Can you read your partner’s mind? Of course not! Neither can your partner read your mind.

But this is what you may have come to expect of each other if you grew up in a movie script hearing phrases like: “love is never having to say you are sorry” or if you learned as a child that “you should not have to tell someone what you are feeling or what you need if they love you.”

Feelings, expectations, fears, and dreams go unsaid because we believe our partner should know these things. Our partner cannot respond to or help us unless they know what we need. Honest and direct communication is vital to the recovery process and to the success of your partnership, even though it may bring pain.

Ask your Higher Power for the patience to move slowly through the learning process and the willingness to work with your partner in honest and genuine ways will promote change.  That change may seem slow when we compare it to the openness we feel with others.

We have all been there: sharing our story at a meeting, relating the details of our darkest moments, and feeling the empathy and support emanate from the listeners. Why, then, is it so difficult to share these same details with our loved ones?

What separates our partner from the rest of the world is the emotional tie we have with our partner based on our shared vulnerability. If I tell her my story, will she still love me? Am I at risk of losing him if he really knows who I am? Your past is a part of who you are, and you owe it to your partner to reveal all of who you are. Ask for God’s assistance to not let the fear block you from helping your partner to know all of you and for you to get to know him or her.

This article was written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their book “One in the Spirit: Meditation Course for Recovering Couples.”

How many nights, as a child, did you lie in bed listening to the eruptions of your parents’ dysfunctional relationship, and swear to yourself that when you grew up, you would never allow yourself to be caught in the same tumultuous life? Maybe you’d never even get married. But time passed and the childhood terror faded. Suddenly you found yourself in a mirroring replica of your own childhood all over again.

While it is our hope that this has not been your growing up experience, it is unfortunately an all too common reality for many.

We all grow up as children in environments watching and learning from the adults around us. We all grow up with moments we cherish and with moments we rue. We may not know it, but we are watching the adults deal with life and we are taking notes.

We tell ourselves that “when we grow up” we are going to do this and we are going to do that. But when we grow up we reach into our bag of how to deal with real life and all we find is what we have seen. We do not know another way! That is why at some point of our adulthood it seems like we have replicated everything we said we wouldn’t.

It is said that we marry our parents, whether good or bad, but it doesn’t have to be that way. We can be open and honest, sharing our feelings with our partner, embracing the differences as well as the similarities, and we can enact change because now we know how to change. We know how to change because we are no longer children. We are adults who are ready to learn a new way and implement changes in our lives.

The new way is to bring our feelings and discomfort about how to deal with a given situation in our relationship directly to the partner with whom we may see as the source of our discomfort. We do not blame others for how we feel anymore and we are willing to do whatever is necessary to take responsibility for our own behavior.

If we can do just this then we are already enacting change. We are behaving in an honest open way we did not see the adults in our life behave with too often when we were children. We are embracing all parts of our relationship – even the confusions – in a vulnerable way that may have never been modeled for us.

We are now grown up. Now is the time for us to keep our promise and stop getting caught in the tumultuous life we once knew.

This article was written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their book “One in the Spirit: Meditation Course for Recovering Couples.”

When we are hurting, we want to be comforted. We expect that the people in our lives who know us best will know exactly what we need and when we need it. If those needs are not met, we feel betrayed by our uncaring partner (or, we will blame our indifferent Spiritual Power).  We are angry and resentful.

In a desperate attempt to capture feelings of personal security and comfort, we often seek ways to fill up the hole inside ourselves. Most of us unfortunately, seek comfort in all the wrong places. Some of us engage in new relationships – looking for another person to fulfill the loneliness we feel. Others seek comfort in obsessive behaviors such as overspending, compulsive eating, and uncontrollable rehashing of the harms done to us from others.

Instead of waiting for other people and external stimuli to bring us comfort, perhaps the best way to find comfort is to give it to others:

…rather to comfort than to be comforted…

When we are committed to being of service to our partner and to others, we have found that we no longer need the anger and resentments to address our emotional discomfort. As the result of our service towards another we will receive the comfort and strength that are sufficient to accept and address our own hurts in a calm and adaptive way.

Let us contemplate on the opportunities we can find to bring peace and comfort to those we love most. Let us allow ourselves to discuss with others how each of us can be of service to the other. When we are being of service to someone else in pain, the preoccupation with self will soon fall away and we will know the joy of helping others!

