Healthy relationships are fun and make you feel good about yourself. You can have a healthy relationship with anyone in your life, including your family, friends and dating partners. Relationships take time, energy, and care to make them healthy. The relationships that you make in your teen years will be a special part of your life and will teach you some of the most important lessons about who you are. This page focuses on dating relationships.
Ask yourself
- What is important to you in a relationship?
- What would a healthy relationship be like?
- What might be getting in the way of having a healthy relationship?
Think about your current relationship
- How well does your boyfriend/girlfriend listen?
- How do you have fun together?
- How easy is it for you to spend time with other friends or by yourself?
- How do you feel about yourself in this relationship?
- How does it get decided when you will be sexual and when you won’t?
Feeling good about yourself first
Caring and loving yourself is the first step in building healthy relationships. When you can recognize the good things about being you, then it is easier to share this love with someone else. When a person feels good inside, he/she can accept, respect, encourage, trust and reward him/herself.
Recognize your value as a person and treat yourself with respect.
Choose a partner who feels good about him/herself.
Find a person in your life to support you in developing healthy relationships.
You have the right to:
- Be treated with respect
- Share your ideas and thoughts
- Live without fear
- Manage your own money
- Choose your friends
- Express your strengths, abilities and talents
- Be sexual by choice
- Make healthy decisions about alcohol or drugs
Are you in an unhealthy relationship?
Ask yourself:
- Does my partner mess with my birth control or try to get me pregnant when I don’t want to be?
- Does my partner refuse to use condoms when I ask?
- Does my partner make me have sex when I don’t want to?
- Does my partner tell me who I can talk to or where I can go?
Is your body being affected?
Ask yourself:
- Am I afraid to ask my partner to use condoms?
- Am I afraid my partner would hurt me if I told him/her I had an STD and s/he needed to be treated too?
- Have I hidden birth control from my partner so he wouldn’t get me pregnant?
- Has my partner made me afraid or physically hurt me?
If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, your health and/or safety may be in danger. Talk to a trusted adult who can help you, or contact these resources:
- Hotline: 612.871.5411
- Phone: 763.780.2330
- Crisis Line: 1-866-223-1111
