Mindset + Marriage
Change Your Mindset to Increase Your Marital Satisfaction
Photo by Lauren Rader on Unsplash
Many people prioritize everything in their lives except their marriage or romantic relationship. This means that anything regarding the marriage gets pushed to the back burner and “you’ll get to it when you get it” if you get to it at all.
This type of mindset places very little importance on your marriage. And if you place little to no importance on your relationship, how you think about your marriage, what actions you take towards, or away, from your marriage, and how much you invest in your marriage (financially, mentally, emotionally, and time), all become affected by this laissez-faire mindset.
I would like to invite you to think about your current mindset towards your marriage. Is it a tit-for-tat mindset during times of conflict and frustration? Do you show daily gratitude, appreciation, and affection to your partner? If so, how are you expressing such gratitude, appreciation, and affection? Do you joke about “the ol’ ball-and-chain”? Do you feel that you gave up your freedom and independence for your partner?
I want you to become aware of your thoughts and beliefs surrounding your relationship and your partner. Are they primarily positive thoughts and beliefs or are they primarily negative thoughts and beliefs? Why are they primarily positive or negative? Have they always been primarily positive or negative? If not, when did your mindset start to change towards more positive or negative thoughts and beliefs about your partner and your marriage?
How do you respond to your partner during times of conflict? When you’re stressed? When they’re stressed? What physical reactions is your body experiencing? How is your breathing? Are your thoughts racing? What about your partner? What are they physically experiencing during stressful times or conflicts? Do you know what words and actions trigger your partner? Do you use that knowledge to manipulate them or the situation? If you do, how does that manipulation make you feel?
The point of these questions is to help you create awareness about yourself, your partner, your relationship, and your mindset towards your relationship.
I want you to be very aware of how you think about your partner and your marriage and why you think the way you do. I also want you to be aware of how your thoughts influence your actions, beliefs, and repetitive behaviors in your marriage.
How much time do you spend working on your relationship? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? How much time do spend with your partner? When you’re with your partner, are you actively listening to them? Have you put away any distractions or potential distractions? How do you speak to your partner? What tone do you use? What is the volume of your voice? What words do you use? Why do you use those particular words? What is your body language communicating to your partner when you’re together? How do you speak about your partner? How do you help your partner each day? How do you express gratitude and appreciation for something your partner did?
What thoughts and beliefs do you have about love? What thoughts and beliefs do you have about marriage? Where did those thoughts and beliefs come from? In what ways are you reflecting those thoughts and beliefs in your daily life?
Today, I challenge you to create awareness around your mindset and to then adjust your mindset, even if it’s only a little bit. Take a baby step and give yourself grace if you struggle with it. Changing your mindset is no easy task and will take time, patience, awareness, and determination.
Photo by Gabrielle Henderson on Unsplash
First, I invite you to sit down and answer the above questions. Think about them and answer them truthfully. Do not lie to yourself in an effort to protect yourself or to make yourself feel better. Be honest.
Second, try some of the following things to help change your mindset:
Start a daily gratitude journal (you can be grateful for anything, big or small)
Start an appreciation jar with your partner (you can turn this into a competition if you’d like, but as long as you both are participating, you will be making progress. Each time you are thankful for something your partner does, write it down on a piece of paper, fold it up and place the paper inside the jar. At the end of the week, you and your partner can sit down and read through all of the things that you were both thankful for during the week. Start fresh the next week!)
Start your morning off right. Do one small thing each morning to help your partner out. This can be something as simple as pouring them a cup of coffee, tea, or juice for breakfast, taking out the trash, loading the dishwasher, etc. or something a little bigger like sending them flowers at lunch, surprising them with a card, schedule a dinner reservation, etc.
Create a connection ritual. This can anything from agreeing to always kiss and/or hug each other hello and goodbye, going for an early morning or evening walk to discuss your day, going grocery shopping or making dinner together, praying together, reading the Bible together, reading a book together and discussing it, etc.
Change your negative thoughts into positive thoughts. Keep a journal and every time you have a negative thought, write it down, and next to it, write three positive thoughts to start building a more positive-to-negative thought ratio about your partner and relationship
Remember that your mindset affects every aspect of your life and will take some time to create that active awareness and positive change. Give yourself a lot of grace when working through this and celebrate every success, both big and small!
Photo by Rachel Coyne on Unsplash
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
If you would like help exploring your mindset or working through this adjustment, please schedule a Discovery Call with me! I love helping individuals and couples strengthen their relationships and find more joy with their partners!
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Thumbnail photo by Lauren Rader on Unsplash
