Strengths and Support Exercise

This is the companion to Strengths and Support Questions. That worksheet is about discovering your partner's gifts. This one is about your own — naming them, noticing how much of each one you are actually living, and saying out loud what would help. If you have not done the questions worksheet yet, either order works.

My Gifts

List your gifts in the first column — things you are good at, drawn to, or have always been able to do. Then estimate two percentages: how much of that gift you are actually using in your life right now, and how well your partner understands it. The two numbers are rarely the same, and the gap between them is worth talking about.

Worked example: Gift: Music. Utilized: 20%. Partner understands it: 50%. How I apply it now: teaching my daughter piano. Dreams for it: playing piano at church, learning to compose songs, posting them online.

My gifts

Row 1

• My gift: ____________________
• % I use it: ____________________
• % my partner understands it: ____________________
• How I apply it now: ____________________
• My dreams for it: ____________________

Row 2

• My gift: ____________________
• % I use it: ____________________
• % my partner understands it: ____________________
• How I apply it now: ____________________
• My dreams for it: ____________________

Row 3

• My gift: ____________________
• % I use it: ____________________
• % my partner understands it: ____________________
• How I apply it now: ____________________
• My dreams for it: ____________________

Row 4

• My gift: ____________________
• % I use it: ____________________
• % my partner understands it: ____________________
• How I apply it now: ____________________
• My dreams for it: ____________________

Row 5

• My gift: ____________________
• % I use it: ____________________
• % my partner understands it: ____________________
• How I apply it now: ____________________
• My dreams for it: ____________________

I Would Feel More Supported If My Partner…

Three specific things. Not "cared more" — something your partner could actually do this month.

1.

e.g. I would feel more supported if my partner…

______________________________________________

2.

e.g. I would feel more supported if my partner…

______________________________________________

3.

e.g. I would feel more supported if my partner…

______________________________________________

This Doesn't Happen Now Because…

Check whichever is true. More than one can be. Each of these leads somewhere different, which is why it is worth being honest about which one it is.

• [ ] I am not sure what I really want.
• [ ] I know, but I don't say it.
• [ ] My partner doesn't seem to listen or care.
• [ ] My partner listens, but doesn't follow through.

A gift at 20% is still a gift: Most people finish this grid a little deflated — the percentages are lower than they hoped. But the number is not a verdict on the gift, it is a measurement of the room you have been given. The point of writing it down is that a percentage can be raised, and the person best placed to help raise it is sitting across from you and has probably never been told the number.

Go deeper

Ready for more? These lessons pick up where this worksheet leaves off.

• Who I Am, in My Own Words, from The Neurodiverse Couples Repair Program. Each partner finishes five plain sentences about who they are and how they work, reads the page to the other, and is heard.
• The Love List, from The Neurodiverse Couples Repair Program. The Love List for neurodiverse couples: twenty specific things that make you feel loved, read aloud in session and posted where you see them.
• The Roles We Fall Into, from The Neurodiverse Couple. How couples drift into lopsided roles and the parent-child trap, and how to renegotiate around real strengths.