Video Transcript:
hey dave and ashley here with xo marriage thanks for tuning in we’ve got a really important question today and we appreciate those who send in questions and if you subscribe to this youtube channel you also can submit questions that might get answered right here on youtube today’s question from gabby says this how do i not lose confidence when my spouse has a wandering eye thank you exo and gabby thank you so much for that question and we get this question a lot uh when when your spouse is checking out other people i mean it can just be a dagger to our heart because we’re thinking like what is it that you’re looking for that’s that’s not in me because the way that god designed us yeah he he designed us to notice attractive people he designed us to be visual but he did not design us to to look and linger and lust so it’s not a sin to notice that somebody’s attractive but it is a sin when we allow our thoughts and our eyes to linger on somebody other than our spouse and it’s certainly a sin to allow fantasies of someone other than our spouse to play into our mind and it’s going to create so much division in our marriage and so how do number one we keep our eyes focused on our spouse and away from not only other people but from toxic forces like pornography and then what do we do when our spouse is the one who’s looking and it’s just crushing our confidence in the process and making us feel not connected to them i’m a guy that early in in our marriage early in adulthood i had a real struggle with pornography lust just had a grip on me even though i was madly in love and attracted to to this beautiful woman and now and forever will be madly attracted to her i went through a time where my my own mind was kind of warped by this kind of lustful desire to let my eyes wander everywhere and so i know what that feels like but you’ve got to take that captive the bible says take your thoughts captive and we’ve got to be so intentional about what we allow into our mind and where we allow our eyes to go because your wife has to be your only standard for beauty and she can never feel like you’re comparing her to somebody else and so you need to be aware of not only where you’re looking on the street but also the instagram accounts you’re following like if you’re if you’re following accounts just because these bikini pictures are gonna pop up and you say no i’m just into this fitness account it’s like no you’re into looking at the bikini girl okay so we need to just have some common sense here and say i want to safeguard my marriage and respect my wife even when she’s not there right next to me i want to be safeguarding what’s happening in my mind and in my eyes and make sure that my thoughts are focused on her absolutely and i want to share a quote with you that really i think resonates with this particular issue and it’s from lisa turkish one of my favorite authors and i remember she said this she said the mind feasts on what it focuses on and so if you’re focusing on all these other women it’s like you’re feasting on those images and you know guys and girls if this is an issue you know for you today is the day that it needs to stop being an issue because you got to start focusing on god and focusing on your spouse and the family that he’s given you because that’s where that’s where your heart is going to follow and that’s what you’re going to feast on you want to feast on that goodness that god has put in your life and you don’t want to do anything to break their heart or to tear you apart from each other and so let today be the day that this bad habit of letting your look you know linger on someone else stops let it stop today so good thank you again for that question you two can send us questions and again the best way to do that is to subscribe to this youtube channel and then in the comments send your question and maybe we’ll answer it on the air in addition to this channel you can find us dave and ashley on the naked marriage podcast and you can also go to xo marriage.com our ministries website for a full list of resources and events and we would love to see you there