Focus on Fixing Your Life, Not on Finding Love
People with a healthy view of relationships are not obsessed with finding love. When you’re spending all your time looking for someone to date, you aren’t spending the necessary time working on your own life to become a better person to date. Maintaining a healthy relationship requires working to improve your own character, not obsessing to find someone who can make you feel better about yourself.
Healthy emotional skills are needed to develop successful relationships. But for those of us in recovery, these skills can be weak or impaired. That’s why many experts strongly recommend you refrain from dating for at least a year or even two years after getting treatment and entering recovery. Although each person is different, that’s generally a very good timeframe to follow.
That being said, when the time is right. . . what does a healthy relationship look like?
4 Tips for a Healthy Relationship in Recovery
A healthy relationship is made up of two people who, while not perfect, are satisfied to be working together toward their personal life goals. Typically, healthy relationships follow this pattern:
Keep working on your sobriety
If you find that you’re not ready for a relationship today, don’t get discouraged. Einstein didn’t figure out his famous mass to energy equation (E=mc2) his first day in math class. As you grow in your sobriety, you will be able to add more things to your life, such as a healthy dating relationship.
Take it slow
Relational intimacy should grow like a tree, not weed. In a healthy relationship, you start with simple introductions and the relationship grows slowly as you spend time getting to know the other person.
Your life and addiction story isn’t meant for a first date. There will come a time when your significant other should know your deepest struggles, but not until you have already developed a relationship of mutual friendship.
Maintain friendships
It’s healthy to have a group of friends and to maintain those friendships even when you’re dating someone. Your whole world shouldn’t revolve around one person. If it does, you’re setting yourself up for unnecessary emotional pain.
Maintain healthy expectations
There are still problems and struggles in a healthy relationship, but they are dealt with openly and constructively. Frustrations come up, but they are communicated appropriately and dealt with openly. Instead of responding to unrealized expectations with dramatic antics or personal attacks, those in a healthy relationship bring up frustrations while still maintaining respect for the other person.
You love the person because you chose to, not because you feel a compulsion to experience relational intimacy or because you are stuck and don’t know how to get out.
What do you expect from a relationship? Do you expect the person you meet to be the best thing since sliced bread or do you expect them to have just as many problems as you? Where are you in life? Are you prepared to have a relationship with someone who is currently at the same level of emotional health as you? Do you resort to attacking when you feel wronged or are you willing to communicate your feelings and talk it out when frustrations arise?