Many people are suffering in their relationships because they have become stuck. Some people know they are stuck some are not aware at all and can fight to stay stuck.
- Some people are stuck because the passion has died.
- Some people are stuck not sure if they are in the right relationship.
- Some people are suck in a destructive fixed identity pattern.
- Some people are stuck in a problem that designed to mask a deeper problem.
People for many reasons can become stuck they know they are unhappy but are scared to make a change so they are paralysed in a life that doesn’t work.
The key to helping someone breakthrough their feeling stuck problem is to reconnect them to an honest bigger picture and themselves minus their fears.
One lady was stuck in her marriage.
She loved her husband but didn’t want to have sex with him, she also didn’t want him to leave her.
This needed to be solved because without intimacy on all levels the marriage could become vulnerable either to him leaving her, an affair, or simply falling out of love through resentment.
He didn’t want to leave her – today he loved her and was committed – but this had caused considerable friction and nearly took them to a breaking point.
We discovered that she had become stuck in an identity called “MUM”. She was so committed to making sure the children were looked after she couldn’t find a way back to being a “WIFE” with him.
One of her hidden struggles was she had given up on needing an emotional connection with him and so her critical needs were being met by her children and her friends.
This resulted in her starting to treat him like a child and through his resentment of her lack of love and being treated like a child he started to act like one.
So even though they said they loved each other she opened up to share with me that his sexual advances felt like a violation of her as it was something he took from her.
In contrast for him, sex was a primary way of connecting with her and experiencing love and connection.
Now any communication around sex for this couple had become explosive and now they both had negative attachments to the conversation.
So now there was no sex, no intimacy and no communication just resentment.
The goal was to arm the husband to understand how to help the identity of “WIFE” within her feel safe to re-enter the marriage whilst helping her see that being “WIFE” again was part of what makes a great mum.
You see children are and feel much safer and happier when parents are connected and loving with each other.
In this case, she had used the identity of MUM to protect herself from her deeper fears. She had assumed her husbands’ lack of understanding of her needs meant she wasn’t enough for him so she put up a barrier of “MUM” to protect herself and her family.
If this destructive pattern of only being “MUM” in her marriage had gone unchecked her quest to protect herself would have resulted in its collapse which naturally would have hurt the children.
By helping her learn her husband didn’t understand. Not because he didn’t love her it was because the way he thinks was totally different to her. So the irony was that she didn’t understand him either.
By aligning them with the truth, themselves and each other they could now create the safer and loving relationship they always should have had.
- Being stuck in an identity can cause relationships so many problems, many business people get suck in their successful business identities and run them at home with destructive outcomes.
- Others can become stuck in their own problems as a mask to deeper issues.
The key to becoming unstuck in any situation is to be able to see the problem clearly from multiple intelligent perspectives. Achieving this is not possible if all you can see is fear which narrows the perspective to one.
All this lady could see was she was not enough for her husband. She hadn’t considered her husbands and her childrens perspective or what she had created to protect herself.
By opening up new perspectives she freed herself and helped her husband to be successful with her. She also started to build a new healthy framework for her children to model.
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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