Getting Love Right: Learning the Choices of Healthy Intimacy (A FiresideParkside Recovery Book) by Terence T. Gorski

Author:Terence T. Gorski [Gorski, Terence T.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2012-09-11T07:00:00+00:00

Self-assessment: Your Partner Profile

I. A Profile of Yourself and Your Past Partners

This assessment will help you to identify the ways in which your unconscious programming has led you to find partners that are (1) similar to you; (2) different from you in complementary ways; and (3) able to bring up unresolved issues from your past.

Go back to your Relationship History and answer the following questions for each partner, beginning with your first relationship.

1. In what ways were this partner and I similar?

2. In what ways were this partner and I different?

3. How did these differences complement my limitations and help me to grow?

4. How did these differences complement my partner’s limitations and help him/her to grow?

5. What primary or recurring issues did my partner and I confront in the relationship?

II. Your Ideal Partner Profile

This assessment will help you construct a description of your ideal partner.

Starting with your first partner, answer the following questions about each one, up to your present partner.

1. What did your partner look like? Describe your partner’s physical height, general weight and build, hair color, eye color, and other physical traits.

2. What did you look like when you were involved with your partner?

3. What was your partner like as a person? Describe your partner’s general personality, mood, temperament, view of life, and the way he or she dealt with other people.

4. What were you like, as a person, when you were involved with this partner?

5. How did your partner treat other people and build relationships?

6. How did you treat other people and build relationships when you were involved with this partner?

7. What did you expect from your partner?

8. What do you think your partner expected from you?

9. What did you believe your partner could do for you that you could not do for yourself?

Take a separate sheet of paper and write “Partner Similarities” at the top of the page. List all of the traits and characteristics your past partners shared with one another.

You will probably begin to see recurrent themes or traits in each of your partners. The result, when you finish this exercise, will be your current ideal partner profile.

III. Your Parental Description

Go back to the questions in the Ideal Partner Profile section and answer each one, substituting your mother and father for your partner. When you complete this exercise, you may be amazed by how many ways your previous partners resemble your parents.

IV. Analyzing Your Relationship Patterns

Some people get involved in the same relationship over and over again, only with different people. They also seem to confront the same issues. They are stuck in a zero growth pattern.

Other people are in a positive growth relationship pattern. Their relationships represent a continuum of ongoing growth: they get involved in a relationship and experience problems but manage to grow as a result of solving them.

It is important to recognize whether you are in a zero growth pattern or a positive growth pattern.

Take another piece of paper and write at the top “Lessons Learned/Issues Resolved” on one side and “Unresolved Issues” on the other side.

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