Most people I meet who are in a marital crisis are out of control of their emotions.
Understandably, the potential loss of a marriage and a family is a very worrying time, so it is naturally emotionally volatile.
The mission must be to help these people gain control of their emotions so they can act based on intelligence rather than react to their fear system, which wants them to either run or fight.
To be fair, most people don’t even consider their emotions until they start to experience constant feelings they don’t like or want.
What I see is people are, on the whole reactive to their emotions, totally unaware they are out of control of their emotional selves.
Example: A person will have an emotion, and without thought, they act out a pattern they have designed for those types of situations.
Most patterns are designed by a person without thought as they grow up.
Many people keep running the same patterns even though they can see it isn’t working.
People end up being their own worst enemy, yet they don’t see it.
We do our emotions to ourselves
As part of a person’s personal empowerment, I have to help my clients understand that we do our emotions to ourselves.
I’ll say it again; we do our emotions to ourselves.
No one has the power to run into our mind and create our feelings for us.
To many, this is a revelation.
Many people love to blame others for their feelings. To them, the blame feels good it makes others responsible, but the problem is it makes the other person have control/power over them.
I say take back control.
Just imagine having a feeling you don’t want, knowing you have the power to change that feeling to the one you do want.
I hear so many clients tell me their partner made them feel bad.
The problem with this sentence is they simply don’t have that power.
All a person can create in another person is a triggered response, the person being triggered creates every emotion that follows from that trigger.
This is why we can see people act in very different ways after being triggered by the same thing – you will see these differences happen clearly in an emergency situation.
The worry for couples in relationships is that if two people are leading their marriage and family and yet they are both emotionally reactive, who is driving?
In many cases, I see a couple who have practiced for years triggering each other, making themselves feel bad and then blame the other.
This process is highly destructive, and it triggers in most a self-protective energy, which is a connection killer.
The problem for a person who has practiced reacting to their emotions unaware they could change them to more resourceful ones.
They can want to leave a relationship because they have spent years making themselves feel bad, yet they blame their partner for how they have been feeling.
This is how people take their old problems into new relationships.
They think leaving their partner and finding someone new will be the fix.
In many cases, I see a person wanting to leave their spouse because they turned them into something they didn’t like.
I see masculine men who are unaware of how their wives’ emotional needs need to be met and this turns their wives into masculine energy as they are forced to look after their own emotional needs.
He then might complain she is cold, aggressive, miserable no fun to be around.
How can she be fun if she can’t be her true self around him?
The problem is he’s likely to turn the next girl into the same masculine energy until he sees his part.
How about the overly controlling woman who turns her husband into her servant only to complain he is weak.
She can leave him and control the next man ready to give himself up to love her.
The key to stopping the cycle of unhelpful patterns is to gain control over destructive reactive emotions and replace them with ones that will take you to a future that makes sense to you.
I show my clients how fast a feeling can change.
Many believe this takes time to change feelings.
In my experience, the time is taken up by the fear of making the change; the feeling can shift in an instant.
So my advice is this:-
Life is about experiencing the feelings you want.
If you don’t know how to create those feelings or feel others have power over your feelings, how will the life you want ever happen?
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
- Marriage in Crisis? Are You Wasting Your Time Trying to Save Your Marriage? - November 6, 2026
- Case Study: By the Time She Contacted Me, She Was Already Planning Their Separation and Divorce - November 3, 2026
- How to Talk to Each Other—Without It Turning Into Another Argument - October 29, 2026