You. Me. Forever. 10 Ideas to Include in Your Couple’s Journal
The key to keep your relationship thriving is building great memories, and one great way to do this is with a couple’s journal.
As a couple, you should have a plan to help keep you both on track. A healthy plan includes building great memories together, something that should be a priority, not just an afterthought.
In order to build wealth, financial advisors recommend paying yourself before your bills.
This is the same effect a couple’s journal can have on your relationship. By putting dedicated time and energy into one another before anything else, you are investing in building a solid future together.
A couple’s journal is a shared diary you both visit on a regular basis, either daily or weekly as your schedule permits. You use this journal to learn more about one another, make plans together, set common and individual goals, share thoughts and communicate, all while learning more about one another.
It should be a fun activity, not something you dread, and if done right, it will be just that!
10 Ways to Use Your Couple’s Journal to Grow Your Relationship
Record Photos and Feelings
When you both look back at this journal in years to come, you will treasure the photos and the feelings those photos bring forth.
The memories you build, which I like to call pennies in the jar, are like a form of relationship insurance. When a couple has strong, happy memories together, they are more likely to want to stay together than to go find someone new.
With each photograph, you can both write something about the photo, including where it was taken, how you felt while you were there and what was so memorable about the experience.
Share Positive Thoughts and Memories in Your Love Journal
A couple’s journal is a place for positive memories, not quarreling. Your journal should be something you return to, years from now, and regard with fondness and warmth.
Yes, men can communicate!
It can be a place where you communicate your deepest thoughts, desires and emotions, safe from judgement and ridicule.
Even better, it can be a place where you share with your partner how much you appreciate him for different things he does or the way he acts in certain situations.
“It makes me feel so loved when you take the extra time to put away your clean laundry.”
Use Your Couple’s Journal to Give Compliments to One Another
Life gets hectic! There may be days where you and your guy are like ships passing in the night. You can still connect with one another in a great way by providing a compliment, even if he’s not there to see it immediately!
“I truly appreciated how well you cleaned up the breakfast dishes this morning! I was in a hurry and it really made me happy to come home from work tonight without a mess to clean up!”
Everyone likes to be appreciated and this is a great way to let a man know that the little things he does for you don’t go unnoticed! Just like you, he wants to feel appreciated for his efforts.
Show Your Gratitude
If there’s one thing you should have in your couple’s journal, it’s gratitude statements. They don’t necessarily even need to be about the other person, but some of them should.
“I am so grateful for being able to go to work in a job I love every day!”
“I am grateful for the way you make me feel special by rubbing my back when I’m tired.”
For a man, these are little cues about you that he can latch onto. He can also express to you the ways in which he’s grateful for you and your life together.
Being grateful, in general, helps you see the positives in your life, especially when everything seems to be falling apart.
Share Your Hopes and Dreams
What a better way to use a couple’s journal than to dream about your next big adventure together! This makes me think of the movie, Up! Even though it’s a cartoon, it’s a really cool movie to watch!
If you haven’t seen it, an older man and a young boy strike out on an adventure together. At the end of their adventure, the man opens the journal he and his now-deceased wife kept and realizes that she wanted him to continue his adventure without her.
This movie puts life in perspective!
What if this was your last year to spend together? What types of adventures would you want to go on together? What dreams would you want to fulfill?
Use Your Couple’s Journal as a Tool for Communication
Sometimes, communication can be difficult. Men have times in their lives when they retreat into their own little cocoon in order to re-evaluate, problem solve or lick their wounds.
While your instinct might be to try to nurture him out of it, a better way to communicate with him during his difficult time is to ask him a question in your journal.
You can also share stories of difficult times in your own life. While these may not prompt immediate discussion, it isn’t something he’s likely to forget.
You can write letters to one another, either randomly, or for special occasions or difficult trials in your relationship. Communication doesn’t always come naturally to a man in a relationship but if he can write it down, he may be more willing to share.
Share Your Feelings
Keeping in mind that this is a positive space, share your feelings with your guy. Even if you’re telling him how frustrated you were with something he did, it’s important to write that as a feelings statement, rather than an accusation.
He will respond much better to:
“Tom, it really made me feel invisible when you ignored me at the Baker’s party last weekend.”
Than he will to:
“The next time we go out and you treat me like crap, I’M LEAVING!”
You can even provide him with hints on how it might be better next time:
“It’s fine if you want to go off and hang out with your friends at a party, but I would enjoy the party more if we could do things as a couple too.”
Complaints should be at a minimum, though. This is the space to share the joyful moments!
“Sharing the birth of our first child with you was the most amazing experience of my life.”
Inspire One Another through Your Couple’s Journal
If you have favorite quotes you love, people who inspire you or things you’re passionate about, share them with your guy.
Write down how you felt on that mountain top
Use this space to inspire him to grow as an individual or as a way to promote growth as a couple.
What do you want out of life? What does he want out of life? How can you inspire one another to achieve those goals?
Your couple’s journal is the unique history of your life together. It is a tool by which you can grow together and form an unbreakable bond. It’s the place from which the dreams of your life together are laid bare.
Record Lasting Memories
Not all memories come from big vacations on the beach, weddings and other large celebrations. Some of the best memories come from the smallest of things.
Your couple’s journal is a great place to write down that time you forgot to put the entire amount of flour in the cookies and they spread all over the pan or the time he put fertilizer on the lawn…except for that one strip down the middle.
Your yearly trips to the apple orchard or to pick out that perfect Christmas tree (or the Charlie Brown one!) can be logged in your journal.
Save Mementos
The ticket from the first movie you saw together or a napkin from the first bar you went to together are great mementos to take you back to those exciting moments of your young relationship.
As your relationship grows and builds, you can save other items with meaning like wedding invitations, markers of goals achieved or results of shared hobbies like photographs or printed documents.
You can also store the names of songs that mean something to both of you, poems, cards or other items that only the two of you can appreciate.
The Power is in the Memories
Memories shore up your relationship and help to keep it affair proof. They are things shared just between the two of you, things that can’t be undone.
This can become a fundamental communication tool between the two of you and an invaluable resource for growth as a couple.
Couples who have a strong emotional bond report a higher quality relationship and this comes from using more than one form of communication and sharing.
A couple’s journal is a way for you to recall things you’ve done in the past to keep things fresh. There’s nothing wrong with recycling an activity you both highly enjoyed, like a two-hour drive in the country or a trip to a museum.
If you make this an activity that’s fun and not drudgery, your guy will get on board. It might take him couple weeks or so to become excited about it, but if you’re patient and not demanding, he’ll get there.
The post You. Me. Forever. 10 Ideas to Include in Your Couple’s Journal appeared first on Who Holds the Cards Now.
