What I’m going to share today is critical to understand if you want to make lasting changes in your relationship. I have not spoken about this before on this blog so it’s important to understand.
Very few couples do this automatically and this is one of the major factors to why there are so many single parents, broken families, affairs, separations and divorces.
By understanding and helping couples understand what is important to know in their relationship is one of the key factors to the success in all my relationship clinics.
If you have been following my posts you will have learnt that couples “presenting problems” such as arguments, loss of passion, lack of trust, etc, are not the real problems in a couples relationship. Although with no other logical knowledge this will be their incorrect assumption.
You don’t know what you don’t know.
The couple will assume these are their problems and try to fix them. Of course it never works and either they end up staying together but passionless, resenting each other, they become depressed, or they split up.
What the couple really needs to focus on, they are not aware of, and so life just seems hopeless.
A part from the massive differences between men and women (which is a big part of any session I run) the one critical element is to help the couple understand how they create meanings to the situations they are in.
You see, your meanings to life events can be generated automatically and if the communication between your sub-conscious and your conscious mind are in conflict then the meanings will create behaviours which will hurt that person and then their relationship.
The problem is that the meanings are created so fast they are rarely noticed let alone questioned, if they are questioned then this can also cause the knowledge of a problem, but with no idea how to deal with it. This knowledge of their fear also causes problems, because people don’t want to face them through fear of what they will find, or they could be ashamed what they think and do.
An example:
A person may know they are jealous, they might even know their behaviour is wrong as they try to secretly control their partner, but they can’t stop the control in their quest to protect themselves.
Living with an over jealous partner can be very uncomfortable and can rip a relationships apart.
This example can be related to any behaviours that are causing “presenting problems”.
In the example above the person knows what they are doing, just imagine if one person in a relationship is unaware of how they are behaving.
Many people come into sessions thinking they know themselves very well. To some degree they do, but what 99% of all my clients discover is that the real reason for their unhappiness is due to an internal conflict created without their knowledge.
The way they behave is normal to them, but what happens during the session is they tell me how what they think does not match what they do.
When couples get into difficulties, both people become uncertain about their future and this creates fear. This fear then creates behaviours that are in conflict with their core belief systems so the result is they harm themselves and their partner, all without knowing.
Most couples do this initially by pulling love away to punish their partner.
The solution has to be understanding the individuals internal conflicts so they can be released from their own struggle.
When both people in the relationship are functioning core to their true beliefs and no longer in reaction and fear to uncertainty then growth in the relationship can be applied.
If you are not happy then this is the start to help you create not only success in every area of your life and relationship, but more importantly fulfilment.
An internal conflict can sit within a person for life never really helping the person to be the person they were designed to be. So their true life path is never walked.
Relationships are one of the casualties, but life has many areas that are important and could be affected, family, career, wealth, friends etc.
If you love each other, yet you can’t seem to discover what going wrong then this is going to be a major factor.
To your success
Stephen Hedger
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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