For successful and loving relationships to endure the ups and downs life brings, there needs to be a foundation of safety as its cornerstone. Without romantic safety, couples are unlikely to enjoy the depth of closeness and intimacy most partners crave. It is very difficult, or perhaps even impossible, for an individual who feels physically or emotionally threatened by his or her partner to risk trust and vulnerability.

In the RCA program, we are learning to face our problems as a couple. We are learning to express our true feelings—even about large issues. We are learning to fight fairly. Some of us are writing fair fighting contracts to help us express conflict respectfully.

Below is just one example of a fair fighting contract also called a Meeting of Two Agreement.

Click HERE for printable PDF

Honesty and personal responsibility are keys to this program. Before recovery many of us did not feel OK about ourselves, and we blamed somebody or something else—usually our partners. We focused on how we wanted to change our partners rather than recognizing how we needed to change ourselves. The blame was always on our partners. As we work the Twelve Steps of RCA, we begin to recognize we were the source of our own problems. We could only change ourselves, and we needed to change if we were going to feel better. We needed to reverse the process of blaming our partners by taking responsibility for our own behavior.