Relationship Skills: Important Topics For Discussion

It seems that a shared characteristic of people either in active addiction or early addiction recovery is that their relationships are damaged in certainly in need of repair.

Common advice given to people new in recovery is not to start any new relationships for the first year.  The rationale behind such advice is that until there’s a certain growth and maturity in recovery, most people new in sobriety lack the skills to effectively identify, own, and process emotions and feelings.  The ability to handle emotions and feelings directly affects the quality of relationships.

Here are some topics for discussion for you in your partner.  A major contributor to successful relationships is the ability to communicate.  Specifically, to communicate and understand important aspects of your partners goals and believes.

Take a look, I’m sure you’ll find some interesting discussion points here.

1.    How can we best nurture our support for one another?
2.    How will we communicate with one another on a daily basis?
3.    How dependent will we be toward one another and is it healthy?
4.    How can we give our mutual intimacy a boost in the relationship?
5.    How long do we intend our relationship to last for example, do we want to get married?
6.    How will we ensure that we respect each other’s rights in this relationship?
7.    How will we help one another “grow” in this relationship?
8.    How can we keep the fun in our relationship?
9.    How will we include others in our relationship without losing our support for one another?
10.    How should or will we approach problems in our relationship?
11.    How will we solve problems?
12.    How are we going to handle various differences of opinion?
13.    How will we handle irritation with one another and is it worth the effort?
14.    How are we going to handle fights and bring them to a healthy resolution?
15.    At what point will we seek help for ourselves if our fighting gets out of hand or will we even bother, for example will we seek counseling together?
16.    Will we agree to disagree?
17.    How can we ensure mutual growth in this relationship?
18.    How open are we to taking joint and individual responsibility for our relationship?
19.    How can we ensure that our individuality doesn’t get lost in this relationship?
20.    How open are we to being assertive in our relationship?
21.    How can we use our unique, individual personalities to help each other and our relationship grow?
22.    What steps will we take if one or both of us begins to feel smothered by the relationship?
23.    What steps are we willing to take if one or both of us has the need for mental health assistance?
24.    How are we going to promote each other’s physical health and will we be supportive of each other?
25.    What steps can we take to handle jealousy, a sense of competition, or resentment toward one another?
26.    How are we going to make time to do all the things we want to do?
27.    How are we going to arrange our schedules so that we can pursue our unique, individual interests and still spend quality time together?
28.    How free are we to pursue our distinct interests and friends?
29.    How committed are we to setting up long range relationship goals and short range objectives to reach those goals?
30.    How committed are we to setting up times in which we can nourish one another and keep our relationship on track?
31.    How can we structure ways to get the “required” relationship maintenance tasks.
32.    How can we delegate the maintenance tasks so that neither of us feels that we are doing too much?
33.    What place will religion, hobbies, sports, and outside interests have in our relationship?
34.    How important are those things to our relationship?
35.    Can we nurture our differences?

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Tagged as: relationship skills, Relationships