If you want to build a successful marriage you’ll need the courage to be who you really are with your husband or wife.
Many people are fearful of being their true self in fear they won’t be loved.
Many are living so reactively they are out of control of their emotions so they have no idea how to be themselves.
NOT being your true self is a fundamental issue and one of the root problems that lead many couples to wrongly divorce.
It’s true they are unhappy but their attachment for unhappiness is to their marriage and not themselves.
The reason being disconnected from your true self is such an issue is because your happiness is conditional on you becoming what you say is important to you.
So when a person says that kindness is important to them and yet they turn that off with their spouse. They are unaware that they are now their own problem.
This understanding is different to how many think and act, they don’t see the pain they cause themselves as they switch off their own gifts.
A persons happiness comes from inside them not outside them.
If a person feels their happiness sits outside of them they are not in control of their own emotions.
Some are looking for others to validate them, some are trying to control their outside world in some way none of this creates happiness.
Many people have to get busy to avoid being connected to themselves this is a sign something is wrong internally.
For example: If you are bored when you are alone you are obviously in bad company…
Become what’s important
So if a naturally loving and fun person stops being loving and fun this will make them personally unhappy and eventually feel exhausted.
I know that those ready to learn will be eager to see their truth and stop years of suffering through answers that will free them.
Is enough is enough?
For any marriage to work, you both need the courage to be open, vulnerable and connected to what you believe in and say is important.
You both must embrace your truth about what’s important to you.
I see so many people who tell me they have values such as love, kindness, wisdom, integrity.
Yet when their life is explored we find that they don’t practice, or become what they say is important from within themselves in their marriage.
In fact many are much nicer to a complete stranger than they are to their spouse.
What they do is they turn these values on and off in reaction to what is presented, remembered, or resented.
Some turn off their own values to protect the marriage, some turn off their values to protect themselves.
They act like they themselves don’t matter.
In essence, these people are out of control of the very things they say are important.
Plus disconnecting from values that are important will also help that person to feel daily pain and suffer.
This is why so much pain is connected to a person not feeling able to love their partner the way they want to.
Many expect these important values from others, but are not committed enough to being those values themselves.
This means what’s critically important is not just your connection with your partner, but the courage to stay connected to true yourself even when your relationship seems confusing, impossible, or unfair.
That is the biggest conundrum
How do I stay connected to what’s important in me when I feel you are behaving badly.
This conundrum is simply down to an inability to understand the situation correctly.
When that happens people are reactively triggered to disconnect from themselves.
Now their interpretation and their own disconnect are giving them two doses of pain so they enter their own survival mode.
Survival mode is a place where a person’s values are discarded in favor of a need to fight or run or go to revenge.
Now they are triggered and disconnected
They focus on what’s wrong (because it’s easy) and they practice this negative focus.
They can even justify the reason to NOT be what they say is important.
This practice over time becomes so painful for them and they use that pain to leave their relationship, meet their needs elsewhere, or have an affair.
Relationships are not built through happy times. Relationships are built when things go wrong and both people become more of who they really are.
If our disagreement can end in more connection and more love what’s the chances of two people feeling their partner has their back no matter what?
Most people are not a team because neither person has the knowledge to embrace the integrity needed to be what they say is important when it matters most.
That is why too many relationships don’t work.
Both people end up disconnected from their own values in reaction to their partners behaviours.
So loving kind people turn into blamers and judgers.
If someone is judging their partner it means they simply don’t have enough understanding of the situation to remain connected to themselves.
You see judging isn’t loving.
The skill and courage of great relationships come from the ability to see past the surface behaviors and look for the root cause of their relationship problems.
The skill that couples lack the most is understanding and integrity.
Couples can only do this if they remain connected to their own values and this is most peoples problem they don’t do that.
The couples that really succeed are the ones that are curious to learn how to add value to what’s important.
Whilst remaining connected to what they say is important.
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.
Find out more >>> The Marriage Breakthrough Program