One person can't save a marriage. Both partners need to be on board.
Both need to work at it. Both need to care. Both need to……
Bunk.
One person can make a tremendous difference in the atmosphere of the
marriage – in the day to day dynamics that define what the marriage
is all about. One person, making internal shifts that take
responsibility for one's part of the marital dynamics can (and often
does) make all the difference between a marriage that is happy and
fulfilling and one that is a dismal failure.
Oftentimes when my husband and I are having a bad day (or week or
month) one of us will make a conscious decision to step of the path
of ickiness and move to a better place. More often than not, it's my
husband who does that – he being much less pigheaded than I. He'll
stop midsentence, take a deep breath and say or do something to move
us somewhere less adversarial. It is absolutely a case of one person
making a difference, particularly because I could stay stuck in
pigheaded nastiness for quite some time.
Several years ago, when things with us were stuck and I was blaming
everything that was wrong with our lives on the past misdeeds (real
or imagined) of my husband, I had a moment of epiphany. Out of the
cosmos I was hit with the reality that my problem with the marriage
was nothing to do with what Steve did or did not do – it was entirely
about my regrets about my past choices and how they got me to where I
was that day. How freeing! Suddenly I wasn't waiting for him to
change in order for our marriage to be good. With a shift in attitude
I could let go of the past and focus on today – and only today.
Alright – so I hear you already shaking your head and muttering under
your breath that those are times when both partners are committed to
the marriage and to staying in it. Perhaps you're right. So let's
look at some of the tough case scenarios – anger/abuse, infidelity,
other addiction. Those are times you say when one person can't save
the marriage – when the destructive acts of one are too powerful or
too terrible to overcome.
At some point you are right. But I believe that point is much farther
down the road than most of us are willing to admit. It requires far
less work on our part if we can push the blame off onto someone who
is so obviously trashing the marriage instead of turning toward the
mirror and asking what we can do.
Now, I'm not talking about being nice. This is not about meeting
needs, being warm and fuzzy to your mate, or about biting your tongue
and living with a relationship that is less than desirable. I don't
do nice. I'm talking about deep, internal, difficult, personal
changes. The sorts of things that when I ask you to do them you tell
me you "can't." I'm talking about things like confronting conflict
rather than avoiding it. Being honest when you're hurting or upset.
(No shouting and fighting is not addressing conflict or being honest –
I mean calm, collected, courteous, grown up, vulnerable honesty.)
Intervening in an affair or addiction. Leaving an abusive situation.
Calling 911 and pressing charges when you are threatened or harmed.
Getting a restraining order. Refusing to enable or to play along with
a destructive situation. Tough love. Really really tough love.
When people get courage and the become willing to fully address the
things that are hurting the marriage they can make a tremendous
difference. Alone. When they take a stand for themselves and their
boundaries – when they protect their marriage the way a mother bear
protects her young – without malice and without sentimentality – they
can and they do make a difference.
I'm a big fan of pain. Without pain most of us would not change our
course of action. When we make our partner comfortable in his/her
destruction of our marriage we become as great a threat to the
marriage as the one who is cheating, addicted, or abusive. When we
refuse to enable those things, when we rock the boat, make waves, and
address our own fears of conflict we steer the rudder of our own
destiny. Only after doing so can we say that our actions made no
difference to the saving of the marriage.
Saying that it takes two is correct in the end. But as a first step
argument it's nothing more than a way to avoid the pain and the work
of our own internal changes.
P
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