Step Six, Part One--Relationship Defects, Part One

Just as it is vital for us to become aware of our individual character defects if we are to recover from drug addiction, so is it essential for us to realize the nature of the defects in our closest relationships if we wish them to recover from the damage done by addiction and to thrive in recovery. During the last ten years, marital researchers, particularly John Gottman, have identified a number of behaviors that are highly damaging to the health and long-term viability of close relationships. I will outline the relationship defects that are the most harmful to mutual satisfaction in intimate relationships.

At the top of the list is abuse, both physical and emotional. Physical abuse is always toxic to the well-being of any relationship. Hitting, slapping, tripping, pinching, etc., are always destructive, causing both pain and distrust. There is no justification for any kind of physical abuse. If you or your partner or both of you cannot avoid physically abusive behavior, either the guilty party learns and applies the basics of anger management or you need to live separately from each other until this is no longer a problem. If the abuser will not change, the relationship should not continue.

Emotional abuse is also intolerable to the well-being of a close relationship. Threatening, raging, sexual put-downs, and other emotionally abusive behaviors have no place in a recovering relationship. They destroy any possibility of developing a sense of safety and trust in the relationship. Again, if one or both partners cannot stop themselves from engaging in this kind of behavior, then learning and using the tools of anger management is imperative. It is also important to pay attention to HALT and take steps to address these issues before they escalate into emotionally abusive behavior.

Abandonment is another very serious relationship defect. Running away, disappearing for an extended period of time without informing your partner of your whereabouts, storming out in anger with no word about when you will return, and other forms of physical abandonment seriously undermine your partner's sense of security and well-being in the relationship. Sexual infidelity is another form of abandonment, but it is such a huge issue that I want to address it in another post.

Threatening to leave a relationship is yet another type of abandonment. If it is used to control, manipulate, or retaliate against a partner, threatening to leave also seriously undermines a partner's sense of feeling securely attached in the relationship. When partners have insecure attachment disorders, which is true for the majority of us in recovery, such threats immediately activate either withdrawal behaviors if we are avoidantly attached or anxious demands for reassurance if we have a preoccupied attachment style (see my post of 5/9/07).

On the other hand, a straightforward statement of a desire to leave the relationship if things don't change is an appropriate behavior when we know we no longer wish to remain in the relationship unless there are major changes. We are putting our partner on notice that the statusquo is no longer acceptable and letting him or her know the depth of our dissatisfaction. But this kind of announcement should occur well before we have already made the decision to leave the relationship. It is unfair and unkind to put our partner on notice when it is already too late for him or her to do anything about it.