Marriage Mindset Reset :: [Ep. 283]

Marriage Mindset Reset :: [Ep. 283]

This week, we explore how negative self-talk about our husbands can sabotage our marriages and how renewing our minds according to Romans 12:2 can bring transformation and healing to our relationships.

We will talk about the following:

• Fearful thoughts and scorekeeping thoughts often create a transactional view of marriage
• When we experience emotional pain, we can easily begin holding offenses against our spouses
• Bitterness and unforgiveness transform us from being our spouse's advocate into being their adversary
• Replace negative thinking by focusing on whatever is true, honorable, right and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8)
• Learning more about El Rachum (God of compassion) which teaches us to show compassion even when our spouse doesn't "deserve" it
• The negative consequences of drawing lines in the sand 
• The effects of fear which leads to isolation which is dangerous to marriage, potentially leading to separate lives
• What ends up on our tongues first starts in our minds, so we must learn to think life

Email resource@vowstokeep.com to receive our free resource connecting God's character traits with replacement thoughts for negative thinking patterns. We hope you are blessed and encouraged as you listen!!

Chapters

• 0:00 Negative Thoughts in Marriage
• 6:48 Renewing Your Mind for Transformation
• 9:43 Scorekeeping and Retribution
• 14:02 Compassion vs. Retribution
• 16:13 Breaking the Cycle of Bartering
• 19:53 Fearful Thoughts and Isolation
• 24:33 Truth Cancels Fear

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. The mission of Vows to Keep is to help couples develop a biblically healthy marriage through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. They desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast.

Speaker 2: 0:24

Have thoughts like this ever entered your mind? If he really loved me, he would do what I asked. If I don't do that, he's going to leave me. He won't do what I asked, so you know what I won't either. Let's make a deal I will if you will.

Speaker 2: 0:38

This is where I draw the line. If someone could put a mind reading contraption on our brains, this would be the printout for a lot of us. I didn't want to just assume that other people were having negative thoughts about their husbands, so I asked and the responses I got were honest, they were frank and they were quick. My friends immediately pinged me back with their fairly sizable list. That's because if we stop and think about it for a moment, we realize yeah, this is me, I'm having thoughts about my husband that probably don't belong Today.

Speaker 2: 1:09

On part four of your self-talk about your husband could be ruining your relationship. We're going to compare the thoughts that we're having whether they're true, partially true or not true at all with the truth of who God is. We'll look specifically at fearful thoughts and thoughts where our frustration, or maybe even our scorekeeping, causes us to draw the line. Find out how you can transform your marriage by thinking life, renewing your mind and tuning it to understand God's perfect will. On today's episode of Vows to Keep Radio, the show where you get sound biblical counsel that you can apply immediately to your marriage, I'm your host, traci. Sellers of Vows to Keep, david and I are biblical marriage counselors, authors, teachers, radio hosts, podcast hosts and conference speakers. If you want to get back to being on fire for your spouse and for God, you're definitely in the right place.

Speaker 2: 1:58

What I'm talking about when I say you can transform your marriage by renewing your mind comes from Romans 12,. You can transform your marriage by renewing your mind comes from Romans, chapter 12, verse 2. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is his good, pleasing and perfect will. This is a passage that's familiar to a lot of us, but I don't think I've ever applied it to my marriage. Like ever have you Renew my mind and experience transformation in my marriage? Now, that's intriguing. All over God's word, I see that he really does care what's going on in my mind. He tells us what shouldn't be going through our heads. He tells us what to dwell on, what to fix our thoughts on and what to fill our minds with what we think matters to him, because, even though some thoughts are going to go in one ear and out the other, he knows there's going to be ones that we dwell on and those are the ones that take root in our hearts. And God is always after our hearts to make us more like him, to change the way we think, so our very lives will be changed.

Speaker 2: 2:58

What are the thoughts you've been having about your marriage lately? If I asked you to put a dot on a line that represented the average of your thought life about your marriage, where would you peg yourself? Would you say? Your thoughts are generally on the positive side, with some negativity mixed in. Do constant thoughts about your spouse's shortcomings put you on the other side of the scale? I ask this not to say that the positive outweighs the negative. I'm not saying it's okay to let those thoughts slip in now and then. No, I ask so that you can look at where you peg yourself with an eye on hope for change, to get a good sense of where you're starting from and where God wants to take you. We can start by renewing our minds right now, just by saying, hey, this is where I'm at, god, and I acknowledge this is not where you want me to be. I challenge you to pause for a moment and do that right now.

