Your relationship is on the edge of an irreversible crisis. What do you do?
How do you find a proven way to see the crisis as solvable when everything is pointing towards hopelessness?
If the wrong action is taken, the outcome can make a bad situation even worse, so the next step is critical.
So when couples or individuals come for help, we usually discover they are actively doing what will take them closer to the end of the relationship, which isn’t what they want.
My clients are highly intelligent individuals, and yet they are clearly blind to what’s really going on in their marriage.
So they’ll quickly learn that their day-to-day success, confidence, and skills are not transferable into their marriage – the usual actions no longer work, which is confusing.
They can feel they have some idea about their problems, but most misdiagnose the root problem and end up treating the symptoms.
This leads them to try to fix the wrong problem, which usually only proves the relationship is impossible to repair, which is exactly what the person wanting out will be looking for.
It’s imperative to understand the root problem before you can decide what to do next.
I see most people doing the wrong thing and in the wrong order because they can only see the problem from one perspective – their own.
One typical example I see is when a person is desperate to create a better connection but is not doing so in a way that would lead to connection-based attraction.
Most people are unaware that how they try to reconnect is actively killing the foundation of their attraction to each other.
The win they might want for themselves is very often a loss for their partner, and this is a disaster because if their partner loses, the whole team loses, and it’s game over.
So unless their actions lead them into a win-win attraction-based dynamic, the fix will only lead them into a friends-based dynamic at best! – That in itself creates a crisis.
So if a couple comes to me with an affair-based problem, or a couple comes to me with a loss of attraction or loss of love, or a person may come to me wanting to win a partner back on their own.
What steps will give those people the best chance to discover if an attraction-based dynamic is possible for them?
How would they ever know what to do unless a person can see all the moving parts of what they are in?
With such a high divorce rate, it is clear volumes of people have misdiagnosed their own problems.
Look at this very simple fact.
I have done this job for nearly two decades, and every woman I ask this question to never knows the true answer.
“What is the most powerful thing that makes a man attracted to a woman?” nearly two decades of clients, and not one woman has ever known the answer.
Men are equally clueless about many of these important facts, but to be fair, where is the education growing up, and why is this lack of education acceptable when divorce creates so many problems?
What couples don’t do, and why so many fail, is they don’t design their transition from disconnected to reconnection so they can discover what they are capable of achieving.
They do not see that they have nothing to build on without a plan, strategy, and a secure foundation.
One example: I remember one gentleman who complained about his wife; he told me the spark had gone.
His primary focus was on the symptoms: Loss of intimacy, no fun, and years of a passionless existence, to name a few.
His plan had been to focus on his lack and blame her, resulting in a relationship dead end.
His conclusion was we must be incompatible, so he ended up resenting her and his situation.
We needed a base they could grow from, so the start of the plan was to help them see the moving parts and then build a reconnection strategy.
When I examined their dynamic, I saw he had killed the foundational energy that would create attraction by leading her into a place of emotional self-protection.
Of course, the more he complained, the worse she became. He thought she was the problem.
By helping him to see what he was blind to, it created a shift of energy within him from judging and blaming her, to him feeling empathy and compassion for her feelings.
The strategy was to help him become empathetic to her emotional system so he could realign with her and himself, and this created a foundation for the rest of the reconnection strategy.
When people understand how to take charge, they take their power back, and this is a good feeling.
With so many people misdiagnosing their relationship problems, they are unaware of the simple yet powerful shifts they could make that would lead them to multiple breakthroughs.
These breakthroughs have the power to shift not just the thinking but the beliefs about the power we all have to create positive change in ourselves and each other.
Remember, the mission is to create the changes that allow us to become more of who we really are not less.
Conclusion – People are unaware of the problems they are in.
The couples I see have built their relationships on quicksand. So when problems strike, each person sinks into disconnect and years of self-protection/disconnect.
In response to this disconnect, they use the process of becoming less of who we are to deal with the problems it creates. This makes both people unhappy, needing to feel good outside of the marriage.
This negative spiral leads them to become consumed by more and more unpleasant symptoms now resentments are stacking.
So with no means of understanding themselves and each other, they sit down and try to talk about those symptoms – some do create a short-lived connection others end in the usual conflict.
It’s why more and more people are choosing not to talk as a means to protect the relationship – the intent is good (protection) the action (not communicating) is disastrous.
They see talking as the problem when comprehension or lack of it is the real enemy, but they don’t know their partner has a very reason for communicating.
So people misdiagnose their problems constantly and are convinced they are right, which means they shift the blame to their partner.
The real answers sit in understanding all the moving parts that keep passion and connection alive.
Unless you build a plan and a strategy for change, the couple will never be educated enough to put the relationship back on track for when it goes wrong in the future.
So the mission is to put them back on track and give them enough understanding to put the relationship back on track with any future problems; this way, they can keep the relationship safe.
Harley Street Expert | Founder & High Performance Coach
With two decades of experience helping couples out of crisis, Stephen the founder of The Marriage Breakthrough Program, uses his proven system for rescuing and rebuilding relationships on the edge of divorce. A trusted advisor to CEOs, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders globally, his work blends emotional intelligence with strategic clarity. Known for navigating highly complex relationship challenges, Stephen helps individuals and couples find clarity and direction when everything is at stake.
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