What you feed grows!

            Are you struggling with obsessive thoughts, depression, pain, and lack of intimacy with your spouse?  Maybe you’re thinking, “Gosh, it’s been over a year, or two or three, and I’m still not totally healed.  What’s wrong with me?”  This happened to me and I couldn’t figure out why my marriage wasn’t what I wanted it to be and I still wasn’t truly happy inside. I felt like we were roommates that really didn’t like each other very much.  I wanted us to have this wonderful intimate relationship but how come it wasn’t happening?

            I have since learned that if I don’t change the way I think I may never heal and have that loving relationship with my husband.  Because of this I have learned that the passing of time does very little to help in recovering.  I always heard that time heals all wounds, well that is false.  Yes, it helps but if you truly want to heal and have that happy healthy relationship you have always wanted then time alone will not make this happen. In fact, it can make it worse if all your doing is obsessively thinking about all the pain your in and why your in it. You need to really work on what is going through your mind.  Are they mostly negative thoughts about yourself, your marriage, and your spouse?  Your going to have to put in the effort and try to understand and gain perspective on the situation rather than just going over and over all the negativity around the situation. 

        Of course, this is easier said than done, but how badly do you want to heal and be happy again?  Are you willing to do the hard work it takes to get to where you want to be?  Now I know that in the first year after finding out doing this was pretty much impossible for me to master.  In fact, it took me over 2 years to finally understand and gain the perspective I needed too in order to starting making myself think positively again.  Remember, they do say that is takes 2-5 years to heal from the effects of infidelity.  You can’t rush it and expect to be healed and happy by the end of the first year.  These things take time and effort and MANY baby steps.

        The painful thoughts are going to come, you can’t stop them and they’ll sometimes seem to come out of nowhere.  But what you do after they come is what’s going to make all the difference.  I have found that if you let yourself dwell on these thoughts the pain will either stay the same but most often than not they get worse.  I find myself starting to have bitter thoughts towards my spouse.   This makes me start withdrawing from or behaving badly towards him which in no way helps the healing and recovery process.  So, you have to really try and stop yourself from dwelling on these thoughts.  It doesn’t mean you can’t have them or acknowledge that they are there, but really force yourself to turn your thoughts back to something positive.  In time, after much practice this will become habit and what a wonderful habit this will be to have.  You’ll find yourself a much happier person one that anyone would love to be around.  I promise you, this will do wonders for your marriage. 

        So feeding these painful thoughts will make them grow into huge ugly weeds and weeds can kill, so these thoughts left untamed can kill a marriage.  But if you refuse to feed and nurture these painful thoughts then the weeds won’t be able to grow and instead it will let your marriage grow into something beautiful.

        A book that helped me a lot in this area is “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Norman Vincent Peale.  It’s an old book but it did wonders for me in training me to think more positively.  Here is the website that goes along with the book Daily Guideposts-Your source for Inspiration. 

©Marriage For Life Coaching Services, 2007

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