of dating is that your bae should always be your top priority, right? Putting their feelings, needs, and desires before your own and making countless sacrifices for their happiness are two behaviors that are usually regarded as the most definite sign of love.

But, this kind of behavior can lead to displeasure and bitterness and even lead you to a codependent territory.  So, instead of putting your beloved or yourself first, try putting the relationship first. This will help you find ways to nurture what you two have and maintain your relationship.

6. Feeling attracted to people outside the relationship from time to time.

Feeling attraction for someone other than the person you’re in a relationship with is something which is frowned upon by most people. You’re supposed to only have eyes for your beloved – your family and friends will say to you if you tell them that you’re attracted to someone else.

But, as silly or funny as it may sound, feeling attracted to someone other than your partner is not crime. The truth is that once you get past the honeymoon phase in your relationship, the novelty of your bae fades away a little bit. And sadly, human attractiveness is partly wired around novelty.

So, if you’re feeling attraction for someone else, do not suppress those feelings. Because if you do, you’ll make them even stronger or even decide to run into this person’s hands.

What you need to remember is that occasionally finding someone more attractive than your partner or flirting with someone other than your bae doesn’t make you an awful person. If you have control over your actions, then neither you nor your partner should worry that you might cheat on them.

7. Not being afraid to end the relationship.

Relationships are supposed to bring happiness, excitement, and a sense of peace and fulfillment into your life. So, if you’re in a relationship which causes you emotional damage, drains your energy, and undermines your self-esteem, i.e. brings you disappointment and sorrow instead of happiness, there’s no point in staying in it.

If you’re in this kind of relationship and you know you have exhausted all ways of changing it, and nothing has worked, you should consider the idea of putting an end to it.

Because staying in an unhealthy, messy relationship will sooner or later become detrimental to your emotional, mental, and physical health. So, you need to make sure this never happens. You need to know when is the right time to leave.