My Attitude Affects My Actions

Emotions are the spontaneous feelings we experience as we encounter life. My suggestion is that you contact a counselor or pastor and express your concern about your spouse and how his or her depression is affecting you. Ask the counselor for recommended readings and advice on how you can be helpful to your spouse. Learn everything you can about depression. Be sure to dismiss the myths. There is hope for your depressed spouse and for your marriage. Hopefully, your efforts to be an agent of positive change in your marriage will serve to motivate your spouse to reach out for professional help. Whatever the source of depression, there is always hope if the depressed person can get appropriate physical, psychological, or spiritual help. My attitude affects my actions. I cannot change others, but I can influence others. Admitting my imperfections does not mean that I am a failure. Love is the most powerful weapon for good in the world.

An Optimistic Standpoint

The issues discussed have enormous consequences upon marriage and family in particular and upon society at large. I hope their stories have stimulated a fresh awareness of your own pain. It is not my intention to leave you wallowing in your pain but rather to challenge you to take a fresh look at your marriage. I understand that this may be difficult, especially if you have lived in a desperate marriage for a long time. Perhaps this knowledge will encourage you to take a new approach. One common response to a desperate marriage is to withdraw and not deal with the problem. One spouse withdraws from the other spouse, the children, sometimes even from life, hoping the problem will go away. The person pulls the covers over her head and goes into hibernation, and depression often follows. This approach simply compounds the problem. Someone must now care for the children and eventually care for you. This withdrawing behavior makes things worse instead of better. Another form of withdrawing from a desperate marriage is to take the kids, get out of the house, and never return.

Withdraw With Merciless Aloofness.

While a temporary separation may be helpful in such a situation, a prolonged separation creates numerous other problems. It is in fact a method of withdrawal and denial that refuses to deal with the real issues in the marriage. This is not a constructive approach to the problem. Those solutions, based on reality living, can work. As long as you allow these myths to hold you in bondage, you will never be able to take the positive steps of reality living. Have I believed these myths in the past? Will I continue to believe these myths in the future? My environment determines my state of mind. Have you fallen into the trap of believing that your happiness is determined by your spouse’s behavior? People cannot change. Have you allowed yourself to become discouraged by believing that your spouse will never ever change his or her troublesome behavior? Have you allowed yourself to become sidetracked by obsessing over the question, How can I get out of this marriage and get on with my life? Or have you been sidetracked by yielding to the conclusion My life is miserable, but there’s nothing I can do about it? Neither of these sidetracks will lead you to the terminal of an intimate marriage. To believe this myth is to underestimate the power of your own potential. It creates a defeatist attitude within you that stifles positive motivation. Perhaps you have believed one or more of these myths in the past. Your environment does not determine your happiness.

Burn That Candle

Your spouse’s behavior cannot keep you from living a happy, fulfilled life. People can change and often do when properly motivated. A person in a desperate marriage has more than the two options of divorce or misery. You can become an agent for positive change in a desperate marriage. No situation is hopeless. Because we are human, we have the capacity for change. When we change the way we think and behave, the situation changes. Yes, there is hope for even the most desperate marriage. Refusing to believe these commonly held myths prepares you to become an agent for positive change in your marriage by applying the principles of reality living. Once more, let’s review these principles. I am responsible for my own attitude. This reality affirms that you are responsible for your own state of mind. Attitude has to do with the way you choose to think about things. This reality allows you to refuse to believe the myths we have discussed above. You are free to choose what you will believe. You can believe that your marriage is hopeless, or you can believe that there has got to be a way to turn this marriage in a positive direction. You choose your own attitudes. My attitude affects my actions. The reason attitudes are so important is that they affect your actions. By actions, I mean your behavior and words. If you have a pessimistic, defeatist, negative attitude, you will express it in negative words and behavior. If you choose to think optimistically, it will show up in your words and behavior. You may not be able to control your environment, but you can control the way you think about your environment, and your attitude will affect your behavior. I cannot change others, but I can influence others. You probably believe that you cannot change your spouse, but you may often overlook the fact that you can and do influence your spouse. Because we are relational creatures, we are all influenced by the words and behavior of those around us. You cannot force your spouse to change what you consider to be undesirable behavior, but by your words and your behavior you can influence your spouse in a positive direction. All of society is built upon this reality. Exerting your influence upon your spouse has tremendous potential for stimulating positive change in a desperate marriage. My emotions do not control my actions.