Get Yourself Together, Chica
Ten Green Flags for Relationships
In this episode, we look at how to recognize green flags in relationships. We're all familiar with red flags, which are common signals of potential problems. On the other hand, green flags are signals of a mature, stable, and kind person. This episode focuses mainly on romantic prospects, but also shares that these principles can be applied to friendships.
🌐 Visit the Show Notes for the links, resources, recipes, and more.
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- 📷 This episode is sponsored in part by Gail VanMatre Photography.
- Raleigh NC area: 💁♀️ Update your professional image with a headshot session.
- ✨ Mention this podcast for a special offer!
In this episode, we look at how to recognize green flags in relationships. We're all familiar with red flags, which are common signals of potential problems. On the other hand, green flags are signals of a mature, stable, and kind person. This episode focuses mainly on romantic prospects, but also shares that these principles can be applied to friendships.
🌐 Visit the Show Notes for the links, resources, recipes, and more.
Promotional offers:
- 📷 This episode is sponsored in part by Gail VanMatre Photography.
- Raleigh NC area: 💁♀️ Update your professional image with a headshot session.
- ✨ Mention this podcast for a special offer!
Welcome to the Get Yourself Together Chica podcast, the show that helps you thrive or, you know, sometimes just survive. I'm Rebecca Fernandez. In each episode, we dive deep into something that has an impact on our lives as women, whether that's money or love, motherhood or friendship, our careers or just making space for joy. This is episode number five, which is all about good, healthy relationships. Most people have heard of red flags in relationships. You know those signals that something is a little off or a lot off with the other person, but I think that green flags are even more helpful to be aware of. Green flags are the little hints and clues that this person is a mature, kind, stable person who will make a great partner or a great friend. Today, I'll be sharing 10 green flags, and I'll mostly focus on romantic prospects, because I see a lot of women who end up in these roller coaster relationships where things are either great or awful, depending on the week. I also see a lot of women who end up in relationships that are just well, frankly, empty and dead, but they are almost numb to the fact that they could be a lot happier alone or with a better partner. Bear in mind, though, you can apply most of these green flags to prospective friends. If you're someone who has struggled with attracting those energy vampire types of friends, you know the ones who take and take and take from you and suck the life out of you but give you very little other than drama in return. Or if you find that you're someone who seems to do all of the work of maintaining your friendship connections, while your so-called friends barely phone it in for the relationship, in that case think about these green flags. When you're looking at a prospective friend too, green flags can help you, when you meet new people, to figure out if you should continue to invest in building this relationship. There are little signs that should tell you hey, this person is worth my time and affection. As always, if you have questions or stories to share, send them to podcast at getyourselftogetherchicacom and you can visit the show notes for links to any of the resources I mentioned in this episode at wwwgetyourselftogetherchicacom slash podcast.
Speaker 1:But first I want to share what's bringing me joy right now. Here in North Carolina, the weather has just started to turn crisp and cool. I love fall because it's a season of change and renewal, of shedding what's old and decaying to make way for new growth. In the spring, it's a time to slow down and rest and celebrate. So what's bringing me joy right now is those first few flavors of fall. We've baked two separate batches of pumpkin muffins and just yesterday I made some baked oatmeal with apples. I'll link to both recipes in the show notes, although unless you also eat gluten-free and plant-based and avoid sugar, they might be more trouble than they're worth. I've also done a few long hikes in the woods with my best friend and my partner and I squeezed in a lovely walk with our dogs and also a bike ride over the weekend. So if it's fall where you are, I hope you're enjoying the season change in whatever ways bring you joy.
Speaker 1:Alright, let's jump in and talk about those relationship green flags. The first one is this person seems like they have their life together. Unless what you want in a relationship or a friendship is to be somebody's constant cheerleader and their project manager and their life coach, you'll want to pay attention to signs that this person knows what they want in life and that they have a proven track record of getting themselves together. Big note if you just said to yourself hey, I don't mind being someone's cheerleader and project manager and life coach, let me remind you that they're not going to be paying you for these services. Be your own cheerleader, your own project manager, your own life coach, because, trust me, that investment is going to pay much bigger dividends than helping a prospective partner or friend get it together on a regular basis. Don't be fooled by somebody's job or their education level. Just because she's a doctor or he's a lawyer or they have a PhD does not mean they have their life together or even that they know what they want. There really are little tells when it comes to whether someone has their life together.
