I myself used to subscribe to the myth that it requires two people to make a marriage work. After all, I was a marriage counselor. How do you do marriage counseling with only one person??
That was until, we’ll call him Joey, came to see me, insisting that his wife wanted no part of therapy. We worked slowly together for a couple of years. It was a long, drawn out process because, well, that’s how therapy can be.
(See my Masterclass if you haven’t already on how long it ought to take to fix problems. https://drdeb.com/myw-masterclass)
But here’s the point. The wife came in one time and got very angry with her husband (well deserved because he was rude). A second visit I had with her was by phone where she blasted me that her husband “needs” to be on medication. I could not get a word in edgewise and I told Joey that he was right: His wife would never come in for therapy. She didn’t.
Besides, she had her own therapist that she’d been seeing for 25 years. (Save that topic for another post, too.)
Joey and I worked on his victim thinking, his immediate tendency to flare up at anyone, even innocent bystanders like his poor wife, just because he could not control the horrible feelings he had inside.
We worked on his skills at getting people to listen to him without being forceful, dominating, angry or controlling. Over the time we worked together, he lost friends, and alienated people who he’d known for a long time because it just took him a long time to “get” the skills.
So three years went by.
But the funny thing is, he “got” the skills he needed. Oh, and he was refusing medication the entire time. His wife had been insisting he was Bipolar, and he was insisting he was not. To me, the label made no difference (see the post on that topic on my blog) anyway. What mattered to me was to see if he could learn the skills he needed to get permanently calm — to literally not be affected by events the way he used to. Also to “read” his wife and come out of his pit of confusion about why people, particularly women, but men really as well, say what they say and do what they do and what it all means.
And he did.
Amazingly enough, he did. He did it so well that he and his wife became friends and lovers. Everything changed radically. Not only that, he started to win friends of the male persuasion and was doing very well at work.
He became my poster boy that you could go it alone. So when I created my program and tried out the early versions with a beta group, I accepted a lone man into it, thinking that it ought to work if it already worked for someone else.
This person had similar problems with his wife to Joey; also, his wife wanted no part of the program. As she told him, “You’re the problem, not me.”
He didn’t care so much for how she put that, as you could imagine. But he thought that trying my program was the lesser of two evils. Really, what other choice did he have? His wife refused counseling and he had unsuccessfully tried it.
The magic of the second man is that it worked in three months. Start to finish, he reversed himself completely. And then his wife commented that he had radically changed.
Lest you think that the only ones this happens for are men, that is not so. Women can work on themselves and bring their man back simply by being different. In fact, many, many marriages have been saved by one heroic woman working on her own issues first.
What makes it work when one person starts alone?
The simple answer is that the pressure is completely removed in the marriage. Once one person, anyone, is working on and looking at *themselves* the other person no longer feels pressure.
Let’s take 3 examples.
- Susie has always been a nag. She wants more attention, more time, and feels terribly lonely. Her husband is now out the door. Susie learned that she needs to love herself first because then she won’t be so needy. Once she does that, the pressure is totally off of her husband who starts to become curious as to why she isn’t breathing down his neck multiple times a day.
- Pete is very, very laid back. Too much so for his own good. His wife is a workaholic because the money has to come in the door somehow and Pete is not doing it. Well, he is, but not to her requirements. He has been used to someone else thinking for him. It’s not that he likes it that way, but that’s all he knows. Maybe because his wife is such an alpha sort. He learns, however, how to take responsibility, why he originally allowed himself to be bossed around, and how to assert himself. His wife likes that, actually. That was her secret desire because she is plum tired.
- Sharon has been a really quiet, shy person, afraid to express herself and ask for what she wants. To her man, she looks cold. They’ve drifted apart and he had a secret affair. She was just watching, devastated, as it all unfolded. But she learned to connect with who she is at the core – and like, no, love, that person. The more she shined, the more attractive she became to her husband and he returned home.
I used to think that the real problem in marriages was that one person was playing victim. In fact, I wrote a book on it. And while I don’t disagree with that point, I think the important step that needs to be taken is a positive rather than a negative. Instead of “don’t play victim” it ought to be “love yourself.” This little change from negative to positive makes all the difference in the world.
We all need to love ourselves and even if we think that we do, we can do it better. We can take care of our Souls better. This I can tell you because I’ve seen it again and again. So if one person is working on that alone, it has the power to turn everything around.
And in the very worst case scenario, where the spouse is blind or unwilling to believe that Life can be good and therefore can’t believe that the spouse has, indeed, made permanent changes, the person who did all this self-work is now armed to face life and start over.
Is this a bad thing?
Well, I will tell you my personal story. I wanted my husband to join me in counseling and he wouldn’t. Then he died. But my personal work paid off. I was and am strong enough to not only cope but flourish. I would not turn back the clock for any money; these are the best years of my life. All because I take my own advice daily and shower myself with well-aimed doses of self-love and gratitude (among other things).
The only requirement to make this work is that the person who wants “in” wants to work on himself or herself. They’re not there to point fingers at their spouse. That will not work.
So yes, starting off alone in a marriage dilemma can be challenging but ultimately it can be a win-win. Now, this will not work for every couple. If the other partner has any of the following issues, it will not work:
- A refusal to look at themselves even when they are not behaving in a civil way
- Mental illness
- Addictions that are still active
- Easily triggered by nearly anything you say
But in most other cases, if you work on you, then you bring something positive into the marriage which will have a domino effect.
Let’s get on a call together and go over the situation in your home to see if your own work on yourself will have a positive influence on your partner.
On that call we will discuss your situation and, if appropriate, I will go over my program too. The key points in it are:
*Inner Authority. This is the foundation on which everything else is built: Knowing who you are. Knowing your feelings, your wants, your needs, and what causes those feelings to change. It’s knowing yourself.
*Emotional Agility. One of the things you need to know in order to heal is what triggers you. We all get disturbed by certain things. We can hide it, even from ourselves – but it is doomed to come out somehow anyway. So this part of the program is to get clear on it. And to take the next step – conquer it. We can’t go through life having hurt feelings or exploding, or being depressed because something triggered all that. We need to have tools to make those feelings sweetly dissipate. Without sweeping the dust under the rug.
*Intentional Self-Adoration. We suffer from limiting beliefs. We know who we are but don’t like who we are. That’s got to change. The road to change is intentional. We learn to disarm harmful messages buried within ourselves. We intentionally replace those with the self-love and even adoration that is rightfully ours. Developing this self-compassion readies us for the next step.
*Compassionate Honesty. The strong framework of the above three pillars of the program get us past resentment and bitterness. We now can clearly, honestly, and openly communicate in an assertive way what we think, want, need, feel, and offer. But it is filtered through a heart of compassion. This is key for a relationship and it deepens the connection between you.
https://drdeb.com/book. When you book a call with me, you will learn what no one else has told you about yourself: the real causes of the breakdown in your marriage. Then we will map out a strategy for correcting it.
(Please note that after you schedule the appointment, you’ll be taken to a short application form to fill out. That will save us about 20 min out of the call; that’s why I need it done!)