Your Next Healthy Relationship: Ending Old Patterns in Choosing Partners

Overview: This community education class can help participants take a fresh look at motivations and actions in seeking and engaging with an intimate partner. It is designed to help build understanding about role expectations in our society and the thought and behavior patterns people use that can consciously or unconsciously align with those expectations. Duration: 12 weeksTime: 2 hours per session Cost: Free Who Should Attend: Individuals 18 or older who feel they repeat patterns in their intimate relationships that end up in the same way with negative or possibly harmful outcomes.

People often end up experiencing multiple poor or failed intimate relationships because they keep being attracted to--or attracting--the same attitudes and behaviors (often, the same type of person). When and how does this situation become evident? When friends or family speak up because they question the harm being done to children by a revolving relationship door? When it seems there are no good partners available?

This class and support group will explore how to clarify and maintain a personal center and sense of self when moving into a potential new relationship. It will also present skills to strengthen personal abilities to identify and express needs and wants to effectively manage safe boundaries.

What You Will Learn

• How to recognize and evaluate various social and cultural forces that drive gender roles and expectations
• How to assess early influencers (e.g., family of origin, friends of childhood and youth) – what and how do people learn about what is correct or acceptable in relationships?
• How to identify the ways power is exercised in intimate partner relationships
• How to determine what is important in a relationship and what each person brings to a relationship to support this
• How to identify the strengths, needs and values of partners and assess them for compatibility or alignment

Session Topics

• Is it Me? In a Word, Yes
• The Social Construction of Gender and Role Expectations in our Society
• Differences Between Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships
• The Impact of the Revolving Relationship Door
• When Positive Traits Don't Complement and Negative Traits Fit Like a Glove
• I Actually Want That, but I Ask for This
• The Art of Seduction and the Skill of Manipulation -- The Complexity of Power Dynamics in Relationships
• Alone vs Lonely
• What Do You Really Want?
• Assessing Your Contribution Value
• Understanding Your Power and Resources
• Review and Close