Speaker 1:I remember trying to schedule a date with this guy who, by the way, was a lawyer, and even though he was the one who suggested we should do this again, the conversation quickly segwayed into how he had to get to the DMV to update his driver's license and how he wasn't sure when he was going to get to the gym to work out and so on and so forth, and I just thought, look, I get that you're busy. I'm busy too, but the stuff you're talking about this is just normal adult stuff, and if you struggle with getting the basics done, let alone making time for somebody else, I'm not interested in trying to squeeze myself into your chaos. On the flip side, when I met my partner almost six years ago, we both had busy careers and different custody schedules for our kids. I was training for the New York Marathon, he was in the middle of selling his house and he had to be in Chicago the following week for a work event. And yet we very quickly pulled out our calendars and found a Tuesday night, even though it was two weeks out, when we were both free for dinner.
Speaker 1:Okay so, green flag number two is when you're impressed by who they are, not by who they could be or who they plan to be. One of the wisest things I've ever heard was from my best friend. She said there comes a turning point in your life where you stop falling in love with other people's potential and you start paying attention to what they've actually accomplished and who they actually are, because that's what's worth falling in love with. Anything else is just an illusion. In other words, if you love a fixer upper, find yourself a house, not a boyfriend, because at least with a fixer upper house, after you put all of this time and money and energy into helping it reach its potential, you can sell that thing, the fixer upper boyfriend, on the other hand, usually becomes the fixer upper husband. And then next thing you know, 10 years pass and you're a fixer upper husband. He really is a lot better than he was when you first met him, but he's still not great and you're still not happy. And by now you know you fell in love with his potential and he's not ever going to become that person. That tends to put you in a place, ultimately, where you want to leave him because he makes you miserable. But how can you? You start falling victim to what economists call the sunk cost fallacy, where you think how can I leave this person after I've invested all of these years of my life into them? And, what's worse, you'll think I don't want somebody else to benefit from all of my hard work. Trust me, whoever comes along next isn't really going to be that happy with him either. But you know it might look good from the outside. So if you're dating, if you're looking for a partner, please beware the fixer upper boyfriend or the fixer upper girlfriend. You go get yourself a falling down piece of real estate and you pour your love and your heart and your soul into that instead. Okay, on a related note.
Speaker 1:Green flag number three is they know what they want in life. On that first date with my partner, I also told him outright look, I was married for 15 years and I don't think I want to do that again. I'm looking for a long term relationship, you know, hopefully something like a life partner, but I don't see myself wanting to move in with anyone or get married again, especially not while my kids are still living at home. And he said it's fine. I was married for almost 10 years. I get it. I have no desire to ever get married again, and I understand what you mean. I'm pretty happy living on my own too. I just want to get to know you. Let's see where this goes.
Speaker 1:What he didn't say was what a lot of men said when I told them those same things in those first few dates. He didn't say, oh, I bet I'll change your mind. Or yeah, I don't want anyone to pin me down either. Or he didn't become defensive or angry. Those obviously would all be red flags. And, by the way, I also had a first date with a guy where he was up front with me that he really wanted to have a kid of his own. I knew that I didn't want to do that again. I was fine dating someone who had their own kids already, but I didn't want to help them bring any new ones into the world and I really appreciated that he was quick to say all right, so we're not in the same place in life. That's cool. We finished our coffee and we went our separate ways. I still think of him sometimes because I bet he's made a great partner for the right person. That was very much a green flag that he knew what he wanted and he wasn't going to compromise on the big stuff that really mattered to him.
Speaker 1:The next green flag I want to share with you number four is they have a full life with hobbies and interests of their own, with long-term friendships. They don't shove all of those things aside when they meet you. They don't need you to share those interests. They don't cancel plans with their friends to spend time with you. You're an increasingly important part of their life, but you're not their whole life. So if they're into bicycling and they always go for a long ride on Saturday mornings with their cycling group friends, if you suggest going to a concert late on a Friday night, it's a green flag and a good signal if they steer you toward getting together at a different time or day, and that should go both ways.
