Is it possible to enjoy a long-term and committed relationship with an adult child of an alcoholic? Is it possible to have a committed and long-term intimate relationship if you are an adult child of an alcoholic?

Of course it is possible. Being the son or the daughter of an alcoholic is not a life-sentence of some variety although at some points in a person’s life it may seem like it.

Here are keys to such a relationship and they may be helpful to all relationships:

• Conflicts are not the end or even the beginning of the end or a sign that things will end.
• Regard conflict as healthy and a necessary component of love.
• Healthy people work things out, talk things through, find resolutions to issues, they don’t move on in the face of conflict.
• Healthy people move towards conflict and not away from it.
• It’s possible to accommodate (change, adjust) without losing.
• It is possible for both parties to grow through learning to accommodate.
• Being loving is more important than being right.
• Fragile people in fragile circumstances say things to partners who may be equally fragile that are hard to undo – caution and love and patience are essential with people who have grown up in families that endured regular conflict.

Posted on April 24, 2017 at 10:04 pm in Addictions, Betrayal, Boundaries, Communication, Difficult Relationships   |  RSS feed |   Reply   |   Trackback URL