5 contracts to make with your spouse's parts



An important piece to living with your loved one's system is entering into contractual relationships with different parts. These contracts can help the system to feel a little more in control as well. Here are a few contracts that I and others have found helpful and healthy.

1 no sex with children:
In this contract, both of you carry responsibility. You may not always know when a ‘little one’ is out, but you may have insight which signals the presence of a child alter. We want to protect those children and we want to let them know that we want to protect them. So the contract is that neither you nor your loved one will allow intimacy to happen when a child alter is present.

                        2 no suicide  (temporary contract)
The reason I call this a temporary contract is because I can’t make a blanket contract that she will never commit suicide. It needs to happen when I can tell that she is in danger of killing herself, or when she tells me that she has thoughts of suicide. The contract is simple. “You won’t kill yourself until 7 days from now and then we get to talk about it again.” This allows your loved one the necessary time and space to reconnect with life and rethink this option.


                        3 no frivolous spending
If your loved one has parts that like to going out and spending frivolously, you may need to draw up a contract in which she agrees not to spend over a certain dollar amount without first discussing it with you. It might even include an agreement to leave credit cards at home and carrying only limited amounts of cash.

                        4 no self-medicating
People with Dissociative Identity Disorder can tend to self-medication, whether that is an abuse of their prescription drugs, or alcohol or illegal drugs. The first thing we as significant others have to be aware of is whether we are enabling this habit. If you are contributing, stop! If you observe your spouses overuse of medication or alcohol you must try to get her to enter into a contract with you to stop. What your loved one doesn’t understand, is that while they believe the substance they are abusing seems to alleviate some of the pain, it is, in fact, intensifying their symptoms, and driving them into a deeper depression.

                        5 contracts with the therapist
Probably more importantly, your loved one will enter into contracts with their therapist. If she shares those contracts with you, you can help her to stay on target with those.


Please share if you have found other contracts useful.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

12 Ways to Build Trust with Someone Who has DID

Image
As we all know, trust cannot be demanded, it cannot be forced and it cannot be bought. Trust is built one day at a time and one interaction at a time. But trust can be lost in a single moment because of one action or one poor decision. While trust can be a tricky landscape to navigate in the best of relationships, those who love someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder battle can face more difficult terrain to navigate. Often, to no fault of our own, some of our loved one’s parts have no trust toward anyone, not even us. For those parts who do give us their trust, we want to be careful not to betray. It can be painful to overcome the backlash if we do break trust with our Significant Other’s parts. Here are some ways that I believe can help you build and maintain trust with your loved one’s parts. Do what you say When you say something, make sure that you also live by it. Be consistent always, showing your loved one that you are a man (or woman) of your word. Hono...
Read more

6 Myths about Dissociative Identity Disorder

Image
1) DID isn’t real Many people, even professional therapists don’t understand DID. People either dismiss this topic completely, or they believe it’s not real at all. In the 1980’s, this disorder received it’s first large scale attention. At that time it was known as MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder), which quickly fell into disrepute. In the 1990’s it was re-categorized as a dissociative disorder. Since the increased attention given to PTSD, DID seems (in my humble opinion) to have received more validity, even in the therapeutic community. 2) DID makes people dangerous or violent With Hollywood churning out movies like “Split”, the myth of DID is perpetuated.   These types of movies make it seem like people with DID are both dangerous and violent. By and large, people with DID are often no different than anyone else, accept that they have more than one pronounced personality. People with DID may pose a danger to themselves, but not usually towards others. 3) DID ...
Read more

Compare Dissociative Identity Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder

Image
If you or someone you love has DID, then you know that there is much confusion about what DID actually is. I have heard people compare it to schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder and others. Some of these may, at times, look similar, but once you drill down to a more complete picture of the symptoms you can begin to see the distinctions. What I have put together here is a general list, it is incomplete and one or the other symptom may manifest itself in one of the disorders that I did not list. But I wanted to offer a quick reference for three specific disorders. ·        Borderline Personality Disorder is at its simplest defined as: A mental disorder characterized by unstable moods, behavior, and relationships. ·        Bipolar Disorder is at it’s simplest: A disorder associated with episodes of mood swings ranging from depressive lows to manic highs. ·     ...
Read more