Speaker 2: 3:47

Over the last three episodes of Vows to Keep Radio, we've been really intentional about looking at the thoughts that we're having about our husbands and seeing what would God have us replace them with. And there are two final categories of thought in this series that I'm going to focus in on today. Fearful thoughts, the ones that say if he really loved me, he would. Hey, he's not being intentional, he doesn't care about me, he doesn't love me. If I don't do that, he's going to leave me and let's make a deal. Thoughts he's not doing what I asked, so I won't either. I will if you will and this is where I draw the line Because of what he did or didn't do. I will, I should or I won't. He didn't spend time with me last night because he was in front of his iPad all night, so I'll just ignore him today and see how he likes it. He went out and bought that truck knowing that I was against it, so now I'm going to buy what I want. He knows I'm exhausted at the end of the day, yet he's not stepping up, not helping out with the kids? He knows I want him to put them to bed, so next time he needs a hand, no way I'm going to disappear for a while.

Speaker 2: 4:51

There's a bit of an emotional pain that we feel when we don't get what is meaningful to us. I know from personal experience that if I'm not careful I can quickly begin to hold these things against my husband. Hurt is like a new friend. We bring it along with us wherever we go. We think it's going to satisfy us in some way. Hurt feelings have a way of clinging to us, keeping us company, and they're the ones that whisper in our ear saying you're doing the right thing by withholding or bartering or exchanging tit for tat.

Speaker 2: 5:17

But like we talked about in part three of this series and please go back and listen if this strikes a chord with you when thoughts that don't belong stick around with our permission, roots of bitterness spring up. They choke out the good things that are between David and I. Bitterness and unforgiveness turn me from being an advocate for David into being an adversary. You hurt me again, so you deserve a little coming your way, some payback, some retribution. In many ways that's me silently just being the judge. You hurt me again, so you deserve a little coming your way, some payback, some retribution. In many ways, that's me silently just being the judge. I'm judging me and I'm judging him. I'm judging myself and saying I'm righteous enough and I'm judging him saying I'm more righteous than you. Look how short you're falling. You don't deserve anything good that I could give you. What a comparison game.

Speaker 2: 6:04

If this is us, that's our cue, that we need to have something at the ready to replace these thoughts with, I can't just hope that my thoughts that I shouldn't be having are going to go away on their own. It doesn't work that way. God's Word tells me in Philippians 4.8 that I've got to intentionally replace those things with things that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Now I know, and I know you know too we're living in a sinful, fallen world. We live with sinful fallen husbands, just like they live with sinful fallen wives, and God and everything that comes from him are the only things that fit into the Philippians 4-8 categories, the only things that are good and pure and right and admirable. So this is the bottom line.

Speaker 2: 6:47

As we get to know God better. We really understand that everything we're searching for within our marriage actually comes from Him. We can finally have peaceful and godly minds. Even if our spouse is sometimes not worthy of praise he's not being honorable right now. He's far from admirable at the moment we know someone who is and that's going to keep our minds at perfect peace because our thoughts are fixed on him. That's found in Isaiah 26.3. So let's hone in on a specific aspect of God's character so we can quickly renew our minds when thoughts that don't belong threaten to take over our emotions and our attitudes, because you know just as well as I do. That's what happens when I feel like paying back David for how he's made me feel. Here's what I can do. Here's what you can do. We can turn to El Rachum, the God of compassion. It's the name of God in Deuteronomy 4.31. For the Lord, your God, is a compassionate God. He is not going to abandon you or destroy you. He's not going to forget the solemn covenant that he made with your ancestors, and I think that God really wants us to grasp this name of his, so much so that it's used 60 times in the Bible. A heart of compassion is who God is at his very core. Otherwise you and I we wouldn't even be having this conversation, we wouldn't even be here.

Speaker 2: 8:10

If you look at the life of Jesus, more than once, as he was traveling through towns and villages, he was in the middle of his ministry. He stopped what he was doing because he saw the people. He saw their need for him. He could have chosen to say I'm tired, I've already healed enough people. Today I need to get my needs met. But just like in other passages of scripture, here in Matthew 9, 36, we see how our hearts can be changed towards our husbands. Here's what happened when he saw the crowds. When Jesus saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He saw right to their core need and it was for him. The people that were in the crowd were sinners. Some of them, if you think about it, even may have been in the crowds later who would shout crucify him. Yet Jesus chose to be El Rachum. He chose compassion, right.

