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Below is a list of seventeen personal values and life goals to which you may aspire. In addition are seventeen qualities you may want in your committed relationship, arranged in alphabetical order. Dr. Paul Standal finds it very helpful for his single and premarital clients to have a clear understanding and awareness of the relative importance of the values and the qualities they desire in any committed relationship. It is interesting to note that, when you declare the importance of these qualities in your life, they tend to show up. Your task is to arrange them in order of their importance to you as guiding principles in YOUR life.

Study the list carefully. Then place a 1 next to the value that is most important for you; place a 2 next to the value that is second most important to you, etc. The value which is least important, relative to the others, should be rated 3.

Work slowly and carefully. If you change your mind feel free to change your answers. The end result should truly show how you really feel.

Value
Rating
A comfortable life (a prosperous life)
1 2 3
Equality (brotherhood, equal opportunity for all)
1 2 3
An exciting life (a stimulating, active life)
1 2 3
Daily security (taking care of loved ones)
1 2 3
Freedom (independence, free choice)
1 2 3
Happiness (contentedness)
1 2 3
Inner harmony (freedom from inner conflict)
1 2 3
Mature love (sexual and spiritual intimacy)
1 2 3
National Security (protection from attack)
1 2 3
Leisure (enjoyable, leisurely life)
1 2 3
Spiritual Salvation (deliverance from sin, eternal life)
1 2 3
Self-respect (self-esteem)
1 2 3
A sense of accomplishment (making a lasting contribution)
1 2 3
Social recognition (respect, admiration)
1 2 3
True friendship (close companionship)
1 2 3
A world at peace (freedom from war and conflict)
1 2 3
A world of beauty (beauty of nature and the arts)
1 2 3
Other:
1 2 3

In the same manner, rank the following characteristic in importance that you want to have in a committed partner.

Characteristic
Rating
Ambitious (hard-working, aspiring)
1 2 3
Broadminded (open-minded)
1 2 3
Capable (competent, effective)
1 2 3
Cheerful (lighthearted, joyful)
1 2 3
Clean (neat, tidy)
1 2 3
Courageous (standing up for your beliefs)
1 2 3
Forgiving (willing to pardon others )
1 2 3
Helpful (working for the welfare of others)
1 2 3
Honest (sincere, truthful)
1 2 3
Imaginative (daring, creative)
1 2 3
Independent (self-reliant, self-sufficient)
1 2 3
Intellectual (intelligent, reflective)
1 2 3
Logical (consistent, rational)
1 2 3
Loving (affectionate, tender)
1 2 3
Obedient (dutiful, respectful)
1 2 3
Polite (courteous, well-mannered)
1 2 3
Self-controlled (restrained, self-disciplined)
1 2 3
Other:
1 2 3

Managing one’s emotions requires a balance between expression and containment of feelings. When and how we communicate feelings is something that we learn from our earliest experiences and from our natural temperament. Feelings can augment our communications or become an obstacle to reaching understanding and successful interactions with another person. The way we deal with and communicate our feelings is a balancing act that requires an emotional intelligence (EI). Fortunately, Dr. Paul Standal can help you develop and shape your EI through effective counseling and coaching. His goal is to make you an expert in managing your own emotions. Managing your emotions is like managing a business. In fact he often calls this skill “emotional entrepreneurship.”

1. We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.

Powerlessness over alcohol/drugs does not always mean daily or constant drinking. It means that using has become one of the most important things in our lives. Unmanageability simply means that we have done or said things that we would not have if alcohol/drugs were not a part of our lives. Abstinence is not a matter of willpower or intelligence. If it were, relapses would never happen and programs like this would not be necessary. In order to stay sober, WE MUST ADOPT NEW ATTITUDES AND TAKE NEW ACTIONS! Your bottom is defined by you. It is up to you to make this your bottom. If you relapse, it can always get worse. Remember, our best thinking got us here.

2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Step two can be viewed as having two aspects. The first aspect concerns the beginning of our spiritual development, which is the foundation of the AA/NA/CA program. Since we recognize that our lives are unmanageable (and will continue to be), we must now come to grips with a new manager, as the old one (the thinking mind) led us into the depths of deep despair, self-centeredness, loneliness, and separation from ourselves. We found that the thinking mind could not solve our problems. Thus, the conclusion that we must start to find a new manager of our lives (a power greater than ourselves) is paramount if we want to become happy, positive, and loving as we would like to be.

We came to believe that a power exists which is greater than ourselves—and this belief is absolutely necessary if we are to be honest and complete in working the remaining ten steps. At this point, all that is necessary is a truly open mind.

3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

The first requirement in doing step three is that we become convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. Obviously, the first two steps show, in no uncertain terms, the confusion caused by using self-will. Self-centeredness is the root of our troubles. So our troubles are basically of our own making. Above everything, we alcoholics/addicts must be rid of this selfishness. We must or it will kill us. We found that we could not reduce the self-centeredness much by wishing or relying on our own power. Thus we had to quit playing God. It did not work.

4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Internet based affairs and infidelity are becoming very common, perhaps the most common relational issue Dr. Paul Standal has been seeing with couples in distress in the last two years. The spectrum of infidelity is broad, ranging from casual use of internet porn to years-long affairs unknown to the spouse where the offending partner has set up an entire second family household.

Depending on their values, some couples may feel the use of pornography is a violation of trust and is viewed as an affair. When an extramarital sexual encounter is revealed and the partner is sufficiently distressed is usually when Dr. Standal sees a couple in his office.

Considering the level of betrayal the offended partner feels and the degree that they experience their trust has been violated, the damage is sometimes irreparable. In order to heal infidelity after the affair, you have to prioritize your relationship with the aggrieved party actively participating and be proactive with that partner in terms of doing behavioral repair.

Dr. Standal tries to help couples understand what has happened to them and help them understand the stages of repair, recovery and forgiveness that must take place in order to accommodate the beterayal. He explores and address common triggers, justifications and unrealistic expectations about marriage and relationships as well as other contributing factors, like substance use, that may have led to the extramarital sexual contacts.

He teaches concrete strategies to help the offended partner regain trust and to reach for possible forgiveness. He explores the ways that the offending partner can make amends to their partner and to help them understand, with empathy, the pain that they have caused someone they, in most cases, love.

The positive component of affairs is that they are often an impetus to growth and development for the couple. They learn what may be the unrealistic ideas about love and marriage that contributed to the breach in their relationship. Dr. Standal helps them find what may have been missing in their relationship that could have triggered the lack of intimacy or real engagemant. He helps couples learn to rekindle the spark that had been lost and to re-engage with each other emotionally and sexually.

Finally, he discusses the differences between married men and women in their personal meanings about their own and their spouse’s affair as well as differences in how they may approach possible reconciliation and forgivness.

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