In the professional and self help community it’s commonly understood that your thinking creates reality.
What you think about becomes your world. The thoughts in your mind color how you see and experience your world.
Your thoughts and those images swirling around those thoughts generate your feelings. You focus (or think) on the ugly and your life feels ugly. You dwell in your mind on the beautiful and you feel more beautiful.
Let’s apply that to your marriage or relationship of emotional investment.
How do you think about your marriage or significant other? Notice the thoughts and how they color and form how you feel.
Your thoughts change and transform over time, sometimes taking on a dark side.
You fall in love and you have idealized and powerful love thoughts: s/he is the one, we are soulmates, s/he meets my every need, s/he completes me, he is my knight in shining armor, she is my princess, I can’t wait to be with him/her, I can’t get him/her out of my mind, etc.
As time passes and you become aware of the human being with foibles and fears the thoughts alter.
Your thoughts now are: what happened to us? S/he is pulling away, I’m frustrated with him/her, I feel alone, why does s/he always do that? Why won’t s/he talk to me? That is starting to bother me, s/he doesn’t appreciate me like s/he did, s/he doesn’t pay attention to my needs, etc.
And then a marriage lull or crisis emerges and the “Love” you had for each other is called into question and examined.
You want more. You remember with fondness the “old days” together. You long for the connection; you long for those loving thoughts that brought warm feelings to your world.
If how you think creates your reality, it’s only a small step to realize that changing your thinking about your other or your self in relationship to your other will generate change.
Now, I’m not saying that changing your thinking is easy; far from it. 99% of your thoughts are bound and gagged with fear. (I talk more about fear-based marriages and relationships in other areas.)
But for now, I just want you to think about a term I coined: Love Thoughts. I’ve devised a number of paths that help you move from fear-based thoughts to Love Thoughts.
In this article I merely want you to begin thinking about your capacity for Love Thoughts.
Here are 11 keys to wrapping your mind around the concept of Love Thoughts.
1. A Love Thought represents an attitude, how you think and feel about the relationship, and your other in the relationship. A Love Thought is your position. It is a stance you take. It is a belief you have that guides how you feel and what you do.
2. Love Thought is a frame you place around your interaction and connection. You place what happens between you and your other within that frame. A frame is the big picture of how you envision the relationship.
3. Love Thoughts change. From the introduction that is obvious; from the frame of an idealized love to a frame of a relationship scarred and sometimes struggling.
4. Love Thoughts can be modified, if you pay attention to them. If you don’t bring them to your awareness, they will control your feelings, thoughts and direction of your relationship. Being aware of them ushers in modification. Being unaware of them locks you in the victim and helpless role.
5. Some Love Thoughts represent a theme or pattern for you, for your other or for the relationship. Love Thoughts tend to cluster and build on one another. Modify one Love Thought and others may be transformed as well.
6. Love Thoughts have an intensity. Some are more emotionally intense than others. Some grab you by the heart. Others are like white noise in the background.
7. Love Thoughts occur at different frequencies. One Love Thought rumbles through your mind and heart daily or more often. Others, not so often.
8. Once you change a Love Thought, it follows that you change how you respond to yourself internally and to your other. You feel and watch movement.
9. The capacity to be aware of, engage, and modify a Love Thought gives you a tremendous feeling of personal power and control. This is especially freeing if you feel like your relational world is coming to an end and you have no influence over your other.
10. A Love Thought helps you identify who you are and what is vitally important to you. You begin to take a stand with firmness and compassion. Loving no longer demands performance or game playing.
11. A Love Thought enables you to shift your focus from your other to your self. Your relationship no longer depends on you pleasing or sacrificing – a surefire way to generate frustration. You now enter the realm of knowing and being known and mutually delighting in that.
Love Thoughts or the absence of them (Fear-based Thoughts) run on a continuum, depending on your type of marriage (Red, Yellow or Green.)
The Red marriage is marred by Fear-based Thoughts. You feel more like a victim, helpless and deeply stuck in a web that drains life from you, your relationship and your family.
The Yellow marriage has more of a balance between Fear-based Thoughts and Love Thoughts. In general, the Yellow Marriage leaves you with more frustrated and conflicted thoughts.
The Green marriage has a predominance of Love Thoughts. A Green marriage creates and sustains EASY LOVE and is bound by the 3 EASY LOVE Laws. This is what couples shoot for, although a minority of couples reach this level.
For more info on creating EASY LOVE, following the 3 EASY LOVE Laws and Love Thoughts go to: www.saveamarriageforever.com/ebook
4 thoughts on “11 Keys to Save Your Marriage Using Love Thoughts”
I am finding your information interesting. I so much want my wife back, and regardless of the fact that she says “I’m not coming back.” I know she still loves me and we can be a loving couple again. So I appreciate your insights. Thanks.
Clay
I relatively new to your email list, have only had the courage to read this one so far. Do you have a short answer for how to get over the fact that your significant other degraded those love thoughts for you and then focused on developing those love thoughts for the neighbour when he sabotaged his own marriage? We were a “green” non fear based relationship that was degraded over a 10-15 year period (sex disappeared then affection then communication, weakening the marriage, then was built up secretly with the neighbour)
You have helped me so much. I don’t think I would’ve made it through all of my husband’s affairs without you and your emails guiding me and teaching me how to cope and Handel my emotions the right way. So thank you so very much you have been a blessing
My husband of 21 years left me for his Chiropractor 5 months ago, he told me that they have fallen for each other while I was out of the country stuck because of Covid and he was on treatment.
I was devastated, heartbroken, betrayed, hysterical most times. crying and could not function. It’s the worst hurt I felt ever.
Then last month, we started talking again, calm this time and he wants to give our marriage another try. He told me that he made a mistake than he does not really love his mistress but they have a strong connection( i do not know what that meant?) and she was there when he was depressed because of our situation. I’m still very much in love with him so I agreed to give it another try, with one condition, that he will break up with his mistress. He then agreed to break it off with her but she went hysterical, calling my husband at 2 am and when he does answer, not she would call my number and start texting in the middle of the night. Also, she is still sending my husband love letters, telling him, she cannot live without him and she wants him in her arms, etc! etc.
Yesterday, I found out that my husband started emailing her back and we back to where we started. How can I resolve this issue?? shall I give up on my marriage and leave, I have nowhere to go and with Covid, it will be difficult to travel. Please help, I do not understand his behavior when he told me that he is over her? Thank you in advance for your response.