Creative Dating: Building a Healthy Relationship from the Start This is designed to be a basic design for your bulletin board. Please feel free to adapt.

Creative Dating:Building a Healthy Relationship from the Start

• This is designed to be a basic design for your bulletin board. Please feel free to adapt this design to fit the needs of your audience.

• If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the STOP Violence Office.

Knight Hall 118307-766-3296

Creative DatingBuilding a Healthy Relationship from the Start

1. Build.

2. Explore.

3. Establish.

4. Grow.

5. Communicate.

5 Easy Steps to a Healthy

Relationship

BUILDBuild a foundation of appreciation

and respect. Focus on all the considerate things your partner

says and does.

Happy couples make a point of noticing even small

opportunities to say "thank you" to their partner, rather than focusing on mistakes their

partner has made.

EXPLOREExplore each other's interests so

that you have a long list of things to enjoy together.

Try new things together to expand mutual interests.

ESTABLISHEstablish a pattern of apologizing if you

make a mistake or hurt your partner's feelings. Saying "I'm sorry" may be hard in the moment, but it goes a long way toward healing a rift in a relationship.

Your partner will trust you more if he or she knows that you will take

responsibility for your words and actions.

GROWAllow for change and growth. No matter how old you are, you’re still changing. Being human means being a participant in a game in which the rules are constantly in flux. If you are willing and ready for your partner to

change, you know you’re starting out on a very healthy track.

People (and situations) change, and being flexible emotionally means you’re doing all of the above

positive things (communicating and having realistic expectations) and avoiding the negative. Really, being

flexible about a relationship is the most mature approach possible. It allows you and your partner to be human, to make mistakes, and to act to make up

for them.

COMMUNICATEIt is a wonderful thing to find a person you can really communicate with. This doesn’t mean you have to sit

around discussing great works of literature or complex mathematical equations (although intellectual

discussion can be quite romantic) — communication just means that you and another person have shown a

willingness to, well, listen to one another.

Communicating isn’t talking — it means one person talking and the other listening and responding. If you’re entering relationships with the intention of learning about a person (and teaching them about yourself), you’re probably on the right track. The

opposite of this behavior can be deadly for a relationship.

FUN, FREE DATE IDEAS• Go window shopping. Discuss what you

would buy if you had lots of money.

• Go to the children's section of a library or bookstore and read children's books to each other.

• Find a muddy area, dress in your grubbies and have a mud fight. For groups, take along a rope for a tug-of-war

FUN, FREE DATE IDEAS• Locate a large piece of cardboard. This can

be found at a nearby furniture or appliance store. Curve the end up like a toboggan. Find a sloping hill of dry grass and slide down. Wear older clothes (grass stains).

• On a sunny Saturday morning, travel around the countryside and photograph special sites and serene scenery.

• Go for a walk together either in a crowded city or alone in the country.

RESOURCES• http://www.relationshipquestions.net/blog/

relationships/how-to-start-a-healthy-relationship/

• http://strengthofus.org/pg/pages/view/228/

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