[CHAPTER 2]
Start with the following questionnaire, which is designed to stimulate your thinking about your current relationship an how it has affected you. We will use these insights and this information as we move forward in creating clarity about what's going on in your relationship. This questionnaire presents the beginnings of forty-two sentences. You are to finish each sentence with an honest and spontaneous thought. Do not spend a great amount of time contemplating any one item. Your first reaction will probably be the most revealing.
RED ALERT: You must be brutally candid in all of your responses. Resist the temptation to put down a "right" answer. No one need see these responses but you. If you soft-pedal now, you are cheating yourself and your partner later.
To help maintain your confidentiality and for ease of responding, I recommend that you use a journal to record your thoughts. Thinking about answers in your head versus writing them down on paper is distinctly different. By writing out your answers, you are forced in the direction of coherency and completeness, which is particularly important now that you will be pulling together a number of different thoughts, feelings and responses. Being able to reflect back on certain thought that you have preserved in writing will also be invaluable as we move forward. A journal provides some of the objectivity that you need when you are evaluating yourself.
Make sure, however, that your journal
is for your eyes only. In fact, protect the privacy and confidentiality
of your journal at every turn. It is important that you feel free and uninhibited
in your writings. Nothing less will give you the clarity you need to make
the changes and create the relationship that you want.
| 1. | I tend to deny ............. |
| 2. | I am happiest when ............. |
| 3. | Sometimes I ............. |
| 4. | What makes me angry is ............. |
| 5. | I wish ............. |
| 6. | I hate it when ............. |
| 7. | When I get angry I ............. |
| 8. | I would give anything if my partner would ............. |
| 9. | Sometimes ............. |
| 10. | I would be more lovable if ............. |
| 11. | My mother and father ............. |
| 12. | If only I had ............. |
| 13. | My best quality is ............. |
| 14. | Sometimes at night ............. |
| 15. | When I was a child ............. |
| 16. | My worst trait is ............. |
| 17. | My life really changed when ............. |
| 18. | If my relationship ends it will be because ............. |
| 19. | My partner hates it when I ............. |
| 20. | When I am alone I ............. |
| 21. | My partner gets angry when ............. |
| 22. | My partner's greatest fear is ............. |
| 23. | It hurts me when my partner ............. |
| 24. | I feel the most lonely when ............. |
| 25. | I am afraid ............. |
| 26. | I love ............. |
| 27. | We used to laugh more because ............. |
| 28. | It would be best if ............. |
| 29. | Friends ............. |
| 30. | I feel like a phony when ............. |
| 31. | I can't forgive ............. |
| 32. | Together we ............. |
| 33. | What surprises me is ............. |
| 34. | I believe ............. |
| 35. | Other people think ............. |
| 36. | Men ............. |
| 37. | Women ............. |
| 38. | I regret ............. |
| 39. | It doesn't pay to ............. |
| 40. | It helps when we ............. |
| 41. | If only ............. |
| 42. | We never seem to ............. |
Whether you realize it or not, your answers to these questions have provided you with some important revelations about your attitudes and some equally important patterns or trends in your behavior. Based on your forty-two responses, now answer the following questions: