One gentleman reluctantly came to see me with his wife because he was considering getting out of his marriage. He said he had lost feelings for his wife.
She loved him but on exploring their marriage I could see that she had been cycling between detaching and trying to keep the marriage alive because they have had problems for years.
The last year was particularly bad they both agreed.
I said to him that leaving a marriage and his children were going to be life-changing for everyone so was a massive step that could affect them all for years.
I asked him if he knew how his feelings had been created? Specifically, the feelings that are making him want to leave his wife.
He looked confused.
“I just feel what I feel,” he said
“I understand that, but do you know how your feelings have been created?”
He told me some of what his wife had said and done. Essentially he blamed her for his feelings. I explained to him that his wife was likely to be triggering him, but his feelings were created by him. His wife had no power to run into his mind and make him feel anything.
What this gentleman was clearly not connected to is he has created his own feelings, the ones he doesn’t like and now he feels to get rid of those feelings and have better ones he has to leave her.
This position is very common a person has gone through a process of emotionally shutting themselves down without knowing until it feels too late and now they are blindly trusting their feelings which are telling them to go. In this place, anyone can struggle to see a future that makes sense so leaving the relationship will make more and more sense.
Now, of course, it might be the right decision the relationship ends, but it’s so important that couples end relationships for the right reasons, so they must find out what’s really going on before they act.
One real concern for him is his pattern that has emotionally shut him down in this relationship could be repeated in future relationships and for so many people this is exactly what happens.
So for people to make safe decisions about their relationship and their personal future it’s imperative they become connected to what’s really going on and become the observer of their emotional messages and not just blindly accept them as a certain truth.
This kind of reactive position is essentially the person not in control of their own emotional experience and so their mind sends a message and blindly they buy it and they keep buying it until they are emotionally numb or suffering or feeling trapped.
What’s interesting is the person with these kinds of feelings is going to have their message supported, but again they are not seeing what’s really happening…
…I’ll explain, when this man is with his wife he changes his behaviours to be defensive, unkind, unloving, he’s not at all himself which BTW is painful for him, but remember he’s creating these feelings without knowing, to him it just happens. When he goes to work and sees his friends he feels great again as he reconnects to himself.
He’s not seeing this is what he does to himself at all. The result is he attaches the bad feelings to his wife and the good feelings to being away from her.
In this case, the first problem isn’t his connection to his wife that’s the problem it’s his connection to himself when he is with her.
Once that connection to himself has been made he can then be helped to understand his interpretations of his relationship that helped him disconnect from himself in the first place.
When he has reconnected to himself when he spends time with his wife combined with learning how to be successful with her, then he would naturally create feelings he likes and can now attach those feelings to her.
Now the relationship makes sense again once both people learn how to connect to themselves and bring out the best in each other this is the platform couples need for passion to grow.
So falling out and back in love is totally possible even after many years of problems.
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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