SALT LAKE CITY – Maintaining a healthy relationship can be challenging sometimes, but there are ways you can energize it and make it work.

In the latest Let’s Get Moving with Maria podcast episode, host Maria Shilaos spoke with Lauren Clucas, who is a relationship counselor and author. They talked about qualities that make a good relationship and ways you can use those qualities to nurture your relationship.

Some relationships do well even amid adversity, while others don’t.

Clucas conducted her research on 50 couples whose relationships weren’t very healthy at first. Then what made them healthy?

She found 14 qualities but, interestingly, love didn’t come up once. Instead, they described love as the sum total, or the endgame, of a relationship.

“It’s all the qualities that are in a relationship that add up to an experience of love,” Clucas said.

One of the 14 qualities she highlighted was respect. This mean respect for oneself, for each other, in communicating, and more. Respect is like a safety net that holds the relationship together.

Trust was another quality Clucas mentioned. However, it’s not about trusting your partner. It’s about trusting yourself when you’re with your partner. Ask yourself, do I trust that I’m going to have strong boundaries and that I’m going to choose well?

Tenderness is a quality that isn’t as obvious as the previous two.

“That is far more tricky to get back because the way through to tenderness is with a lot of forgiveness and a lot of putting the past in the past and reflective listening of each other’s feelings…” Clucas said.

Listen to the full episode below to hear the rest!

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