Who We Are
We are couples committed to restoring healthy communication, caring, and greater intimacy to our coupleships. We suffer from many problems, some identified and some not, some treated and some not. We also come from different levels of brokenness. Many of us have been separated or near divorce. Some of us are new in our coupleships and seek to build intimacy together. We have all sought healing in Recovering Couples Anonymous (RCA).
Our primary purpose is to stay committed in loving and intimate relationships and to help other couples achieve freedom from dysfunctional relationships.
We all have family-of-origin issues and a history of past relationships. We may not have gotten what we needed—emotionally, physically, mentally, or spiritually—when we were growing up. There may have been physical, sexual, spiritual, or emotional abuse. There may have been abandonment or neglect. We bring “baggage” to the coupleship.
Thus, we deal with memories of past hurts, misbehavior, and perhaps vows violated. Blaming our partners is likely the most devastating aspect of dysfunctional relationships. Blaming becomes so second nature that we are often unaware when we do it.
Our History
Recovering Couples Anonymous was founded in the fall of 1988 in Golden Valley, Minnesota. Several couples completed a seminar which focused on working the Twelve Steps in intimate relationships. RCA groups were formed independently in California at about the same time. Couples from the groups discovered over time that the same Twelve Steps that had helped them recover individually from different addictions also helped to build the health of their coupleships.
Our Philosophy
Each partner needs to take responsibility for the dysfunction of the coupleship. We do not seek to blame our partners. Our partners may have chosen to medicate the pain of their loneliness with various addictions. We do not seek to take responsibility for these behaviors. As two people, however, we both bring family-of-origin messages, abuse experiences, expectations, abilities, and individual coping mechanisms (including addictions) into the relationship. We must take responsibility for these behaviors and learn new ways to deal with them.
In RCA, we believe that a coupleship is like an infant, needing constant nurturing and care from both partners. It is important that each partner accept mutual responsibility for the problems or progress of the coupleship, and furthermore, that both recognize their own individual development and recovery as essential factors for couple recovery.
RCA Membership
The only requirement for RCA membership is a desire to remain in a committed relationship. Ultimately, we feel it is important for both members of a couple to be involved in individual recovery, or other spiritual work, for real progress to be made in the coupleship. It is not, however, a requirement to get started in couple recovery. RCA is a safe place to begin that healing process, and it offers support for continued individual work. We refuse no couple who wishes to recover.