Is RCA For You?

Do any of these statements relate to either you or your partner?

1. Being together and unhappy is safer than being alone.

2. It is safer to be with other people than it is to be alone and intimate with our partner.

3. If I really let my partner know what I've done or what I'm feeling and thinking (who I am), (s)he will leave me.

4. It is easier to hide (medicate) our feelings through addictive/compulsive behavior than it is to express them.

5. Being enmeshed and totally dependent with each other is perceived as being in love.

6. We find it difficult to ask for what we need, both individually and as a couple.

7. Being sexual is equal to being intimate.

8. We either avoid our problems or feel we are individually responsible for solving the problems we have as a couple.

9. We believe that we must agree on everything.

10. We believe that we must enjoy the same things and have the same interests.

11. We believe that to be a good couple we must be socially acceptable.

12. We have forgotten how to play together.

13. It is safer to get upset about little issues than to express our true feelings about larger ones.

14. It is easier to blame our partners than it is to accept our own responsibility.

15. We deal with conflict by getting totally out of control or by not arguing at all.

16. We experience ourselves as inadequate parents.

17. We are ashamed of ourselves as a couple.

18. We repeat patterns of dysfunction from our families-of-origin.