After nearly 20 years of helping couples out of their crisis, one of many lessons is not to beat yourself up if it’s gone wrong because you are going to need your energy for something far more important.
I’ve never met a couple who knows what has to happen when things go wrong, and relationships go wrong all the time.
In fact, people are so disconnected from what they have to do that they actually make things worse in their quest to fix it.
Many tell me their friends and family would be so shocked they are seeking help for their problems. Our friends see us as role models, in fact, we have to hide our problems from them.
I hear that message a lot, and I really do feel for everyone who is struggling with their marriage.
I know the pain and suffering of getting this part of your life wrong.
I didn’t know what to do either
I’ve had a passion for the past 20 years to help people understand the thinking that builds real, long-lasting connections.
Through this knowledge, I have helped many couples learn how to reinvest and breathe new life into their dead marriage, some had been dead for ten years.
I started my life not understanding how to be successful same as everyone else.
To be honest, I never started out wanting to teach this, but as someone who is passionate about intimate relationships getting it wrong was very painful.
The more challenges I uncovered in my own relationships, the more clearly I could see the problem everyone was facing.
The gap between what we naturally know and what’s needed to be successful is jaw-dropping.
You see, my message to all my clients is what we need to know to be successful; we are not born knowing.
We are not helped growing up to understand what has to happen for our relationship to work no matter how passionate it was at the start.
When I mean work, I don’t mean two people married for life who have just settled and are together for convenience.
I’m talking about two people who are more alive when they are together.
They are more excited about where they are going and what they want to achieve together.
I didn’t know how to achieve this when I started out and have never met anyone that does either.
The key to starting this new journey towards success was understanding that my own thinking had to change.
Success comes from a change of thinking
So I started a change of thinking with myself as I seemed to be the common denominator in my relationship failures.
Making myself, the starting focus became important because I had learnt prior to this that if I blamed others, there was nothing to learn, so no growth.
But if I took responsibility, I would grow towards success.
For me “responsibility” turned into the “ability” to “respond” it gave me the power to seek change.
As I started to understand how my connection with myself was affecting how I showed up, I quickly uncovered a dilemma.
How do I stay authentically connected to who I really am when the person that says they love me and cares is being so awful to me?
The answer to this question is one of the keys to the puzzle you must know to succeed.
Because when problems in relationships strike, most people become the worst of themselves.
Think about it, does it make sense on any level to bring out the worst of yourself to solve an important problem?
“Of course not”, they say, “but how else can I think about their actions when clearly they are being mean to me”?
Understanding how to break through this challenge is critical to anyone’s success but different thinking is required.
Successful relationships don’t happen because they’ve never had problems.
Quite the reverse.
Solid, lasting, passionate relationships are created through successfully dealing with all their challenges as a team.
They must know how to stay connected when things go wrong.
They must learn how to reconnect when challenges strike so the team can solve the problems.
But there is a fundamental problem with this utopian ideal.
How can we become a team when our route to happiness is so different?
Have you ever found that when one person tries to fix “the problem”, the other becomes more upset?
The reason is because the route to that happiness is very different for each person.
They both want happiness but they don’t get there the same way and no one knows this.
Now there is a problem
When our partner doesn’t respond in the way we want or expect, we get frustrated and upset.
So we practice losing connection with ourselves when we are around our partners until we get really good at it.
Many complain that I hate who I am when you are around.
Some feel this so strongly that they can’t bear how they have made themselves feel; they are overwhelmed with a feeling of needing freedom.
The thinking has to change
In every area of a person’s relationship, the thinking has to change.
- How they approach being in a relationship and their role in it.
- How they create their relationship with themselves, so they stay committed to themselves.
- How they comprehend what their partner is experiencing so they can be of value.
- How they use these crical foundations to build a team and a life direction.
The key to a successful marriage is about creating the thinking that enables the couple to experience an ongoing win-win situation.
Only then does the relationship make sense.
Most people’s natural thinking is taking them to disconnection and self-protection and these are patterns that must be understood and collapsed to stop a person from a life of regret.
It’s easy to blame and judge, but the real skill only happens when you understand how blaming and judging will sabotage what most people really want.
So my clients come for my help to learn how to change their thinking so they can create lives that make sense again.
So if you want to take control of your life, you can do this with your partner or on your own.
Someone has to change their thinking or the relationship will be out of control until one person want’s out.
I help my clients wake up to see their truth
Is now the time to put yourself in the driving seat to discover what you need to know to free yourself from suffering.
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