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There are many reasons why you may be addicted to substances, to pornography or to technology. Reasons such as mental health issues, family history of addiction or mental illness, former abuse that you have experienced and possibly trauma.

None of these are your fault.

Living with the impact of your addictions, however, is very challenging for your spouse and unless you do something about it, you will almost certainly destroy your relationship.

Addiction is not something you can deal with on your own. If you had the internal resources to deal with these challenges, you would not be addicted in the first place.

Start by taking the first step – face up to the reality of your addiction and agree to getting help. You may be surprised at how supportive your spouse is in your journey to healing if they know that you are doing what you can to help yourself.

Here is a link to a Help Guide for Addictions
https://www.helpguide.org/home-pages/addictions.htm

In this day and age, we get relationship advice from many places: friends, family, Google, books, lectures, workshops and therapists. Many of us become familiar with psychological concepts and are very adept at using psychological jargon.

If we are using this information for our own growth and development, with the intention of improving our relationships, it can be a very good thing.

Very often, however, once we read a book or learn a concept, we become REALLY good at identifying how are significant others are falling short and could do with a psychological tune up. We even begin diagnosing our loved with various psychological issues based on our newly acquired expertise.

We gently and not-so-gently remind them how they are not great at communication or are not practicing effective relationship skills. If we are in therapy, we might remind our spouse that they are not following the therapist's recommendations.

This is a fun and easy way to ruin a perfectly good relationship as our...

An easy way to ruin a perfectly good relationship is to NEVER EVER accept responsibility for anything. If your spouse makes a complaint, counter that with a counter attack or criticise them for bringing up the issue.

When we do this, it pretty much guarantees that our significant other will stop bringing up issues that bother them. The issues will fester and grow and impact other areas of our relationship.

For some of us, our defensiveness is truly unconscious. We immediately and impulsively refute or rebut whenever our spouses bring up actions and behaviours that are causing a problem in the relationship.

If we do not want to ruin our relationships, however, we do need to pause when we feel the urge to be defensive. Pausing allows us to reflect on what our spouse is truly saying and asking of us. What part of it can we take responsibility for? What can we acknowledge and commit to changing?

Complaining is great for relationships but criticism is very destructive.

What's the difference?

When you are complaining, you are focused on an issue which is bothering you and you are giving your spouse information on what bothers you, why it bothers you and how to make it better.

This is what a complaint sounds like:
"When you leave your socks on the floor after you change your clothes, it frustrates me since I like to have the floor free of clutter. Please put them in the laundry basket instead."

A complaint involves taking ownership of the way the issue makes you feel and it invites the other to support you through a clear request of change in behaviour.

Criticism on the other hand, involves attacking the other person's character or personality. It does not give information for change and causes defensiveness in the other person.

"You always leave your socks on the floor. How selfish can you be? You don't care that I spent so much time clearing up. Why can't you pick up after...

In Sura Anfal (8:1) the Quran says: So be God-conscious and settle your disputes.

This verse which was revealed after the battle of Badr when Muslims had differences between themselves regarding the splitting of war booty, refers to a key principle of a harmonious social life.

In any relationship, personal, work related or social, it is normal to have differences and conflict. Such differences exist in the healthiest of relationships. What sets good relationships apart from the unhealthy ones, is not the presence of difference or conflcit, but how it is handled. Differences create issues in relationships when they turn into disputes, that is when narrow-minded self interest and ego turns differences into oppurutnities for a win-lose battle.

This verse reminds us that there will be differences and conflict in our relationships and that we need to move beyond them. The verse also relates God consciousness to settling of disputes, reminding us that when we are in conflict,...

In Sura Saff (61:2), Allah says: O you who believe! Why do you say that which you do not do?

Reflection: One of the qualities of the faithful is that there is integrity and harmony between their speech and their actions. This means that they can be counted on to tell the truth and to carry out what they promise or intend to do. Scholars explain that to promise a thing which one intends not to do is a sign of hypocrisy whilst to promise and intend an action but be unable to carry it out is a sign of weakness.

Being your word, that is carrying out what you pledge and promise to do is considered in Islam to be a hallmark of the faithful. Imam Ali (as) in one of his letters to Malik Ashtar commands him to be true to his word, even it be to the enemy. He writes, "If you conclude an agreement between yourself and your enemy or enter into a pledge with him then fulfil your agreement and discharge your pledge faithfully. Place yourself as a shield against whatever you have pledged because...

In Sura Hujarat (49:11), it says: O believers, let no group make fun of another, for they may be better than them.

Reflection: Mocking means to say something which degrades someone and puts them down. It could be a verbal "joke", a rolling of the eyes, an imitation of gait, word or accent or something even more subtle than that. The aim of mocking is to ridicule the other and make others laugh at the person.

This is often done in the guise of humour and the person who is mocking may lead others to believe that they are humourless or boring if they don't 'get the joke'. When called out on what they are doing, those who are mocking may tell others to "chill out" or "don't take it so seriously".

Yet, if the language of mockery removes the property of humour, the statements show up as merely nasty. Humour appears to give a gloss of moral invisibility to statements "made in jest"—but perhaps we should be more hesitant and reflective about what we're participating in and doing. And...

Sura Maidah (5:2) says: O, You who believe . . . help one another in goodness and piety.

Reflection: Cooperating with others in goodness is one of the basic principles for a society build on spiritual and ethical values. When people of faith work together, they motivate and provide encouragement and enthusiasm for each other. The energies of the universe synchronize to further a cause which is thus initiated.

Why? All of us have different and complementary talents. When we cooperate and work together as a team, we create synergy, which is an interaction of multiple elements to produce a result greater than the sum of their individual effects. To put it simply, when two people combine different talents to cooperate on a worthy project, their efforts produce the equivalent not of four people but rather the work of twentytwo.

How: Sometimes we want to go it alone, either because we find it difficult to work with others, or because we want the limelight of good actions on ourself. Or we...

Sura Nisa verse 4:36: And do good to parents, the relatives, the orphans, the needy, the near neighbour and the distant neighbour.

Reflection: Islam is all about honouring our vertical relationship with Him and our horizontal relationships with others. One of the categories of people whose rights we need to be mindful of are neighbours.

Islam considers forty homes around ours, in all four directions, as being neighbours and the verse specifies that we need to do good to both the near and the distant neighbours.

In other words, doing good should extend to the whole neighbourhood or community in which we live.

Why? Such a simple commandment that can greatly improve the quality of our lives and society as a whole. When we live in neighbourhoods that are strongly connected and secure, our daily lives are enhanced and our children benefit.

How? What does being a good neighbour mean to you? Are you careful of not being a nusiance? Do you watch out for their property in their absense or...

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been exploring the wisdom in The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever.

The book really helps the reader recognize how we can be "advice giving maniacs" and how we often don't even know what the problem is, but we've got some thoughts about how to go around fixing it. (it is SO easy isn't it – to give advice on how to fix problems we don't know much about!!)

I hope that you have been playing with the questions at work and at home and are beginning to explore the power of these simple questions to make us effective in our interactions and communications with others. Once we begin 'playing' with the questions (however imperfectly) and notice the power, we are likely to want to do more of it.

In the book, Stanier offers great suggestions on how to use the questions in what he calls "Question Asking Master classes" and on how to practice the questions so that they become a habit. If you are looking for what...