This article is our fourth and final article in our series on how to use Step Eleven in our romantic relationships using the “Prayer of St. Francis” as our baseline. The article was written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their book “One in the Spirit: Meditation Course for Recovering Couples.”

What does it take to be a channel of peace?

There are so many ways that peace in our relationships can become threatened. Some of these challenges are external; they threaten the peace from the outside in. Other challenges are internal; they begin within the relationship itself.

When, for instance, relationships face a clear financial danger such as the national economic slowdown, there is an outside force threatening the peace between partners. Coping with the illness or death of a mutual friend is another possible stress that can potentially affect the serenity of the relationship. Many couples find it possible to work through their individual fears because they view the threat as if they are joining against a “common foe.” Thus they learn to be a source of support for each other.

However, when financial fears have developed in reaction to the spending habits of one’s romantic partner, or, when one of the partners’ physical ailments begins to negatively disrupt the couple’s normal functioning routine, the threats that these may pose are more internal.

Unfortunately, when the peace of our relationship is threatened from the inside, we tend to blame or attack each other. We look to blame him or her for the condition of our checkbook, or for the frustration we are feeling.

What does it take for one of us to channel peace back into our relationship when the threat is coming from the inside?

For starters, let us remember that no one can make us feel anything! That means that we must take responsibility for how we think, how we feel, and how we behave. As long as we see change in another person as the solution to our problems, peace will continue to elude us. When we look towards others waiting for them to change, we cannot be a channel of peace.

In order to serve as a channel of peace to our partner, we will first need to accept responsibility for the quality of our own life. If we can learn to take responsibility for how we feel, our problem is no longer our partner but rather how we react inside ourselves to his or her behavior, illness, or character defects.

When we do this, it is possible to remember that the “common foe” remains the partner’s behavior, illness, or perhaps character defect that the coupleship can seek to confront together. We can once again work through our individual fears and band together to support one another.

This article continues to explore how to use Step Eleven in our romantic relationships using the “Prayer of St. Francis” as our baseline. The article was written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their book  ”One in the Spirit: Meditation Course for Recovering Couples“.

A solid, committed, romantic relationship does not get there all on its own. Nor does it remain solid and committed by simply existing. Great relationships take work! If we are going to enjoy an enduring partnership, we must be willing to examine it and take inventory on a regular basis.

An effective way to inventory our relationship is to use the Prayer of St. Francis as your guide. This prayer is found on page 99 of The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (AA World Services, 1952). It reads:

“Lord, make me a channel of thy peace – that where there is hatred, I may bring love – that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness – that where there is discord, I may bring harmony – that where there is error, I may bring truth – that where there is doubt, I may bring faith – that where there is despair, I may bring hope – that where there are shadows, I may bring light – that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

“Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted; to understand, than to be understood; to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life. Amen.”

Our suggestion is to sit together and move slowly through this prayer with your partner. As you do, you will be able to gauge how well your relationship is really working. You will be able to gauge how much you and your partner are being of service to each other and to others.

True love is possible. Unfortunately, many of us believe the “hype” that there is no such thing as true love because of our terrible experiences in the past, so we avoid love and commitment all together. Others of us once loved and lost, and believe that we only get one chance at love. Through our willingness to take this leap of faith however, we have come to see true love all around us.

It takes great courage to enter a romantic relationship and promise to be completely open and honest with each other. Many of us have never experienced that type of intimate relationship before. To declare ourselves ready for such a bond takes a great leap of faith to trust that we will have the spiritual fortitude to endure in a completely honest relationship.

This article is part two in a multiple part series on using Step Eleven in romantic relationships. It was written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their book  ”One in the Spirit: Meditation Course for Recovering Couples“. Next week we will follow up our introduction of the “Prayer of St. Francis”  by slowing down and analyzing the various components found in the prayer of Saint Francis. Happy New Year once again, and until next week, we are One with you in the Spirit!

Our resolutions this year will be promises we can keep!

Everyone makes New Year’s resolutions: I’ll lose weight. I’ll stop smoking. I’ll spend more time with my partner or my children.

