Greetings Everyone,

Recently I worked with a very successful woman who had just filed for a divorce. Apparently she had spent thousands and thousands of dollars on therapy and marriage counseling that didn’t seem to get anywhere and decided divorce was the only viable option.

When I started my session with her I told her that divorce was not necessary because she and her husband still loved each other but that there was a power struggle that was keeping them divided.

A great deal of my work is helping clients get to the root of their subconscious blocks, issues, and thought patterns. While working with this particular client we discovered an angry child within that was causing her to perceive her husband from a misguided perspective.

At around the age of seven or eight, this client had experienced a situation with her parents that had led her unconsciously to believe that she was not important. Some fifty some years later, she has a wealthy husband who is financially supporting a ne’er-do-well sibling and for some reason it is driving her mad with deep seated anger.

I shared with this client my intuitive perception that her husband’s actions were triggering the anger of the child within and that she was repeating the same power struggle dynamics of what had happened as a child with her parents.

It took her a few weeks of processing our session together and some deep self reflection and then she called me to announce that she had called off the divorce and that she and her husband were deeply in love again.

What had happened as a child was a simple yet profound event. The client at around eight years old had to move with her parents because the family moved to a new city. She was so furious and didn’t want to move and begged and begged that they not move.

Of course a little girl doesn’t have the understanding about why parents make life and business decisions that are necessary, but she was obstinate about not moving. Since the move took place anyway, she unconsciously believed that she must not be important enough and that was why her parents wouldn’t change their minds about moving.

Fifty some years later, this adult client asks her husband to stop supporting his younger brother. Money was not the issue because they are very wealthy, but her husband wouldn’t budge. When I told her that her husband’s reluctance was making her feel unimportant, bingo, she got it and then the psychological unraveling began and now she is a transformed, happy woman. Oddly enough, the husband also at that time chose to stop enabling his brother.

Since I have worked with thousands of clients, I have discovered that so many relationships end for the wrong reasons and how sad that is. The problem is mostly because people may be reluctant to the benefits of deep reflection and inner awareness. I believe that many relationships stagnate from the routines of their habits and that they don’t know how to create change and revitalize their love.

When I help a client create one change of habit it is amazing how much of an effect that has on their partner. My husband used to have this look that I would automatically respond to and without any words I would take care of his non-verbal request, such as give him some time on the computer when he stood there breathing with a certain tone.

Sometimes, he just wanted to hang near me, but every time he got near I just assumed he wanted the computer and irritably gave up my chair. One day as I sensed my husband’s presence, I dared to challenge him with a “What do you want?” and he replied, “I just want to see what you are doing.”

I thought about it for a bit and realized that we were stuck in the habit of making assumptions. So I asked my husband if we could try a new behavior, to just ask each other what we want, not just let our non-verbal language and non-verbal responses dictate our reactions.

Oh my gosh, what an improvement that created. My husband discovered that he was reluctant to ask because he might get rejected. So we practiced and he learned to take the risk of asking and I discovered that by knowing rather than assuming his needs led to a much more harmonious reaction to one another.

Another little habit I changed was not jumping up and immediately rescuing my husband whenever I heard him say “Where is…?” I began to stop reacting and let him look on his own for whatever object he was searching for. At first he got irritated because he was used to having me find those things for him, but once he spent a little more effort looking without me rescuing it made a big difference. His success in finding those objects increased at least seventy percent and my need to jump to the rescue began to subside, so I didn’t feel interrupted and react with irritation. Now if I jump in to assist, it is because I want to, not because I have to, and that has created much more harmony.

Marriage, an ongoing partnership, involves lots of little habits that eventually can lead to frustration and wear out a good relationship. So be aware of and examine those little responses and reactions that you have, and change them as needed. It will stimulate growth, which is just what a good marriage needs.