Speaker 2: 9:05

The interesting thing about compassion is that it requires a lot of perspective. Jesus had the perspective that I need when I feel things aren't fair. I need to be like Jesus when the scales are tipped and not in my direction. I need to know my El Rachum. The one who reached out to me, had compassion on me when I didn't deserve it. So many times I am guilty of doling out the opposite of compassion. I give retribution, I give payback. It's good to take this a step further and bring this to the street level of our homes and our life.

Speaker 2: 9:40

So here's a little homework. I hope you take this challenge this week. When you notice your heart hardening, when you're tempted to keep score or think I will, if he will or he doesn't deserve, here's what I want you to do Write down the retribution that you're giving him. Be specific. What are you hoping that he's going to feel? What are you hoping he's going to miss out on, or what are you hoping he's going to notice? In your homework, after you write down the retribution that you want to give, I want you to write out a prayer that asks God to help you to understand his mercy and compassion to you, so that you can give it to your husband when you feel least like giving it, when you've judged he least deserves it. Lord, help us not to take the place of you. You are the only wise king and judge Amen.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Well, sometimes, though, we're not looking for retribution, we're not looking for what we think our husband is due. We're looking for what we think we're due. We want the payback. I want something from you, and when I see that you're not going to do it or give it, I get pretty frustrated. You ever been there In my mind. Now it's time to barter with you a conditional. I'll do this. If he does that, I want you to picture something with me for a second. If you look at what you expect as a mile long stretch of road, here's the deal I'll cover my half of the mile as long as he covers his. We'll meet in the middle with the goal of me getting what I want, and if it doesn't look like that's going to happen, I verbalize conditions to force it to happen. I'll do my half. If you do yours by next Tuesday, I'll let you have what you want. If you give me what I want, I figure that if he knows I'm going to hold up my end, he's more likely to hold up his, but his agreement to comply gives me a false sense of security. This mindset is very close to the thoughts that say this is where I draw the line. You've gone too far. This is costing me too much. I can't give any more. If it doesn't come with emotional or relationship compensation.

Speaker 2: 11:42

Drawing the line typically involves you defining a set of consequences for the other person. Most of the time, what that looks like in marriage is isolation, withholding and withdrawal, and it's so ironic because we become the one who drives a wedge in between us with the line that we're drawing and we rob ourselves of the very thing that we need most. Now, granted, we feel justified by doing this. I mean, come on, they're the ones who are in the wrong. We tell ourselves. This is just a natural reaction. Now, all of a sudden, there are two people driving a wedge between us him and me and the gap goes farther, faster. Drawing the line is often a move of desperation.

Speaker 2: 12:26

I'll use money as an analogy just for a second. Say you've got $1,000 in your emotional bank and it costs. You've got $1,000 in your emotional bank and it costs you every time your spouse is not meeting your expectations. He annoyed me. I'm down five bucks. He raised his voice. That's at least 25. Pretty soon we're feeling deficient and, to not get into the red zone, we say no more. I am not giving any more. We're doing subtraction. But God is saying I've given you exponentially more than you need. I've given you $10,000 just for today, and there's new mercies ready for tomorrow morning. He's asking us to pour $10,000 back into our husbands all that he's given us because he's the God of plenty. But all we can focus on is the cost of the moment.

Speaker 2: 13:13

I'm guilty of often being blind to the Lord's deposit of a much larger amount in my life. See this truth today, when we draw the line, we're actually putting God's word to the test, and I know this from personal experience. When I hoard what I have and I count every emotional dime, I am denying that God's ways are effective. I'm denying the power of who God is and what his word tells me to do. I choose not to forgive, I choose not to love, I choose not to be tender and kind and patient and full of grace, and instead I choose what I think to be the best thing. I draw the line to protect myself. But when you do that, beware, because you and I are going to be continually redrawing it for the rest of our marriage. But we can stop the cycle. It is a matter of the idols of our heart, what we're expecting, what we're demanding. It is a matter of the idols of our heart, what we're expecting, what we're demanding Again.

