How Thought Distortions Affect Relationships and What You Can Do About Them

There’s a good chance that misunderstandings and wrong beliefs are causing many struggles you might be having in your relationship, you have about yourself, your partner, and other people. It’s common for people to have a biased way of thinking without even realizing that they are in the wrong.

It’s only when someone shows them with practical examples that they can begin to realize how skewed their beliefs have been. These misconceptions and incorrect beliefs are called thought distortions, and they are behind many of the issues people have in relationships.

A thought distortion is like a lens on a camera. When placed on a camera, a lens will distort or enhance reality in different ways, making everything seem broader, darker, or exaggerating small details to seem enormous. Similarly, sometimes people see the world through a lens that distorts reality.

They see the ordinary things others see as malicious and hurtful, and they focus on minor issues until they become big deals while ignoring other information. When you understand which lens or thought distortion you are viewing the world through, you can begin to challenge your point of view and change the way you think about yourself and your loved ones.

Examples of Thought Distortions

There is a small list of thought distortions, and each one has been named. This is to make it easier to identify and label the exact thought distortion you have been affected by, so that you can begin challenging it. You may have been viewing life through multiple lenses, but it is also possible to identify and challenge each one.

Perhaps you draw broad conclusions about people based on one interaction. Let’s say that your partner forgot about your birthday, and you concluded that they no longer care about you or the relationship anymore. This is called overgeneralization, and it causes you to come to unfair and untrue conclusions about others.

Over time, overgeneralization will cause your partner to feel constantly judged and mistrusted by you, because their small mistakes have an intense effect on you. If you frequently come to the worst conclusions about your partner’s actions, you could be affected by overgeneralization.

Similar to overgeneralization is personalization. Rather than making assumptions about your partner’s behavior, though, this is when you take too much responsibility for your own behavior. You regularly assume that you have done something wrong, even when there isn’t a problem.

Your partner might be quiet because they are decompressing from a stressful day, but you assume that they are quiet because you did something to upset them. As with many of the other thought distortions, personalization will cause you to become defensive even when nothing is wrong, and you will feel attacked even when receiving balanced feedback.

One of the most common thought distortions in relationships is mind-reading. This is exactly what it sounds like: you form conclusions about your partner and your relationship without even checking in with them or asking questions.

You assume that they have lost interest in you because they have become slower at responding to texts, or you believe that they are lying when they say they are not in a bad mood. Besides being frustrating and disrespectful to your partner, mind-reading will cause you to withdraw and feel resentful even when there is no real issue.

Emotional reasoning often goes hand in hand with mind-reading. This is when you treat your feelings as if they are facts. Examples of this are “I am anxious, so that must mean they are pulling away from me” or “I feel numb, so that means I have lost interest in the relationship.” When you make decisions based on your emotions, it is impulsive and will lead you to unfairly accuse your partner, threaten them, or become clingy and insecure.

Alongside emotional reasoning is catastrophic thinking. This is when you blow events out of proportion and expect the worst outcome from them. One fight can feel like the end of the relationship, or a perceived flirtatious remark to a stranger could lead you to assume that your partner wants to be unfaithful. This increases anxiety and causes you to constantly seek reassurance or stay on the offensive with your partner.

Often, these thoughts have a significant impact on your relationship. It’s important to remember that your relationship is a lot stronger than you are giving it credit for.

Challenging Thought Distortions

There are many other thought distortions, and it helps to become aware of them. The first step in challenging and overcoming them is knowing what they are in the first place. At any point in your relationship, you can self-reflect on an incident and ask yourself if you might have had a lens over your thinking. If so, identify which thought distortion you were viewing it through.

It helps to keep a journal, whether physical or digital, to track your thoughts in real time. You can be as detailed or minimal as you like, but record things like the situation, the emotion you felt in that moment, and your corresponding thoughts about it.

For example, you could write down that you argued with your partner, that you felt afraid in that moment, and that your corresponding thought was that they are planning on leaving you. You have identified the emotion you felt in the moment and can deduce that you were looking at the event through the distorted lens of emotional reasoning. Keeping a written record like this will help you see your blind spots and root out any thought distortions.

Keeping a journal is just the start of the self-reflection work you must do to challenge these thought distortions. The real work begins when you begin considering alternative thoughts in relation to the events in your relationship. Using the previous example in the journal, if you had an argument with your partner and you felt anxious that they were going to leave you, you could ask the following questions as a challenge to your thoughts:

• Do you have any evidence that they are planning on leaving you?
• What can you do to feel more secure in the relationship?
• Is there evidence that proves the opposite? In other words, is there evidence that your partner wants to stay with you?

When you can name the thought distortion and the emotion surrounding it, you can begin challenging it with structured questions like these. When you do this regularly, you will find a new perspective on events in your life and gather evidence that contradicts your thoughts and emotions.

This can be an uncomfortable process because you are changing your mental and emotional foundations. This is necessary both for your mental health and for the long-term health of your relationship.

You’re not a bad person for having thought distortions. They are common, but they are also damaging. To grow as an individual and to become a better partner, you must understand which lens you are viewing the world through and begin the process of removing it from your thinking.

Feelings are not facts, but they do help you understand more about yourself and your loved ones. Regardless of what happened in the past, you can still grow, mature, and save your relationship.

Support on Your Journey

Growing and changing is not easy to do alone, and it helps to have someone else to give their perspective on your struggles. This is why people go for counseling; it helps to have an informed, neutral third party to offer their insight and prompt you to figure things out for yourself.

If you would like to find a counselor, you can start by checking out the online catalog of counselors on this website. You may also speak with the reception team, who will be happy to help you find someone who can support you on your journey to challenge thought distortions in your life. Connect with the team today.