Speaker 1:If you're the one with the Saturday morning cycling group, they're not pressuring you to stay out late on Fridays. They're protective of their other relationships and friendships. So while, as the relationship builds, they'll start to introduce you to other people in their life. They also don't want you to tag along when they'd normally be having lunch with their mother or having coffee with their best friend. And again, they don't expect to crash your party like that either. They encourage you to maintain your own friendships and your own interests, even in those heady early days of the new relationship where you both feel that urge to be together 24 seven, because those love hormones are amped up big time. They give you the amount of attention that you need to feel good about the way things are progressing. But they don't let the new relationship consume your entire lives.
Speaker 1:That brings us to green flag number five. They seem to find it fairly easy and natural to be in a relationship and cultivate a bond. They don't make it seem like you're asking for too much or you're difficult, or you're a lot to handle. They're reliable and dependable. They say and do the right things in a way that indicates this is actually pretty effortless for them, and I don't mean just in the first month or two. In fact, that's a big red flag when they're amazing for those first few days or weeks and then they're not so amazing If you find yourself feeling like there must be some way to get back to the way things were, to find that person again inside them who you connected with so strongly at first. My friend, that is a red flag, as my pal Brett once told me. Rebecca, everyone is a thoroughbred for the first month. It's after that when you start to figure out who they really are. Those first few weeks and months what you're seeing is a combination of what you want to see, what they want you to see and what all of those intoxicating love hormones want you to see. I tell my teenagers always remember that when you meet someone and there's that spark, your biology wants you to reproduce with that person as fast as possible before you get a chance to see who they really are. That's just nature doing nature's job, but we don't have to fall for it.
Speaker 1:Friends. Here's another pearl of wisdom from my best friend. Relationships stop being confusing when you learn to pay attention to what the other person does, not to what they say, you will stop feeling confused by people who say they're interested but don't act like they're interested. You'll stop being jerked around by people who say they care about you but don't do the things consistently that caring people do. I'm going to be very, very blunt with you right now. If they wanted to get together with you, they would make the time and reach out and make the arrangements. If they wanted to talk to you, they would call you or text you. If they wanted to show up for you, they would show up for you. If they wanted a committed relationship with you, they would behave in a way that consistently shows commitment and they would not behave in ways that signal a lack of commitment. Pay more attention to what people do than what they say, because, guess what? It is a green flag when someone's actions consistently match their words.
Speaker 1:Before we dig into the next screen flag, I've been meaning to tell you what I've been reading lately. This month, my book club decided to go with a more light and easy read, so we read the novel Lime Light by Amy Popple. It was fun and breezy and just the perfect book to read when you're struggling to maintain your reading habits. The main character, alison Brinkley, is a suburban Dallas mom who decides she's going to move her family to Manhattan. Life in the Big Apple doesn't go so well for her, especially trying to find her place in the school mom world of New York. Then she ends up becoming the accidental personal assistant to a teen pop sensation who is crashing and burning big time. He's essentially a troubled teenager with too much money and not much else in his life. Lime Light is the story of her trying to rescue him while also not destroying her own life. It was funny as all get out and our whole book club enjoyed the break from heavier books. I'll put the link in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Alright, green flag number six is the relationship and the level of intimacy builds slowly and steadily. Healthy people don't bombard you and at the same time, they don't hold all of their cards super close to their chest. Instead, they slowly test the water and they open up a little bit at a time. They become increasingly vulnerable with you, sharing more about their history or their life or their struggles, as they continually confirm that you are someone they can trust, someone who they want to grow closer to Unhealthy people do one of two things Either they are closed off and they disclose very little of their lives, their histories, their challenges, their difficult emotions and so forth. Trying to learn anything about them, even once you've known them for some time, is really hard. They might give you some superficial stuff or sort of pretend to open up, but you can tell that's as deep as you're going to get, and often they seem uncomfortable. If you share that kind of information about yourself, maybe they tolerate it, but they don't reciprocate by opening up and sharing anything about themselves. They give you just the facts and even those sometimes sparingly.
