Relationship: A ship that makes a long journey shorter and sweeter. Is that so? But my relationSHIP just sank a few months ago. Well! We all are aware of the fact that as the world is getting a complex place to live in, at the same time the relationships are getting more complex and superficial.

Also as a Swedish Proverb goes "Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow." But we must have experienced that many people come into our life and most of them leave us stranded when we need them the most. Now people come in our life to snatch and not share our joy and also to laugh and not share our sorrow. However, some of them, (although they are very few in number) are there with us all the time to make us feel proud that some relationships are indeed a dream come true and we need to treasure them more than anything else. This heavenly relationship cannot be built in a day as it is a gradual process. The following are the stages that highlight the roadmap that build up a healthy relationship:

1. Observation: The first and foremost stage that helps in building a healthy relationship is to observe the nature ad personality of your partner like what your partner likes the most and what are his/her disliking.

2. Time and Space: Give some time and space to the relation to flourish. Try to find out the strengths and weaknesses of your partner. What is the special feature of your partner’s personality and what feature you think can really enhance the character of your mate.

3. Rectification: Nurture the strengths and clear up the weaknesses without getting him/her know that you are doing any sort of favour. Always try to be fair in your approach. The rectification should never include any element of superiority from ones side.

4. Mutual Respect and Love: One should have deep respect and affection for the partner. No matter what happens, you must respect the opinion and never be an arrogant critic. Just try to be a friend cum philosopher cum guide. Like you love your self-respect, the same is the case on the other side.

5. Individual Identity: For any successful relationship it is a basic necessity to be completely devoted to each other and at the same time hold separate identities. Also as they say "In any relationship where one person depends on another to be his or her "parachute -- and the other accepts this role -- both will fall to the ground."

6. No ‘I’ or ‘YOU’ just ‘WE’; A healthy relationship is based on the foundation of togetherness. Forming different Identities in the outside world doesn’t imply that one become selfish, on the contrary, the pair should work as a team when it matters the most. When it matters there should never be any ‘I’ or ‘You’, but only ‘We’ and us’.

7. Honesty and Trust: One should and must be honest towards the other as well have a blind faith on the partner that the relationship is not like a dry leave that can be torn apart just by a gentle blow of wind. On the other hand, one must have a firm belief that the root of their relation is so strong that even a tornado or cyclone cannot shake the trust between them.

8. Living with Differences: There are bound to be differences in any relationship be it a friendship, love, or anything. But what makes a relationship stable is living happily with these differences, without having any double thoughts about the stability of your relation.

9. Communication: Proper communication is the foundation of any healthy relationship. If anything is just not right from your point of view then calmly say it on the face. Every problem comes with a solution and that solution has to be found out which is only possible by good communication. If something is irritating, you just don’t keep it trapped within your mind. Say it gently and see it yourself that you will feel relieved!

10. Give and Take: It means that you should never have to wait for the other to initiate anything (Here I mean anything and I know what you all are thinking, yes anything includes SEX if you are love birds) instead you should be the one to come forward and say a few loving words to your spouse. Also never be shy in getting some surprise gifts for each other.\

11. Sharing: the most important stage of a healthy relationship is how not happily one shares the joy but how one helps in minimizing the sorrow. Especially for the love birds, it doesn’t matter whether you share bed or not but what matters is how you share each other’s sorrow. So emotional intimacy is also an important stage of a healthy relationship.

The above stages are definitely going to help you out in understanding the technicalities behind constructing a healthy relationship. A relationSHIP will meet high tides in its journey but a healthy relationship is that which crosses the above stages with firm belief of clearing the test of time.