All our thoughts, whether good or bad, affect our mood and our attitudes. When all or most of our thoughts are negative, we find ourselves miserable and depressed. And when we are miserable, we make everyone around us miserable too.

Now you may be thinking that going through your spouse’s affair gives you every right to be miserable, depressed and have negative thoughts. You are probably right, but there does come a day when our negative thoughts have to be turned around into more positive ones. If we don’t get our negative thinking under control, then we are letting the devil win the battle of our mind.

Negative thinking, no matter how much you may believe your entitled to it, will make very dangerous weeds of resentment and bitterness be able to take root. These weeds are going to kill your closeness, peace and intimacy in your marriage. Negative thinking will make you become distant, angry, harsh, irritable and unforgiving toward your spouse. Negative thinking will also lead you toward divorce.

Now you may be thinking, yeah but their affair is what is causing me to be this way and their affair is what is driving us towards divorce, not my way of thinking. Maybe you are right, but is your spouse truly remorseful? Are they doing everything they humanly can to show you how sorry they are and are they willing to do whatever it takes to mend the marriage? If they are, then your own continued negative thinking is what is going to drive your marriage to divorce, not the affair.

When others told me this, it made me so mad! How come it’s MY fault if we divorce and not HIS fault because HE’S the one who cheated, NOT me! But after a while, I realized that others were right. My negative thinking was killing what was left of my marriage. I was driving our marriage right into the ditch because of my self-righteous attitude. Once I lost the attitude and the negative thinking, my marriage did a 180 and started improving almost immediately.

Making this shift from negative thinking to positive thinking is extremely difficult and it’s a process that does NOT happen overnight. It gets easier the further away from D-Day you get. I couldn’t even begin to start battling my negative thinking until almost 3 years after D-Day but that is because I was being stubborn and bull headed. I believe you should start battling negative thinking right away no matter how hard it is to do. But how do you take this horrible situation and find anything positive in it? Now that is a good question!

God provides us wonderful strategies for attacking our negative thinking. First, we need to ask God to make us very aware of our negative thoughts that are harming our marriage. Second, we then need to confess these negative thoughts to Him. Third, we need to ask God to take these negative thoughts captive unto Him. Fourth, we have to replace the negative thoughts with the truth of the Lord.

Following this strategy above will lead you to a MUCH improved thought life and here are some ways you can go about it.

“I am so angry that all I want to do is vent all over him. Lord, please help me gain some patients and help me control my anger.”

“I don’t understand why he won’t talk to me! Lord, please help me gain some wisdom in how to better approach my husband so we can discuss the affair without angry outbursts.”

“I can’t believe he would do this to me, sometimes I really hate him! Lord, please comfort me and bring me peace. Sometimes the pain is too much for me to bear.”

Awareness of our thoughts around our spouse’s and marriage are very important because it’s our thoughts that lead our attitudes in our marriage and our attitudes are what lead our actions. When our thoughts are Christ centered, we will then react in ways that will build closeness within our marriage rather than destroy it and tear it down.

Today’s Prayer

Dear Lord,

I want to place all my negative thoughts in Your hands right now. Please replace these negative thoughts with ones that are positive and bring on good feelings. Help me to keep my focus on all the blessings You have given me. I hand over my depression over to You, Lord. Thank You for releasing me from my negative thoughts. Thank You for being the wonderful God that You are. Amen.

Related Resources

If you would like more devotionals just for the betrayed spouse, please visit http://www.godlywhispers.com/DevotionalBook to purchase the book “Godly Whispers – A 90-Day Devotional To Help You Recover From Your Spouse’s Affair”

You will develop a deeper trust in God, who can control what you cannot. You will be able to get rid of all those “what if” worries as you get a continuing touch of God’s love and goodness. You will experience a strengthening of your self-worth in the face of all the betrayal.

Good Thinking Vs. Bad Thinking Worksheet

This is just one of the 30 extra bonus worksheets that are in the Godly Whispers Workbook that goes along with the “Godly Whispers – A 90-Day Devotional To Help You Recover From Your Spouse’s Affair”.

Here is the podcast of this devotional.

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Steps You Can Take:

Meditate and pray while you read the Word of God. Write down all the positive thoughts that the Lord gives you. Also, memorize scripture that really speaks to you and brings out the good feelings inside of you.

Keep a gratitude journal. Have a special notebook just for this purpose and write down everything that your spouse is doing TODAY that you are grateful for. Do this every day and read it often.

What makes you the most angry right now? When these situations happen, does your negative thinking get out of hand? Right now, write down a plan to how you can respond in a different more positive way the next time this situation happens.

Write down the four steps from this devotional as your very own action plan. Pray and ask the Lord to give you His strength to think and respond differently.

Reflections:

Strongholds are developed in our minds through repetition. What strongholds are you developing in your mind around your marriage and spouse? Be extremely aware of times you think or say “they always” or “they never”. Ask God to reveal to you when you are doing this so that He can help you find the truth.

The way we think can very easily be influenced by others that are around us. Please be sure that you surround yourself with God like people who have your marriage at heart and that can feed you the truths you so desperately need right now. If you are around those who speak only negative things about your marriage and spouse then there is a large chance their thoughts will become your thoughts.

Extra Bible Verses:

But we have the mind of Christ (the Messiah) and do hold the thoughts (feelings and purposes) of His heart.
1 Corinthians 2:16

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:5