Speaker 1:The other flavor that unhealthy people come in, particularly those who have personality disorders such as narcissism or borderline personality disorder. They tend to share way too much, way too soon. They love bomb you right up front in a way that feels good but also kind of weird. When I've experienced that, my thought was you don't know me well enough to like me this much already. Don't ignore that feeling, my friend. Keep a wary eye on that person if you choose to continue to engage with them at all, because there's a good chance they are just trying to suck you in and then they're going to start showing you their true colors. They need you to feel special right away, chosen, understood, seen, because that's how they're going to control you later on. That is not just a red flag, friend, that is a dripping with red blood flag. Okay, back to green flags.
Speaker 1:Number seven is one that I think is often overlooked. But it's pretty simple. They like you, they admire you. When you're with them, you feel good, not floating on cloud nine. Good, just good, really good. When you share your thoughts or your ideas, they listen and they respond in a thoughtful, supportive way. They seem to believe that you're capable of the things you dream of. When you talk to them, it sparks your creativity and your ideas. You're inspired to keep going, to keep trying to stick with things that you believe in, and you have that effect on them too. They enjoy being around you, no matter what you're doing together. There's just a pleasant, companionable quality to the relationship.
Speaker 1:It's a red flag when you find yourself playing small, becoming a smaller version of yourself when they're around. It's a red flag when they put you down in little ways, when they make you doubt your own intelligence or your abilities, or even your perception of a situation. It's a red flag when you feel like you're on a roller coaster, sometimes loved and cared for and other times demeaned and disregarded. I dated someone like that for a while and it can be surprisingly hard to break things off and not just get sucked back in repeatedly. My very wise best friend reminded me Rebecca, there are lots of guys out there who will treat you like crap and jerk you around. What's so special about this one? She was right. I cut that one loose and I never regretted it.
Speaker 1:Green flag number eight is when they're willing to adapt to your needs and they try to make changes to things that don't work for you. So, for example, if they prefer to unplug when they go camping with their friends but it kind of stresses you out to go several days without talking to them, you can tell them that and you can talk it out together and meet somewhere in the middle. Maybe they'll call you once halfway through the trip and you'll spend a little extra time together when they get back. They don't just fold and give you whatever you want, but they also aren't stubborn. They don't insist that for them to even consider doing things any differently, you have to prove to them why your needs are legitimate why your perspective is valid.
Speaker 1:Many years ago I formed the habit of what my friend Jenna calls relationship contortion or relationship gymnastics. That is, rather than expect anyone else to change or adapt to my needs, I would just continually try to need less to tolerate more. I knew that you shouldn't really expect people to change who they are fundamentally. We all know that maybe they'll change is a recipe for relationship disappointment. But back then I didn't realize that in a healthy relationship you ought to be able to expect both partners to adapt to each other's needs. Now, on some level that whole people don't change thing. It's true they can thoughtfully adapt their behavior, but who they are fundamentally it's not really going to change. And that's only really a problem. When you need your partner to change too much for you to be happy. That means it's just a mismatch. You're not right for each other.
Speaker 1:But anyway, early on in my relationship with my partner I was engaging in those relationship gymnastic contortions in one area of my life. You see, he and I have one pretty big difference in how we're wired. His internal clock runs on a fairly loose, flexible schedule, generally on the later side, while mine runs promptly and tells me to arrive at least five minutes ahead of schedule for even the smallest of events. So, as you can imagine, that was creating a minimum of 20 to 30 minutes difference between our expectations when we would be arriving somewhere or when we had agreed to meet up. I've known a lot of late-leaning folks in my life I am Latina, after all and I know it's just how some people are wired. Even the ones who make a big effort to try to change that, they often still struggle to make that shift toward being early or being on time.
