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Stephen Hedger

Crisis Marriage Advisor | Harley Street London

You might be.

That may sound like an odd statement from someone who wants to help you out of your marriage problems.

But this is a process problem more than an outcome problem. I’ll explain.

A study published in August 2026 analysed 1,487 couples in a non-clinical sample and 913 couples attending therapy.

Researchers classified nearly 40% of the therapy sample as having “mixed-agenda” dynamics. This was based on differences or uncertainty in commitment, hope, feeling like a team, and pressure to attend.

So even if you go for help, you may think you are going in with the same agenda, only to discover that this is clearly not the case.

I’m bring this up because I see this challenge constantly.

Having the same mission matters and if you don’t there needs to be a way to still help you by creating one.

This observation changed the way I helped couples forever.

The Problem with Starting Couple in the Same Room Together

I picked up on this problem very early in my career I saw a collection of problems: Here are a few.

  • Many couples do have mixed agendas when they enter the process.
  • At the start we do not know what is driving those different agendas.
  • They already know they cannot communicate effectively.
  • They may not yet have the relationship skills needed to repair the relationship.
  • Many have become versions of themselves they do not like.
  • In many cases, one person’s future has disappeared.

So this list will have a lot of pain and suffering behind it and is more likely to put individuals into self-protection day one of any help.

Now imagine not understanding these problems and putting two people in a room together to share their honest feelings week-after-week.

I know in the first year of my work I did exactly that, it wasn’t pretty.

It simply resulted in the couple playing out their destructive pattern with a third party watching.

I realised very quickly this model needed to change if I wanted to help them out of their problems.

I was not a fan of keeping them stuck in the very loop they brought them for help.

They needed eduction, they needed a way to think differently so success was possible and for many it stopped them making mistake they would regret for years.

This doesn’t mean there is a magical formula that fixes all couples. It means they end up with a sharing understanding of why the marriage couldn’t work, which has the potential for the legal process so much easier.

So I agree some couples are the wrong fit but finding out why and how each person contributed means that any future relationship won’t run the same pattern.

For the marriages that were close to divorce but shouldn’t divorce, I had to train the individuals to be effective partner before I put them together.

Very simply I share what will never work and what will add massive value, once the person can understand what is needed, what they do is a choice, their choice.

This process changed the typical model of many people coming into the sessions wanting their partner to change.

The only discussion was how can you change, how can you add value.

So no matter what problem they brought empowering individuals to reconnect with themselves proved to have a profound effect on how they showed up in the couples meetings.

Why I Started with Individuals

AS you can see I decided to work with each individual first.

The goal was to help them become highly effective partners so they could add massive value to the marriage giving it the best chance of proving to them what it was capable of achieving.

That meant helping them understand:

  • Themselves
  • Their part in the dynamic
  • How to become an effective team member
  • Why their partner may have been behaving the way they have.

The mission was to reduce the need for self-protection, through individual empowerment.

In many cases, self-protection has its roots in misunderstandings about how relationships should be built so they feel safe for both people.

Self protection can also come from moments that do not make sense and for some past traumas.

Individual empowerment became even more important, through significant breaks of trust.

The individual work took pressure off the couple, we agreed the mission is not to blindly fix the marriage, we agree that they way the relationship is being run they are incompatible, so they mission is to discover what is possible with the right direction and advice.

Alone with me they were able to be honest and themselves. Many enjoyed the process of rebuilding the relationship with themselves, as troubled relationship tend disconnect people from themselves – which is exhausting.

Many practicing this individual work as directed reported, very early on, that this was already having a positive impact on their relationship, even though there had been no couples sessions.

The Mission Was Never Simply to Save the Marriage

The mission is to help the couples see their truth and then help them change what is in their power to change.

Before entering a couples session, each person needed to understand their problems and their part in the dynamic that lead them to their dysfunction that triggered a crisis.

This way the couple stop protecting themselves and start protecting the marriage. This doesn’t mean allow boundaries to be crossed, or have to change to fit the distortion.

Once both people stopped doing what clearly was not working and started understanding what was happening, and why, they could finally do something about it.

You see, the mission was never simply to fix the marriage or save the marriage.

The mission was to organically help both people learn the skills that enable them to see the truth and the possibility of their marriage together.

When you do this well, couple that should be together reconnect.

When they see the truth of possibility at that point, they can decide whether to choose each other again, or take a different path.

Learning about ourselves is interesting. Getting the best out of our partners is very rewarding.

The aim is for both people to experience a safe relationship that is jointly created by each person.

The goal is not to force every marriage to survive.

We need happy people whether together or apart.

The goal is to help both people see the truth clearly enough to decide what they genuinely want to do next.

By helping couples learn this process enabled a very powerful observation.

Marriages are full of one person wanting help to save or improve the marriage and the other for one of many reasons is just not interested.

I discovered that working with one person, could help them remove their own problems and distortions help them to learn how to become a highly effective partner.

This change was important because it helped the person who didn’t attend experience a very different relationship and behaviour from their partner.

From day one the connection is different and done well can help the reluctant partner to either feel safer or curious to explore possibilities.

When the person wanting help choses to wait till their reluctant partner joins in, every day they live in an incompatible dynamic is more proof of incompatibility and the window of hope doesn’t stay open perminently.

So my message to all readers.

If you want an amazing relationship learning how to become amazing is the first step.

Stephen Hedger
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