Somewhere around the second week of January, those promises go the way of all the other promises. We start snacking, smoking, and/or spending more time at the office. If we have made resolutions as a couple, one of us is bound to fall down, leaving the other to place blame.

We often make promises that we do not keep.  The problem with resolutions is that they assume we are in control. We have learned however, that this is not true at all. Many times the promises are unrealistic, made to impress someone else. Other times, the promises are made half-heartedly, with no real intention of following through. Still others are made with the hope of doing the impossible.

We need to examine the intended change and determine if this is really something we want and are ready to commit to. Once we have established our readiness for the intended change, our next step is to ask our Higher Power for guidance to change what we can.

Any promises made without the knowledge of what our Higher Power wants for us are empty. We must remember that we have turned our lives and our will over to our Higher Power, and that only our Higher Power can make the determination of what is best for us. Only our Higher Power can decide what promises we should make, because those are the only promises we will be able to keep.

The 11^th Step in the Twelve Step programs reads:

“Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.”

Many of us concentrate on the first part of that step; we pray and meditate to strengthen our connection with our Higher Power. When we fail, by whatever means, to live up to our goals, the temptation is to redo our 4^th Step inventory until we get it right. Before doing that, we suggest you read the 11^th Step again, and concentrate on the second phrase.

In the second phrase of the 11^th step we are actually praying for the power to perform our Higher Power’s will. Do not underestimate this power. It will allow you to become a conduit in your service to your Higher Power and to others around you. This power will allow you to make and stick to the resolutions you make; it will allow you to be the YOU that you know you can be.

We wish you the best of luck and remember, we are one with you in the spirit of this journey together. We are confident that with Higher Powered inspiration, our resolutions this year will be promises we can keep!

This article is part one in a two part series on step eleven written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their book “One in the Spirit: Meditation Course for Recovering Couples“. Next week we will follow up our newfound motivation with part two of this article which will explore some more in-depth ways to practice the 11^th step in our relationships. Until then we wish you a happy and healthy New Year!

Memories are a powerful thing. Feeling memories of the pain and disappointment of holidays past can overwhelm us so much so that we have come to expect nothing different. Or perhaps, our feeling memories might be so wonderful that we again have expectations of exciting holiday experiences to be had.

If we are so sure that the pain of the past will revisit us, we automatically brace ourselves for it, and we are seldom disappointed; the pain returns because that is what we were dwelling on. In the same vein, if we are so sure that each holiday will bring the same joy of the past, we are bound to be disillusioned if the reality does not favorably compare with the memory.

Memories however, are nothing more than reminders of what was. They are not our present reality. If we keep that in mind, we can approach the holiday season with an open heart and hope for a positive experience.

What is your reaction inside when the holiday season is mentioned?  Do you immediately have warm thoughts of family, holiday meals, and merriment, or does your mind conjure up dark images of depression, chaos, and family arguments?

Many of us are so entrenched in the hurtful memories of past holidays that we have come to expect the same with each passing year. We grit our teeth and prepare for what’s coming because we know that it will be the same this year.

For many of us, holidays are something to be endured rather than enjoyed. The pain of past holidays is a constant reminder of the hurt that we suffered at this time of year. It can feel particularly difficult – if not impossible – to simply free ourselves of the associations we have of personal pain in relation to the holiday.

But it doesn’t have to be. Holidays are what we make of them. We can decide to follow old traditions or make up new ones of our own. If we choose to, we can spend the time with family or can do something completely different, if it will bring us happiness during the season.

If we share our pain with our loved ones, we can resolve to make new memories to replace those that hurt us in the past. We can also concentrate on making the holidays special for someone else. When we take the emphasis off ourselves and place it on another, we build the foundation for new, happy experiences and memories of the holiday season.

Gratitude is another powerful tool that can help us create a new positive holiday season for ourselves. Unfortunately, so many of us feel that we have little for which to be grateful for. When our past is laden with the damage done to us, we may think it ironic to be thankful for anything at all. Instead of viewing it that way, perhaps we can frame it in a different manner:

We would not be the people we are today if it were not for the trauma and hurt that we have survived!

There are opportunities for healing and growth all around us, and when we take advantage of those, we are able to be of service by bringing our story to others and being an example for them to follow.

