When people meet Lamar and me, now, they comment on our marriage. They thank us for the work that we are doing in the community to support and uplift marriages. And they are always asking us what the key to a happy marriage is.
Many of them are assuming that we have a happy marriage because of our public persona. And fortunately for us, that assumption is correct. It’s been almost 10 years now, and I can confidently say that our marriage is the best it’s ever been and it just keeps getting better and stronger as the years go by.
But, if you would have caught me eight or nine years ago, and asked me about my marriage, I would have definitely had a different answer for you.
The best word to describe my early marriage is frustration.
Dating is one thing, but living together and trying to come to agreement on roles and responsibilities and household duties is another thing. When we were first married, I wanted more help around the house, and I am sure he wanted me to stop attacking him so much about all of the problems that I had brewing in my mind.
And to top it off, we had a blended family. I had two kids from a previous relationship and we quickly had two more kids after marrying. We did not see eye to eye when it came to disciplining the kids and we were having a difficult time “blending” as a family.
So yes, frustration is a very mild way to say that everything was not ‘peaches and cream’ during our first few years of marriage.
And like many people, I did not go into the marriage with the skills to handle marital conflict. So I let issues fester. I did not know how to communicate my issues or I would get tired of “trying” to communicate them. And then I would get passive aggressive – i.e. saying nothing’s wrong, but walking around angry and pouting. It was not pretty.
I did what I saw others doing when I was growing up. But guess what, they weren’t necessarily handling their relationship conflicts correctly. And guess what else I did… I went to those same people for advice. And instead of getting encouragement and solutions, I received all sorts of negative comments about my husband.
Does any of this sound familiar?
My marriage was going down the path that I see most marriages take and that path leads most couples to a life of bitterness and unhappiness or a divorce.
And yes, there were many things that we had to do to turn our relationship around and steer it in another direction.
But the one main action that made the most difference was that I changed my mindset. I started focusing on the positives rather than negatives. I started to think of better ways (solutions) to getting what I wanted. I started to compromise more.
All of that started with my change of mindset which in turn changed my attitude and behaviors.
Your mindset has the power to change the trajectory of your marriage And your thoughts can help form and determine how you feel about your marriage.They can inspire hope or take it away.
You see, I realized a few things. First, I had a good husband and all of the things that were frustrating me were not such big deals once I put them into perspective and compared them to all of the wonderful things he did for me and the family. Second, I realized that I was not perfect. And he had just as many issues with me as I had with him. And third, I realized that a lot of the changes that we needed to make were going to take time. And so the one thing that I had control over, that I could change right away, was my mindset.
And so you may be wondering, “how can I change my mindset?”
I’m not going to lie, it may not happen overnight. But with some intentional effort, you can begin to change those negative thought patterns that lead to negative behaviors in your marriage. Here are a few things you can do to change your mindset
- Focus on your blessings on a daily basis. It starts with a choice every day to wake up and choose to think about something positive about your marriage.
- Guard your mind. There are so many negative things out there that can influence your thought processes (social media, websites, reality tv shows, friends and family.) Guard your mind by limiting your exposure to these negative influences.
- Feed your mind. Likewise, there are so many ways to expose yourself to positive messages and images that encourage you and support your marriage.
- Stop the negative self-talk. The things we say to ourselves in our heads can be the most toxic. When you find yourself replaying negative conversations over and over in your head, stop yourself. And instead of focusing on the problems, try focusing on solutions…become solution oriented.
- Choose your advisers wisely. It’s natural to want to turn to your friends and family for advice, but they may not be able to provide you with the help that you need. Find advisers or mentors that are going to support your marriage, tell you the truth when you need to hear it, help you find solutions to your problems, and hold you accountable for your actions.
- Choose loving actions. Even when loving feelings aren’t present, choose to respond to your spouse with loving actions.
- Extend grace to your spouse. We are kind and forgiving to people all day long. But for some reason, it’s hard for us to extend that same type of grace to our own spouses.
As you can see, changing your mindset takes intentional action and a whole lot of patience. Your mindset has the power to change the trajectory of your marriage And your thoughts can help form and determine how you feel about your marriage.They can inspire hope or take it away. So when it comes to your marriage you have to change your mindset from negativity to positivity.
BMWK – do you believe that changing your mindset can change your marriage for the better?