Speaker 1:And I didn't want to have an ongoing, essentially unresolvable source of conflict in our relationship. So instead I just ignored it and swallowed it and acted like it was fine. But over time it began to bother me more and more and finally one day I brought it up. And of course I had to be really upset before I was willing to bring it up. And you know my partner, he got upset too. It's actually one of the only heated conversations that we've ever had. But his response was oh my gosh, this has been bothering you for the entire two years that we've been together. Why didn't you ever tell me? And I was like well, I mean, I just kind of figured. This is how you are and this is how I am, and I can't expect you to change it. And he goes. Rebecca, if it's important to you, if it bothers you, then it matters to me. I don't want you to feel resentful or upset by something that I'm doing on a regular basis. I don't want you to feel that way at all. For me that was just such a green flag moment.
Speaker 1:Two years in I already knew that he was an incredible person and a wonderful partner. But to really see for the first time that I was in a relationship where both of us were givers, where both of us would make the effort to change and adapt to make each other happy, that was just a total game changer. And you know, from that time on we were able to work together pretty effectively to navigate that difference in our internal clocks. He makes the effort to be more on time and I'm more relaxed about start times when it's not actually important. I've learned to tell him it is going to stress me out if we aren't on the road by two o'clock or if you're not here by five, and then he knows, okay, he needs to treat this one like it's a job interview or a train ticket. In fact, we've been a really good influence on each other, because I no longer arrive at the airport only to wait hours and hours before boarding and he no longer arrives at the airport stressed out because we got slowed down by traffic and cut it way too close. We kind of split the difference these days and we get there at a pretty reasonable time, so we're actually both happier than we used to be about our arrival.
Speaker 1:It's a red flag, by the way, when you realize that you are continually avoiding bringing up things that bother you, because raising a concern or asking someone to do something, no matter how small, to do it differently, somehow, that always seems to turn into a painful experience for you where you regret having brought it up in the first place. That is a major red flag that this is not a healthy person and you are not in a mature, healthy relationship. Because here's the thing the worst treatment that you're willing to tolerate. That tends to be the best treatment that you're ever going to get. So set your bar high.
Speaker 1:Green Flag Number 9 is when you see them navigate conflict or disagreement in a skillful way. What I mean by that is they don't escalate or add intensity to an already tense conversation or situation. They diffuse it instead. They don't just fold or back down when they shouldn't, but they also don't become fixated on winning. Instead, they do their best to get a win-win outcome. They're able to keep perspective on what it is they truly want in the long term and they try to figure out how to make the situation better.
Speaker 1:That brings us to our last green flag, number 10. They get along well with everyone in their life. If there's someone difficult who they have to maintain contact with let's say an angry ex-spouse, or maybe they have an overbearing parent or a vexing coworker in that situation they set appropriate boundaries and they don't seem to dwell on the issue very much. They know how to let it go. It's a red flag when they seem to engage in feuds or conflict with others, especially petty conflict. If lots of folks have done this person wrong, you might as well just go ahead right now and add your name onto that list, because it's going to end up there, I promise you, or you're going to spend way too many hours listening to them talk about everyone that they have a grudge against. Life is too short, friends. That's why it's such a great sign when you can see that they get along well with people. There are lots more green flags when it comes to relationships and friendships, so I'll link to a few articles and blogs in the show notes in case you want to dig deeper on this topic.
Speaker 1:Well, it's time to share what blew my mind this week. On Sunday, I was out walking near a lake where I often spot a pair of blue herons. Those are cool in and of themselves, and they were both there, as usual, but I also spotted, for the first time ever, a black anhinga. The word anhinga comes from the Brazilian Tupi language and it means snake bird. It's rare to see one anywhere in the county where I live, so it felt like a really special occasion to not just spot one but also get to see him in action, because these snake birds are just unbelievably cool. This one looked just like a long, skinny sea serpent. If a serpent could curl itself up that high out of the water and then plunge down in and grab a fish. I'll link to a video on YouTube in the show notes so that you can see what an anhinga looks like and how it hunts for fish in the water.
Speaker 1:Well, chicas, that's all for today. For more episodes or links to the resources I might have mentioned, visit wwwgetyourselftogetherchicacom slash podcast. If you liked today's episode, please share it with your friends. Post it on social media. If you love this podcast, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any episodes. And please, I would value so much if you would leave a review on Apple Podcasts or whatever app you listen to podcasts. Until next time, chicas.