Your Marriage Problems are All in Your Head

I’m not saying you are crazy.

But I am saying that your thought patterns affect your marriage. I remember sitting at the dinner table with my daughter in her high chair and my 2-year-old son, watching the clock. Tick tock tick tock. These thoughts ran through my mind, “Why is my husband 20 minutes late? He knows the kids are hungry and can’t wait.” Tick tock tick tock. “He is 30 minutes late and hasn’t even called. If he loved me he would at least call”. Tick tock tick tock. “This is so boring just sitting here with 2 children who can’t even carry a conversation--why is he doing this to me?”

Finally, the garage door went up, and how do you think I greeted him at the door? Since I had spent 30 minutes brewing angry thoughts, guess what came out of my mouth? Angry words.



The good man brings good things out of the
good stored up in his heart, and the evil
man brings evil things out of the evil stored
up in his heart. For out of the overflow of
his heart his mouth speaks.
~ Luke 6:45
Imagine you had a cup of hot tea in your hand and your husband bumped your arm and it spilled onto the table. What came out of the cup? Hot tea. If you had coffee, then coffee would have spilled out.

In the same way, if you are filling your mind with bitter thoughts towards your husband, then when your “cup gets bumped” what’s going to spill out? Bitter words. But if your mind is filled with good thoughts, then when your “cup gets bumped” what is going to spill out? Compassion and forgiveness.

What have you stored up in your heart towards your husband? Are your thoughts of him good? They were when you were dating! Many of our marriage problems begin in our heads--in our thought patterns. If we play a recording over and over of selfish and bitter thoughts then we can expect to have a bumpy ride in marriage.

Here’s how this dinner scenario went once I matured and learned that getting into "World War III" with my husband is more miserable than eating dinner alone:

It’s dinner time, tick tock tick tock… ”He’s late again. He knows I hate this so he must have something really important to finish up. I am so blessed to have a good man who works so hard. We have food on the table and warm beds because of him. There are widows eating alone tonight. They don’t even know where their next meal will come from. I will wait peacefully for my husband to come through the door.”

And when he arrived he was greeted with warm hugs, kisses and the promises of warm intimacy in bed. Extreme, you may ask? Not at all. It’s disciplining our minds to stop evil thoughts and create good thoughts.

When a plain ordinary wife spends her day thinking thankful, loving and respectful thoughts about her plain ordinary husband, they can have an extraordinary marriage. Start today to weed out bitter thoughts in your mind and begin to plant seeds of thankfulness. In no time your marriage will be extraordinary too!

© Courtney Joseph, 2010


I'm taking a couple of days off of blogging to spend time with my husband who's on Christmas vacation this week. But while I'm away, we're blessed to have a visitor.

My guest blogger today is Courtney Joseph from Women Living Well. She has been married to her high school sweet heart for over twelve years, home schools her son and daughter and is a graduate of the Moody Bible Institute. [Psssst: She's also a good friend of mine!] Courtney's passion to see women living well landed her on the Rachael Ray Show in November, 2009. Since then, she blogs regularly about marriage according to God’s Word. And that's exactly the kind of marriage we want, right ladies?!

For comments or questions, contact Courtney through her blog at: Women Living Well

Take Every Thought Captive

Dear Darlene,

I am a reader of Courtney over at Women Living Well, and I noticed she mentioned you one day, so since that day have been a reader of your blog as well!

First, I wanted to say thank you for your Home Maintenance Schedule! Being a new wife (been married to my wonderful husband for 19 months), and young mom, (my adorable, sweet boy is 6 months old), I'm still working on figuring out the best way to take care of the house, AND take care of my son, AND get everything else I need to done in a day! I trust that if I'm faithful to practice my house-keeping routine now and get a good handle on it, then, Lord willing, when we have more children, juggling all of my responsibilities will be easier.

I've been following your schedule--with a switch in a day or two--for about three weeks, and it's working out great! I really appreciate all of the tips and the way that you have incorporated daily tasks, weekly tasks and even de-junking! It's been helpful to have it as a guide and goal for each day. Again, thank you for sharing it!

I also wanted to say a big thank you for standing up for the truth of God's Word, and for encouraging us readers to be faithful to God's design for us as women, wives and mothers. As I previously mentioned, I'm a new wife so I'm still learning submission and how to take judgmental or even angry thoughts captive and instead love my husband regardless of his words, attitudes or actions.

I really didn't ever think that I'd have a problem with any of this, but man, does marriage show me just how sinful I am! I praise the Lord that He is sanctifying me in this area in the beginning of our marriage, and I thank Him for using some of your posts (particularly "Regaining Sight of His Character") to help point my mind toward right thinking.

Keep up the good work, Sister, and thank you for your words of wisdom. You are an encouragement and example to me.

Blessings,

Sophia

Dear Sophia,

Thank you so much for your letter. I'm humbled and blessed by your kind words. I'm glad that you have made use of the house-keeping chart, and that the system is working for you. My hope is that I'll continually find things to add to the "Home Maintenance Schedule" so that it will be a complete guide to keeping our homes.

Thank you also for your thoughts on marriage. I was inspired when you said, "take judgmental or even angry thoughts captive, and instead love my husband regardless of his words, attitudes, or actions." I think that's a lesson that we should all practice, BEFORE angry words are spoken or negative action is taken.

Our bodies are animated by our thoughts. Words and actions spring forth from our heart so that in essence we become what we think.

No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. ~ Luke 6:43-45, (NIV)

If we’re not patient women, then we’re not going to somehow pull patience out of a hat in the heat of an argument. In the same way, if we don’t love our husband from the core of our heart we’ll be walking on thin ice when the going gets tough. Therefore it’s important that we are continually taking these thoughts captive and bringing them into obedience (2 Cor. 10:5).

There's a popular saying that goes, "If you want to wear a different pair of pants, you have to live differently." The same principle applies to our marriage. If we want a good marriage, we have to do the leg work it takes in making it happen.

I’m excited to see women like you who are taking steps to building a strong marriage. As I’ve said in a previous post, so much thought and effort is given to planning a wedding, but sadly most of us aren’t willing to put the same effort toward planning our marriage.

You are loved by an almighty God,

Darlene

For comments or questions, contact me at:
darlene[at]darleneschacht.net