Remember, that when the holidays come you can affect others as much as you affect yourself. You can remain mired in memories of the past, or you can enjoy the present by spreading joy to others. Small acts – running errands for someone housebound, shoveling an elderly person’s sidewalk, making small but heartfelt gifts for friends – can bring such joy to others. When you do that, you’ll find that the joy is infectious, because you will feel it too. The gift of giving to others will fill that empty space that has taken up residence in you, and you will be able to release yourself from those past memories because you will be too busy in the present to dwell on them.

You cannot change your past holidays, but you can change your future ones.

This article was written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their book: “One in the Spirit: Meditation Course for Recovering Couples”

If we truly love someone, it should never have strings attached.

Love can be confusing. Do we merely love someone or are we “in love” with them, and what do all of these terms mean anyway?

Many of us believe that loving someone means holding them dear, while being in love means passion, excitement, and true understanding of a person’s heart and soul. Being “in love” perhaps signifies a commitment that we wish to make to one person. What will happen, however, when the passion and excitement starts to fade; when we are steeped in the daily stress of living and life? Do we simply move on to the next person to find more passion and more excitement?

If we are to fully commit our lives to our romantic partner, we may want to entertain the notion that there is in fact no difference between loving and being in love. Love, as in all other things, has its ups and downs. A firm decision to face the inevitable challenges together with our partner will allow us to enjoy the rewards of romantic love as we go through life together.

When we find a partner, we initially “talk the talk” and say we love them and will always be there for them, but are we going into this relationship with an honest, open heart?

Often times we have been damaged by an important relationship at some point in our lives that leaves us vowing never to open ourselves to such hurt again. So we put up an isolating wall that does not allow anyone to get close to our deepest emotions. This grand scheme can backfire however, because while we are attempting to keep new pain out, we are also holding old pain in.

Our journey to healing does not have to be traveled alone. When we allow the isolating wall to come down and ask our partner to be part of our healing process, we are learning how to give and receive unconditional love.

If we truly love someone, it should never have strings attached. “Conditional love” is not really love at all – it is someone’s underhanded way of getting you to do what they want. Dangling the carrot of being loved is a control measure that keeps you trying to succeed at something that can never be achieved – receiving true, unconditional love.

If your father cried that he loved you as he beat you, or you mother told you, as she was locking you in your room, that it hurt her more than it hurt you, you were not receiving love. True love has no conditions but to give it or accept it.

“Til death do us part” seems out of sync with today’s divorce rate. Perhaps it should be altered to say, “til death – or disillusionment – do us part.” It seems that we are all too willing to trade in our partner for a newer model when life is not going the way we envisioned it. This may be due to the fact that the very foundation upon which the relationship is built is made of sand. (This is but one reason that the various 12-step fellowships ask newly recovering members to refrain from starting any new relationships in the first months of recovery.)

We all know the pain of loving someone who does not love us back. It makes little difference whether we discover that we are in “conditional love” at the beginning or at the end of a relationship. It does not matter. It hurts, and it can cause us to turn back inward, put back up our isolating walls, and try to find what it is about ourselves that we cannot be loved in return.

This preoccupation with one person’s rejection can cause us to lose sight of all the others who do in fact love us. This preoccupation with one person’s rejection can cause us to diminish our self-worth.

In a successful partnership, we are part of the solution or part of the problem. True love will actually increase our self-worth. If we, as partners, cannot accomplish this for each other, then we are either not allowing ourselves to see the self-worth in each other, or we are not allowing ourselves to share with our partner about the self-worth that we do see. Let us strive to be the solution.

If a couple takes the time to know each other deeply, openly, and spiritually, they will begin with a strong foundation on which to build their lives together.

This article was written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their book: “One in the Spirit: Meditation Course for Recovering Couples”

We must develop an honest and open relationship if we hope to see any growth.

When we begin a new relationship, or, when we are attempting to rebuild a shattered relationship, we tend to wear our best face. Then, as our romance progresses, we begin to reveal both the good and the bad of our inner selves in the expressions of our thoughts, beliefs, and judgments.

It can be quite frightening to share our most intimate selves with our partner.

“Will he accept me knowing who I really am?”

“If I tell her my story, will she still love me?”

Still, we must develop an honest and open relationship if we hope to see any growth in this partnership.

