"How do I save my marriage?" Here's what to do when it feels like you're stuck.

Here are 5 strategic moves for high-performers heading into the holidays

As Thanksgiving and the Holiday season approaches, many high-functioning professionals find themselves dreading what’s supposed to be “the most wonderful time of the year.”

Because so often, instead of connection, there’s tension.

Lots of alcohol, rich food, family pressures, commitments, parties, and room for arguments. That undercurrent of exhaustion and resentment comes to the forefront when you realise you’re not happy after all, and find yourself being envious of other couples.

Well, you’re not alone - and you’re not broken.

But if you’ve asked yourself “How do I save my marriage?” this season, here’s an article for you. 

Below are 5 science-backed steps that can help stabilize things quickly, without forcing vulnerability or fake niceties. 

1. Identify your side of the street

Before you point more fingers at your partner, ask yourself:

• Where am I projecting my own patterns and wounds onto my partner?

• Where is my reaction to them actually loaded with past experiences?

• Could it be that I am seeing this a certain way because of my history?

Our history, previous experience, wounds and attachment patterns distort our perception.

What feels like “nagging” might be your discomfort with intimacy. 

What feels like “coldness” might be your fear of rejection, flaring up again.

What feels like “they aren’t helping me” might be your wounds around feeling abandoned, coming up.

So, start with a self-audit:

• What did I feel in that last argument?

• Is that feeling familiar from a previous experience, or in my childhood?

• Could it be that I have felt this before?

This lets you regain control by building awareness around your patterns, your wiring - so that you understand yourself intimately and have full control over yourself and your reality.

When we take this extreme accountability over ourselves, we are able to see things more clearly. We also regain power and stop handing it away by pointing our fingers blaming our partners, but rather taking full ownership over our side of the street and what we are bringing to the table.

2. Clear the blocks at the subconscious level

This part is critical - because it’s neurobiological.

These old blocks, wounds, patterns, your wiring, lives in your nervous system, which stores these emotional patterns from decades ago. If you felt unsafe expressing needs as a child, you may still freeze, fawn, or flee when intimacy arises now, even if logically, you “know better.”

These patterns are all unconscious and rarely things that we can control rationally.

That’s why you can’t fix these patterns with logic alone.

And why therapy, reading books, podcasts and so on, isn’t going to fix this.

To change your relational dynamics, you have to recondition the default wiring.

You have to ‘rewire’ yourself, using subconscious mind techniques. Somatically, with all your parts integrated, speaking to the subconscious - and not just your conscious. 

You have to extract these at the root cause, core level.

And this is so much more than therapy. It’s deeper, root cause work, and it brings targeted interventions designed to clear those blocks and old patterns - and create security and safety within you. Because when you are secure and safe within yourself, you stop feeling triggered with your partner and you have ultimate control. It really is a great place to be.

3. Get prescriptive about what you actually need

Expectations are where most couples fall apart.

You assume they’ll know what you want.

They assume they’re doing enough.

And both of you end up resentful and neglected, misunderstood and alone.

So this is where you both need to get explicit and clear on what you need. 

Think of this like a recipe you are writing, and they are going to follow.

Instead of saying, “I need more support,” say:

“I need more support, and to me that looks like spending 15 minutes each evening talking about what’s going on for us, with no phones. I need that at least 3x a week.”

Or:

“I can’t reset from work mode to home mode instantly. I need 30 minutes alone after I get home before I can be present.”

Be specific, be measurable, be repeatable, and keep it simple!

My husband and I wrote out 50 ‘ways to love each other’ when we first met, and it became a bit of a blueprint on how to be with each other - which carried us through the first few years. Being explicit is a brilliant hack.

4. Solve for your own needs first

You have to fill your own cup before you expect anyone else to help you. Because you need to have emotional sovereignty.

When you outsource your needs and emotional regulation to your partner, “I’ll feel OK when they validate me / change / calm down”, sadly you set both of you up to fail.

Your needs are valid, yes.

And they’re yours to own.

No one can save you but you - the same way you cannot save anyone else but yourself.

So get your own needs met.

This might mean:

• Reclaiming time for solitude, e.g. an hour a week having a deep relaxing meditation and candle time with yourself to decompress

• Rebuilding a neglected fitness or creative habit, e.g. signing up to gym classes that give you workouts and community

• Getting support outside the relationship so your partner isn’t your only outlet, e.g. having an entourage of friends or a coach that you can depend upon, share your stuff with, and feel safe with.

Fill your cup. Then fill the relationships.

When your nervous system is well resourced, you stop reacting from a place of emptiness and lack. This lets you start more consciously responding.

5. Create a weekly state of the union meeting

This is a weekly ‘check in’ time with each other. It is NOT a date night, nor is it a complaint session.

This is your tactical check-in, almost like your relationship emotional project management meeting.

Some of my clients do it on a Sunday morning in bed together, others do it on a Friday before date night others on a Monday. My husband and I try to do this Sunday lunchtimes. 

Borrowed from Gottman’s framework, the “State of the Union” meeting includes:

• What went well this week?

• What felt difficult?

• What can we each do to improve next week?

• How’s our intimacy, logistics, connection?

You want to keep it scheduled, structured and short (30 minutes max).

Most of all: keep it neutral. You are NOT here to interrupt each other, nor attack or blame or argue. You’re here to talk, be open minded, hear each other out, and solve the problem TOGETHER.

All relationships benefit from this structure.

Ultimately, the odds are you can save your marriage.

But only if you stop trying to do it alone, or through logic, guilt, pressure, or just hope.

You need to do the subconscious work and you have to go deep to make the changes last.

And you need a strategy built for your nervous system, your attachment patterns, and your emotional bandwidth.

If you want to walk through this with structure, speed, and privacy, I’ve got your back - because this is precisely what I help clients with. Message me.

This is what I do.

I have a proprietary methodology called the Successfully in Love® method to help you with all of this, and more, so you can fix your relationship and get back on track. 

Message me today.