There is a fine line between reflection and overthinking. Reflection is a healthy behavior that we do to assess situations in our life and how we truly feel about them. Overthinking is unhealthy and can become toxic. Think of it as putting poison into your mind. Overthinking can lead to obsessive thoughts that are mostly negative and cause you and the relationships around you great harm. It acts just like a poison. When you use your mind as a powerful tool to help yourself in your relationships, you are feeding your heart and soul positivity that will help you instead of hurt you and your marriage!
When we think positively, we then act positively. We behave positively and the things around us seem to fall in line with that. We all can relate to those times that we are in a really bad mood and we fall into negative thoughts. It’s a snowball effect in which everything about the day seems to go wrong. There are times when we’re upset with our spouse. We’ve been thinking about it all day, and we come home, we’re snappy with them. Our thoughts really do affect how we behave and act. When we focus on having positive thoughts about our spouse, we end up acting and behaving more positively toward them. This creates an environment in our marriage that is positive and happy. This has bounce effect too! It’s like when we’re in a good mood and we have positive thoughts, positive behaviors, and positive actions; they bounce on to other people, and they start acting the same way. If they’re having a bad day, we are able to turn their day around with our positive attitude. If, however, we’re in a bad mood, our actions and behaviors reflect on them. We can inadvertently make someone who’s having a good day end up having a really negative day. The same thing happens in your marriage. When you start thinking more positively about your spouse and acting more positively towards them, they start acting more positively towards you and start thinking more positively about you as well. Just as the negative cycle can happen, so can this positive cycle. It really can start with just you. You can be the one to foster a whole new dynamic in your marriage just by changing the way you think about your spouse.
I want to talk about one important aspect of this. Although there are many aspects to it, let’s focus on just one. I’m talking about comparing your spouses to other spouses. We have no idea what other people are like, what their flaws are, what’s great about them, and what they have difficulty with. It’s a really unfair comparison. Everybody has positives and negatives about them. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. I know you guys have heard that before, but know that the grass is greener where you water and care for the grass. Throughout my life, I have learned that, while on the surface it seems like somebody is this amazing spouse, I really don’t know what goes on behind closed doors. I don’t know what they’re really like. This doesn’t mean that they’re a bad person or they’re worse than my spouse; what it means is that while we see people in a great light most of the time, they don’t usually show their flaws and negative attributes to strangers. The really cool thing here is that while their positive and negative traits are perfect for their spouse, they won’t necessarily work for you. You married your spouse because their positive and negative traits work best with you. We’re all people and we’re all different. We all went through a relationship or two to get to the one we’re in now, and the reason why we married our spouse is because we work well together. So while you might wish that your spouse had some of the traits this other person has, chances are they won’t have the positive qualities that you love so much about your spouse. When you stop comparing your spouse to other people and stop having expectations that they be more like this perceived perfect person, you’re able to open up your mind to more positive loving thoughts about your spouse. You will stop resenting them for being somebody they’re not. You married them for several reasons. Don’t forget that one of those reasons is WHO they are. Love them for who they are and keep your thoughts positive and Confident
Want more? Listen to the episode “Stay Positive and Don't Obsess: The dangers of Negativity and Obsessive Thoughts In Your Marriage”