Friday, December 2, 2011

Do Recovery Relationships Work?

A client came to my office to talk about his relationship.  Both he and the woman he was dating have been sober over a year. The client said they seem to get along well but still he was wondering if the fact that both are in recovery would interfere.  I had no easy answers but shared some thoughts with him.

I know couples in recovery who've have been married for years. And I also know people who aren’t in recovery who've been married for years. I believe there's more to it than simply being in recovery. I was in a recovery marriage for nearly 10 years, and we eventually divorced.

When one looks at the general population something like 50% of marriages fail. I've never seen statistics of success rates about people in recovery.  But my intuitive feeling is that the success rate among sober couples probably mirrors that of the general population.

Possibly one of the good things about a couple in recovery is they share certain values they learn in the 12 steps. Those of us in active recovery do a 10th step fairly often, a step which allows us to clean up messes before they get too big. And in relationships there’s usually something that needs cleaning up – it’s just part of living on this planet.  What we learn in meetings can help us communicate better with almost everyone: including those with whom we have intimate relationships.

In some cases both parties went through so much suffering while using that the challenges of a relationship are minor by comparison.

I’ve been in a relationship for three years and my fiance and I don't argue. We’ve been sober for years and we immediately seem to know where disagreements are going. We start talking about what’s going on and that defuses the situation. We both are willing to be vulnerable – and that makes communication easier.

And a strong love for one also another helps.

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