After experiencing the shock of your spouse’s infidelity, you may start falling into distorted thinking. But blaming yourself, catastrophizing, and other distorted thoughts are obstacles to healing. This 5-day reading plan will help you recognize and challenge these unhelpful thought patterns. Get resources on marriage, parenting, faith, and more at FocusOnTheFamily.com.
Focus On The Family
Day 1
Scripture: Proverbs 23:7
Distorted Thinking
Distorted thinking can ease the pain of your husband’s sexual infidelity for a short time and fool you into believing that you’re coping well, but it will ultimately fail to produce real peace. At first, distorted thoughts enable you to distance yourself from unpleasant feelings, but sooner or later, your distress will resurface.
That may sound like bad news, but it isn’t. Exposing distorted thinking makes room for healthy thinking and effective actions.
Let’s examine five kinds of distorted thinking many women struggle with.
1. Denial
The ability to see the best in people and circumstances is an admirable trait, but only if those perspectives are firmly grounded in truth and reality. You may cling to an idealistic dream of a perfect marriage and ignore glaring evidence of problems. You may view your role as an adoring, supportive wife who excuses her husband’s imperfections and forgives his indiscretions.
But your denial is likely driven by innate fears and a desire to avoid unpleasant experiences. This kind of distorted thinking is rife with danger. Over time it will result in more denials of the truth, and you’ll become increasingly out of touch with reality. This can lead to full-blown anxiety and even clinical phobias. Compliantly accepting your husband’s deception and lies may keep your illusion of the happy family alive, but it isn’t healthy and will cause you more problems in the long run.
The solution is simple but not easy. Choose to be honest, first with yourself and then with your husband. You will likely need to include other trusted and safe members of your family in the conversation as well. It would also be helpful for you to talk with a counselor or spiritual adviser about the best way to navigate any necessary family disclosures.
At this point, disclosing the truth about your situation to your family might be too frightening to pursue. No matter the extent of initial sharing, it’s vital to face the truth, be honest with yourself, and let your husband know that you no longer believe his denials. As you come out of denial into reality, you’ll find that coping with the truth is much better than believing lies.
Next, we’ll look more closely at rationalization.
Day 2
Scripture: Matthew 21:21
Rationalization
Some women don’t succumb to denial, but they fall into a different trap – the trap of rationalization. They make a conscious decision to keep the peace at any price. In spite of their husband’s adulterous behavior, they tell themselves that their passive response is virtuous. “It’s for the sake of the children,” they say. Or, “It’s the only way to keep our family intact.”
If you are caught in a rationalization trap, in your heart of hearts you probably know that your thinking is driven primarily by your emotions. You feel distraught, frozen with fear, and completely at a loss as to how to cope with an out-of-control husband. But rather than admit this to yourself, you rationalize. You come up with a more acceptable and respectable explanation for your lack of initiative.
There’s only one way to get out of this rut. You need to be gut-wrenchingly honest about your emotions and motivations. Learn to replace passivity with a productive, godly strategy for confronting your wayward spouse.
If you don’t know what to do, don’t let embarrassment or pride keep you from asking for help. Remember, this is not your fault. No one is responsible for another person’s unfaithful actions. It’s actually healthy and respectful to draw a caring but firm line in the sand that calls your husband into the process of change.
Next, we’ll look more closely at all-or-nothing thinking.
Day 3
Scripture: Romans 12:2
All-or-Nothing Thinking
Another common form of distorted thinking is all-or-nothing thinking. When they discover their husband’s affair, some women immediately jump to the conclusion that divorce is their only option and consider contacting an attorney to discuss the situation.
Fortunately, there’s another alternative. You aren’t as stuck as you think. In our romanticized culture, it’s easy to think that you must either have the “all” of a blissful, faithful marriage or the “nothing” of divorce.
Living in the throes of aftershock can produce paralyzing fear and block creative, flexible, and realistic thinking. To correct this, your mind needs to be transformed and renewed as Romans 12:2 states: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
This transformation and renewal take time and good counsel. Proverbs 15:22 reminds us that “without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.” If you are contemplating an all-or-nothing plan to survive the aftermath of your own aftershock, wait! You have more choices right now than you can readily imagine. The alternatives may be unfamiliar or require learning a new skill, but they’re often the best solution.
Seek the counsel of a spiritual mentor, a close Christian friend, or a professional therapist who can help you explore a workable plan you might not have considered yet.
Next, we’ll look more closely at automatic negative thoughts.
Day 4
Scripture: Philippians 4:8-9
Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANT)
Psychiatrist Daniel Amen uses the acronym ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) to describe the pessimistic, cynical, and hopeless thoughts that can plague a troubled person. It’s easy to fall into automatic negative thinking, especially when you feel trapped and unable to come up with any practical solutions to your problems.
Here are a few classic examples of ANTs or ANT-like thinking:
· Extreme-ing: thinking in unrestrained ways (“He’s exactly like his adulterous father. He will never change.”)
· Labeling: attaching a negative label to yourself or others (“I’m an idiot for staying in the marriage with a know-it-all husband.”)
· “Always/never” thinking: using words like always, never, no one, everyone, every time, and everything when you think about or describe your situation (“Our marriage has always been broken.” Or “Nothing’s ever been happy for us, and no one can help.”)
· Fortune-telling: predicting the worst possible outcome in a situation (“If I tell him how I feel, he’ll divorce me, and then my children and I will be homeless.” Or “We’ll never be able to have good or meaningful sex again.”)
The first step in dealing with ANTs is to recognize them for what they are. In your journal, write out the events and circumstances associated with your automatic negative thoughts. Take an objective look at your feelings. Then when you’ve identified the ANT, kill it. In other words, counter the irrational thought with a more accurate and reasonably flexible assessment of reality. You’ll be surprised what a difference this simple process can make.
Next, we’ll look more closely at over-spiritualization.
Day 5
Scripture: 1 John 4:1
Over-spiritualization
Sandy was devastated when she got a call from the police station: Her pastor-husband, Kelsey, had been arrested for indecent exposure. Her best friend responded by saying, “Kelsey’s arrest may be a blessing in disguise. Through your crisis, the whole church will have an opportunity to grow stronger.”
This type of distorted thinking is called over-spiritualization. It’s hard to describe without seeming to criticize perspectives that, in their proper context, are perfectly legitimate and thoroughly Christian. It’s true that there’s an unseen spiritual dimension that confronts us in life, and God is always working redemptively. But problems arise when we turn this truth into an excuse for refusing to confront the facts.
While it’s true that God will eventually resolve all of our heartaches and suffering, that doesn’t mean He expects us to deny our human experience by putting on a happy face and accepting evil. On the contrary, He wants us to express our thoughts and feelings honestly as we depend on Him for guidance. There are times when it’s important to stand up for yourself and fight back.
Don’t give in to the temptation to jump immediately to a spiritual truth without walking through the healthy process of facing your husband’s betrayal and fall from grace, not to mention the work that will be required to restore your terribly broken marriage. The coping mechanism of over-spiritualizing won’t sustain you through the aftermath of your husband’s sexual infidelity.
All five types of distorted thinking have one thing in common: they are ineffective in solving your marital problems. If they work at all, their effects are only temporary. They can also be demeaning to you and your mate. And in the end, you’re still left without a solution. Like many things in life, the longer something remains broken, the more difficult it is to fix, and secondary problems are created.
The process of discerning God’s will for you and your marriage takes time, and you need help. The powerful love of God will work in your mind and heart as you continue to walk with Him.