Speaker 2: 14:13

Go back and listen to the episodes in this series. Listen to the last few weeks broadcasts and learn the names of God. Learn the heart of God for you in this, so that your marriage can succeed. Learn to think life. Let your love to your spouse Send them the message that they are never a waste of your time and your energy and your love. Why? Because God's love is unconditional. Here comes another name of God. He doesn't draw the line with us, thank goodness. He is faithful even when we're not. El Kano, the jealous God. He watches us lovingly. He watches us closely. Think of it like a faithful bridegroom. He's watching over his betrothed. His is an undivided devotion to us.

Speaker 2: 14:59

2 Timothy 2.13 strikes me every single time I read it. It says if we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is. It is his character to be faithful even when we screw up, and that's why I like this next name of God El Yeshuate, the God of my salvation, but not only that. He is El Yeshuan Tenu. I'm not saying that right, and that's okay. He's the God of our salvation. Mine, as well as my husband's. Yeshua means salvation and delivery and victory. We can renew our minds. We can think life by remembering he's our Savior. He's our faithful Savior. Even when we struggle and we stumble in our sin, he's the one who daily loads us with those benefits the God of our salvation, just like it says in Psalm 68, 19. He loads us with benefits. You've got enough in the bank for an overflow onto your spouse. Don't count those emotional dimes, but renew your mind with the word of God and who God is to you.

Speaker 2: 16:09

Hi, this is Tracy from Vows to Keep Radio. We're asking you to help us become fully funded so Vows to Keep has the financial resources to keep sharing hope with marriages like yours. God is growing this ministry tremendously and the testimonies we hear confirm that God's word does not return void. Right now we need an additional $6,500 a month. Would you consider becoming a monthly partner with us to build biblically healthy marriages? We're asking 100 families to give $50 a month and 60 families to give $25 a month. Prayerfully, make your best gift at vowstokeepcom.

Speaker 2: 16:45

Now, fearful thoughts also cause me to draw the line and say no further. It's kind of a self-protective measure to keep me from being disappointed, I put up walls that are nearly impossible for my husband to knock down. When that happens, when I start to pull away and draw the line, I start feeling independent from him and therefore dependent on myself. Maybe you've been there. It's easy to convince myself that isolation is a safe place. If this is you, danger, danger, warning, warning, beep, beep, stop.

Speaker 2: 17:19

Isolation is dangerous to your marriage. It leads to the need for a separate life, and a separate life leads to I don't need to love him, I don't need to care, I don't even need to be near him and I don't need to. Leads to I actually don't want to. I don't want to love him, I don't want to care about him, I don't want to even be near him, and inevitably that turns into I don't want you and I don't want you. As we know, leads to two separate lives, the disillusion of a covenant vow. Again, this is the time to renew your mind with the truth of who God is.

Speaker 2: 17:55

Then there's the other side of the fear coin. I'm fearful that you don't approve of me or that you're not going to do your part. So I'm going to perform to a certain level to see if you're going to approve of me or see that you're going to do what I want you to do. If I don't see an investment back from your side, that's where I stop. That's where I get fearful. I stop giving, I stop coming close enough to really be known by you. And that goes back to both isolation and the tit for tat scenario. If he covers his half, then I'll be safe enough to cover mine. I want to have margin to save myself if needed.

Speaker 2: 18:29

Fearful thoughts whisper that if he loved me, we wouldn't be in this position of let's make a deal, but because of his lack of love, I'm going to go hungry. I'm going to go without or we need to make a deal. That's what it's boiled down to, and I'm not willing to go hungry indefinitely. So I'm going to take some action and try to get what I feel I need. The problem with these if I don't do this, he's going to do that. Or it's going to lead to a fight, or I'll do this if he does that. They're both performance-based tactics that are going to backfire really fast. Fear and bargaining are both very poor motivators for godly behavior. Bargaining is more of an appeasement sacrifice to not receive retribution or to just get what I want.

Speaker 2: 19:11

And the funny thing about these mindsets is that we use them with our husbands and with God, and the two usually go hand in hand. Many times I project how I think God thinks about me onto how I think my husband thinks about me. If I think God is asking me to perform, I'm going to assume my husband is as well. The opposite is true too. If I live with the knowledge of God's grace towards me, I am ready to give that grace away. In fact, I wrote a devotional that's included in a book called Abba's Heart that I would love to give to you to help you better understand the connection between these two concepts. If you'd like a copy of that chapter of the devotional, please email me. I'll give it to you for free. Devotional at vows to keepcom.

