Journaling to Examine Relationships

The use of journaling in therapy has nearly unlimited uses.  Many things can be gleaned about our subconscious thoughts and feelings from a journal which lead to countless teachable skills.  For example, food journaling can help you recognize the extra or unhealthy calories that you consume. A journal of the tasks you complete in a day can help you identify patterns of wasted time or tasks with which you routinely struggle.  This can help you gain more self-awareness regarding your abilities to complete tasks within deadlines and focus your attention on areas where you might want to request assistance.

I also often prescribe journaling for anyone who is questioning whether or not to stay in a relationship.  Relationships with significant others often invoke nostalgic feelings or associations that make it difficult for you to evaluate them objectively.  Our memories of better times often make us overlook serious flaws in the relationship, but I regularly see the opposite effect as well.  Unresolved negative feelings toward another person can begin to color our feelings about benign interactions, leading to thoughts that “everything” in the relationship is bad.  In these cases, I suggest keeping a daily journal that records general thoughts and feelings about interactions with your significant other as well as details about important interactions.  Sometimes I even suggest a rating scale of 1-10 every day to assess the level of positive regard you have for your significant other.  Each week I suggest that you review your journal when you are feeling calm.  It is not unusual for the journal to tell a very different story from the perception you have formed in your head.  You may see that you gave your spouse a high rating five out of seven days and that there were a lot of positive interactions that you forgot about when one negative interaction occurred. 

A similar style of journaling can also be used to help you make a realization that a relationship is unhealthy.  When you meet someone during a major life transition (a divorce, death, break-up, etc.) you may be drawn to them because they are meeting an emotional need that has long gone unmet.  For instance, a controlling person who wants to be involved in every aspect of your life may seem wonderful to you if you have been in a marriage where you felt ignored.  However, often as your life is rebuilt and you reconnect with other facets that help fill that need you may begin to feel that the negatives in the relationship far outweigh the positive ones.  Daily journaling about the relationship can help you to recognize that the powerful positive feelings evoked when your previously unsatisfied needs were initially met early in the relationship are not based on the reality of how this person treats you.  It can help you view the relationship objectively so that you may realize the relationship has run its course and is no longer a healthy one for you.

So if you are questioning a relationship that you are currently involved in, journal before you make the decision whether to end it or continue it.  While you should never stay in a relationship that doesn’t make you feel good, sometimes emotional triggers and associations cause you to feel that a relationship is unsalvageable when it may not be.  Make sure that you take the time to process all available information from a calm place before you call it quits (unless you are being physically abused - NOTHING is salvageable about a relationship involving abuse).  You may be surprised how emotional baggage can color what you see.