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
This post is too good. I m surprised that no one has commented. I feel like reading it again n again.
Well this was an article that proved people can be foolish over tiny things. Now my husband has said I have a hump,don’t have a face for a ponytail, makes big circles in the air to explain my shape. Can’t make love to me without thinking of another woman, told me I am not a fashion model, held on to his old girlfriend’s number and dared me to make him get rid of it, he would run to her with our problems, now runs to his grown daughter with our problems, said he only married me because he thought he had to be married. He has a right as a man to watch porn, and the list goes on and on and on. Am I not to get angry over any of this? I keep a clean home, cook, don’t spend money, love football, gave him the remote. I have never cheated on him or called him names. I tell him constantly how sexy he is. I dress up for him and beg him to make love to me even when I know it’s not me he is pretending to love. I had just gotten home from work and started kissing him but he pushed me out of the way because Kelly Pickler was on tv singing just for him and I was in his way. He will tell you the only time I get bent out of shape is when he has treated me bad. Do I not have a right to get upset?
Hi Norma,
This was a good article for me to read because I know I can be negative and let things build up and then tend to take it out on my husband when he doesn’t meet my expectations or even legitimate needs. Thinking positively about him has definitely helped my marriage a lot.
Now, in regard to your situation, Yes, you have the right to get upset. I know that reading marriage articles aimed at the wife changing her marriage can be hurtful and discouraging because you feel like you are doing everything you possibly can; you feel angry and wonder why he doesn’t want you. I understand. And it’s one thing to go through this when you know deep down that your husband loves you in his own way. What you are describing, however, is another thing.
You sound like a wonderful wife, but if what you are describing is 100% accurate, then I believe that you are in an emotionally abusive relationship. I’m not going to advise you to “get out of it” because people and marriages can change. However, you need to do some research and make sure that you are not enabling him to sin against you. Let me advise you that before you confront him or seek the help of a counselor, you will probably want to get a voice recorder (It is legal to record a conversation as long as one participating party (you) knows that it is being recorded) and something that tracks internet activity. This way, he can’t say that you were doing anything wrong or deny his actions.
I hope this helps. It sounds like you truly need to get help because his behavior is not healthy and should not be tolerated.
Norma, you have every right to not only be upset but to remove yourself from that relationship. It’s sad that people blame the woman in a marriage for all the problems when in reality we will respond in a non pleasant way to complete disrespect. He is not keeping he covenant of a marriage and I do not agree that men like this change. In fact, about 98% of abusers do not according to statistics. Past behavior predicts present and future behavior. You are not the only one making a bad choice for a marriage partner. You do not have to be brainwashed to think just because you are a Christian, it is your place to fix his problems nor do you have to tolerate it. Life is way too short. I know where you are right now. There is no way to ignore a man and his inability to meet your marriage needs of basic trust and respect and love, and “work on ourselves which will make it better” That is so untrue. You can work on yourself after he leaves because I know the damage it causes to a woman. Definintely work on yourself after he leaves.