If your partner turns away when you reveal something about yourself, remember that it is not “all about me.” Your partner may be distracted by something having nothing to do with you. Acknowledge that you have fear of being rejected, and let your Higher Power know that you trust in the care that is promised in Step Three of the 12 steps.

One of the strategies that we have found helpful is to set aside time on a daily basis to get current with each other because we have discovered that it is easy to run out of time for the relationship and the communications efforts that are needed to maintain romantic health.  In fact, we have learned the hard way that maintaining pent up emotions can lead to explosive consequences.

We all say things in anger or fear that we cannot take back, and immediately regret saying them. Why do we wait so long to express our feelings that they become explosive and distorted when they are finally released?! The vulnerability that we may easily share within a fellowship meeting seems too risky to reveal to our partner because we fear that our romance might not survive the truth of our feelings.

But we feel what we feel: there is no right or wrong to our feelings, and our partner should not have to be comfortable with everything we share.  Partnership implies a shared responsibility for how we cope with what we experience and how we feel.  You do not need to have proof for what you are feeling.

The fact that our feelings cannot be proven can be disturbing – but it is true. Our emotions are neither right nor wrong, but they deserve to be heard if we are attempting to create or repair our bond.

We want authenticity and a spiritual connection in our partnership. To accomplish this, we must be true to both our partner and to ourselves. The excuses we give for not being completely honest to our partner or to ourselves are not valid. Our relationship can survive the truly candid moments when we express our thoughts and fears. It is when we “shut down” to protect our partner or ourselves that we do them and ourselves a disservice.

The emotional and spiritual connections the two of you make through honest vulnerability will help you to become one in the spirit of recovery with your romantic partner. Only by sharing of yourselves will your romantic love survive.

This article was written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their soon to be published couples book from Leadem Counseling titled: Awakening To Your Soul Mate: A decision to be IN Love (Leadem & Leadem, 2013)

Harry and Sally took risks – for the sake of love…

Harry and Sally found each other in the 12 Step recovery rooms and it was “love at first sight.”  Both had long histories of romantic failure that included two previous failed marriages for Harry and one divorce for Sally. Both had vowed that their new sober relationship was going to be different than all the rest since neither had been sober in romance before. 

When we first met them, Harry was struggling to stabilize his recovery after a relapse which interrupted a five year period of abstinence from his drug of choice.  Sally relates that she had recently returned to her Anon meetings out of fear of Harry’s relapse but that her “program of recovery” has never been more then occasional meetings with no sponsor, no step work, and no service work outside of her marriage to Harry. 

Harry regrets that he strayed from meetings after he and Sally had their first child in recovery and acknowledges that he had never progressed beyond the Fifth Step.  Sally had heard of our work with couples in relapse and gave Harry an ultimatum to participate in a Shared Program of Recovery or get a divorce.  Our first meeting with the couple was a memorable one as it was one of the first couples that confirmed for us that there were certain preexisting conditions that couples would need to have firmly established for our work with them to be successful.

Our work with Harry and Sally reinforced for us that a couple’s desire to have a sober romantic life that will be different from those in their individual pasts is not sufficient enough to ensure a lasting change.  Sally and Harry had hit the “restart” button so many times in their romance that they were beginning to lose hope in their individual and collective ability to be successful in romance.   They had reached this point of desperation despite the solemn surrender and commitment to change that preceded each attempt at reconciliation. They found themselves being afraid to have hope.

But Harry and Sally took a risk that involved challenging the conventional wisdom they were continuously being taught in their parallel 12 step recovery rooms. In a motivational – and inspirational – moment they decided that they would do whatever it took to get well together. At that moment they agreed to begin sharing their recovery programs with each other. Sure enough, this model was like a new lease on the life of their marriage!  Now they look for opportunities to share their hope with other couples.

This is a true story.  Harry, Sally, and now hundreds of other couples have been successful in building a sober romance. They combine the insights they gain with the lessons they painstakingly learn in their own romance to be of service to others and carry the message and romantic promise of a shared program of recovery.

This article was written by John & Elaine Leadem, senior supervisors of the Leadem Counseling & Consulting offices in Toms River, NJ and East Brunswick, NJ. The content of this article is based on their soon to be published couples book from Leadem Counseling titled: Awakening To Your Soul Mate: A decision to be IN Love (Leadem & Leadem, 2013)