Entering a new relationship during early recovery is not recommended to ensure your focus remains on your recovery. This does not discount the impact of relationships on your health and overall well-being. On the contrary, it recognizes how much relationships can affect your emotions, habits, and life circumstances.
Improving your relationship skills can help you live a healthier, more balanced life. If you begin your recovery journey in a romantic relationship or develop one in the future, it is important to engage in healthy relationship behaviors.
Impact of Relationships on Recovery
Relationships may not seem to be a contributing factor to your recovery success. However, they can have a great impact. Your relationships, romantic and social, can either encourage your recovery success or hinder it.
It is important to be aware of the impact your specific relationship has on your recovery and ensure you are engaging in relationships that benefit both individuals involved.
Potential Positive Effects
Some positive effects that can develop from relationships in recovery include:
- Gaining extra support outside of treatment
- Increasing motivation
- Having extra opportunities to practice your skills
Potential Negative Effects
Negative effects that can develop from relationships in recovery include:
- Becoming dependent on your significant other
- Potential encouragement to relapse
- Not recovering for yourself
- Lack of focus on recovery
Observe the effects your relationship has on your recovery and determine if they are helping or hindering the process. If you find that your relationship brings various negative effects to your sobriety, consider utilizing couples therapy to move past these issues and learn how to best support each other.
Building a Strong Foundation
Having a strong foundation is essential in building a stable relationship. Think of an architect designing the building of his dreams. He dreams of a building with a small and narrow structure supporting a massive loft up above. While his design may sound exciting, it is important to ensure the base has enough structural foundation to support the building over time. Relationships work in the same way. If not built upon a solid structure, it may have the potential to collapse at any moment.
Building a strong foundation in a relationship is not always accomplished during the initial aspect of dating. Some couples learn how to establish this foundation years into their relationships.
The following qualities are important to evaluate to determine if your relationship is built with a structured base:
- Trust between one another
- Commitment and loyalty
- Healthy communication
- Respecting each other’s boundaries
- Consent
- Feeling comfortable around each other
Utilizing Couples Therapy
Couples therapy can be utilized by anyone. Often, the perception of couples therapy is that people who attend it have significant issues in their relationship. This stigma is important to be aware of, as this is not the case in many situations.
You may choose to seek couples therapy to move past potential issues that arise within your relationship. However, there are many other reasons to attend couples therapy. Couples therapy can be utilized simply to improve the quality of your relationship and learn how to best support one another through your journey together.
Couples Therapy for Addiction Recovery
While engaging in recovery, we hope you consider utilizing couples therapy to learn how to work through the cycle of addiction together as a couple. Whether one or both individuals are working through recovery, it is important to develop skills to help one another through the hardships of the recovery journey. Developing these skills can help ensure your relationship provides you with the positive benefits listed above rather than hindering your recovery.
Couples therapy can greatly benefit you and your significant other through recovery. It may be occasionally utilized to help with some minor frustrations or to deal with the common stressors of addiction. Either way, there can be various benefits included in engaging in couples therapy during your recovery journey. The length of time you attend couples therapy can be determined by you, your significant other, and the therapist involved. Taking their recommendations in terms of length can provide you with the most influential benefits.
Involve Your Partner
It can be challenging to involve your significant other in the ups and downs of your recovery journey. Many people choose to keep this aspect of their life more secretive within their relationships. However, this can make them lose trust or feel distant.
Involving your partner in your recovery journey can allow them to be a strong person of support through your journey. Failure to inform them of the aspects of recovery can lead them to feel they are left in the dark. Lack of involvement opens room for secrecy and distrust within the relationship, potentially causing more hardships to overcome through your journey.
Being more open with your partner can help you to create a strong foundation instead. Your relationship can then be used as a tool to help you move forward. Just as there can be significant benefits from involving your family in your recovery journey, involving your significant other can be very helpful. If you anticipate being with this individual long-term, allow them to see the hardships you are going through. They can then be there for you as you overcome substance use disorder and support you as you move forward and accomplish your goals.
Relationships can have a strong impact on our lives. In recovery, these influences may be positive or negative. Assessing how your relationship and your significant other contribute to your recovery process can help you to determine the effects they are currently having. Couples therapy is a great tool to utilize throughout the recovery process. This form of therapy can help you and your significant other to address your feelings and establish a form of mutual support. Discussing these concepts with a professional can help you both feel supported moving forward. Utilizing this practice can be greatly beneficial in recovery. Learn more about how couples therapy can benefit your recovery. Reach out to Dream Recovery at (949) 732-1960.
Recent Comments