What Does Your Relationship House Look Like?

No, not your actual house, your relationship house. What is your foundation based on? What are you allowing inside your walls? What are you keeping outside of your house in order to preserve your happiness and mental health?

This is an exercise that I often use with clients who are working to understand why their relationships feel toxic, stuck, or out of balance. Grab a piece of paper and a pencil (a pencil so we can make changes when change is needed).

We are going to start by drawing the Foundation of a our house. This is the strong concrete base that our entire house (relationship) is going to be built on. Within your foundation write down the things that are important, a must for you to build on. Examples would be respect, good communication, kindness, etc.

The next step is to draw your house on top of your foundation. Within your two walls and just above your foundation write down your Preferences in a relationship, things that are important to you. This can be things like hobbies you enjoy, places you like to travel, forms of entertainment. The things that you hope to share with someone.

Above preferences we are going to list your relationship Negotiables. These are areas of a relationship where you are willing to have compromise. Things in which we would be willing to learn about and experience with our partners, friends or families.

Finally, on the outside of your house we are going to identify and write down our Non-Negotiables. These are areas of a relationship that are unhealthy and that you are setting strict boundaries around. Examples of non-negotiables are forms of abuse (physical, emotional, neglect). These can also be things like family planning, your religion or spirituality, etc.

I’ve included a basic example drawing which demonstrates a couple things. One, how helpful it can be to consider these areas of relationship and identify the uniqueness that is you and what is important to you. It also demonstrates that I am a much better therapist than I am an artist.

Make it stand out