Speaker 2: 19:52

So let's talk a little bit further about fearful thoughts. If we want to renew our minds, then we have to know what God's word says about this topic of fear. Do you know what it says? Have you flipped through the pages of scripture for yourself? If not, today's the day to start.

Speaker 2: 20:06

The first scripture that pops into my mind when I think of fear is the one from 1 John 4. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not been perfected in love. And it's amazing when you start looking at these fear verses. There are enough. Do not fear verses to read one for every day of the year, hundreds of times where God is saying there is a deeper truth here than what you're feeling. Don't succumb to what your emotions are telling you. Look to me and I'll be your comforter, I'll be your stronghold. Like 1 John says, fear involves punishment For our marriage. We could say fear involves a different form of punishment consequence.

Speaker 2: 20:49

I'm anticipating some sort of repercussion, so I make a deal. I will if you will. I don't want whatever consequence may be coming my way if he doesn't follow through. Or I really don't want to miss out on something, so I bargain to get it. So I don't go without. My fear of either one is the motivator for my actions, not the perfect love that casts out fear. That's not what's motivating me. Don't miss this.

Speaker 2: 21:11

Today. What I'm afraid of reveals my understanding and my trust of God, his word and his character. Sometimes I know in my mind who God is, but I have to choose to trust him with my heart, just like the psalmist says in Psalm 56, when I'm afraid, I will trust in you. What we need, girls, is truth, because truth cancels fear. Truth gives security. El Emet is the God of truth. This Hebrew name of God means faithfulness, reliableness. It's an invitation to trust him.

Speaker 2: 21:44

What's the truth you need to digest today about God? When it comes to renewing our minds, we need the God of truth, and I know of only one place to get truth, and it's not my head, that's for sure, and certainly not my heart, not my emotions, which are as unreliable as the stock market. No, my only source of truth is God's word. I want to live out Romans 12. I want to let all of me be a living and holy sacrifice, even my mind, the kind that God would find acceptable, to truly worship him with everything I have body, mind and heart. I don't want to copy the behavior and the customs of this world, like that verse says, but I want to let God transform me into a new person. How? By changing the way that I think. Oh God, we want to learn what your good and pleasing and perfect will is for us. Please teach us your ways, and I really do believe, girls, that that's a prayer God's going to answer, because he knows that truth will defeat fearful thoughts. They're going to cancel let's make a deal thoughts. Knowing who God is, his names and his character and what they mean for us in our salvation, in our abundant Christian life, is going to make us run to erase that line in the sand that we've drawn. Again, when we have truth, we're not going to be looking to bring retribution to our husbands, we're going to look to bring a blessing. That's why God calls us to renew our minds with his word, with his truth.

Speaker 2: 23:12

Renewal carries with it the connotation of continuation. My mind is not like my driver's license that only has to get checked and renewed every four years. There's not a clock or calendar for our minds. Thoughts that don't belong can come out of left field, out of nowhere, and we need to know what to do with them. We can't just do a clean out every spring. If we have a thought that seems a bit out of place, let's do something about it right away. Our thoughts are not something that's out of our control. If I have a thought that's sinful or just not going to be building to my relationship. I don't have to let it linger. I don't have to when you have a thought, filter it through the sieve of God's word. That's how we renew our minds.

Speaker 2: 23:52

You've heard it said that we should speak life. Proverbs 18, 31 says the tongue can bring death or life. It's so true. I've seen it in my parenting, I've seen it in my marriage. But what ends up on our tongues first starts in our minds. So let's begin the renewal process this week by thinking life.

Speaker 2: 24:11

I have a free resource for you today. It's a chart of sorts that you can print out and put in your Bible or somewhere. You'll see it often so you'll have truth at the ready when you need it. In these last four episodes we've studied so many names of God that reveal his character, that teach us to imitate him in our marriages, and I connect the thoughts that we're having that don't belong to each of these names, so that you can have a quick replacement of that thought and you can think life instead. I'd love to connect with you and give you this resource. You can email me resource at vows to keepcom and then you'll receive it in your inbox. Thanks for investing in your marriage this week by thinking life. We'll see you next time here on vows to keep radio no-transcript.