Career going well, but marriage almost over? Here's a reason why.
You’ve been incredibly successful in your career: you’ve got a beautiful home, car, wealth and luxuries. But your marriage feels like it’s basically over.
Evenings are spent sitting on the couch across from each other scrolling on social media.
You feel ignored, like you don’t matter, like they don’t care anymore.
You find yourself bickering with them almost every day. Everything seems to trigger a conflict. They’re grumpy, defensive, and you spend your days walking around on eggshells trying to avoid another blow up.
You’re rarely intimate together - if at all. Eye contact, connection, and feeling desired is a thing of the past.
You’re disconnected. You’re sad. You’re lonely.
The reason your marriage feels like it’s over is because you’re in the power struggle phase, and you’ve arrived here very late to the party.
Most couples will enter this power struggle phase, a natural phase that all couples have to go through, generally 6 months to 2 years in. And it’s a very normal phase.
In fact, it’s a crucial and necessary phase.
The power struggle is the phase that all couples have to go through to:
Work through their own previous history of wounding, patterns, and self-sabotage in relationships - and ultimately heal
Learn to accept their partner and witness their partner’s own vulnerabilities, insecurities, and weaknesses
Learn to connect to their true needs beneath the romance and fun of the relationship
Master communicating these and negotiating with their partner in a way that allows for both parties to feel heard, seen, and fulfilled.
The power struggle phase happens when the hormones of attraction and honeymoon wear off, and the metaphorical ‘mask’ that we all wear in the early stages where we’re all trying to be our best selves, comes off.
This is normal - and natural.
It’s a sign that you are comfortable with your partner and you’ve evolved to that next evolution.
And once the mask comes off and you start to relax and feel more like yourself, and your partner starts to relax and be more of themselves, you might find yourself thinking:
‘Who is this person I am with?!’
‘Why are they so sloppy, so grumpy, so…lazy?’
‘Why aren’t they trying anymore?’
Literally this can show up as not dressing up so well around each other, not censoring yourself when you experience something you don’t like, making comments that feel like criticisms because you’re not pussy-footing around things, and no longer giving each other compliments.
It might be when you start to realize you need more alone time, or have interests outside of the relationship you want to pursue - sports, business, lifestyle changes, and you no longer feel the need to ‘pretend’ to be something you're not for the sake of your partner. NBecause you’re comfortable.
And of course, as you lean into your natural relaxed identity, this is where the arguments and pain in a relationship tends to kick off.
You both ARE different.
And neither of you are ‘trying’ so hard.
So, of course, as you start to argue, disagree, and nit pick at each other, conflict grows and disconnect deepens.
Most couples break up here. Truly.
However, the healthy couples that make it, are the ones who roll their sleeves up and lean in to do the ‘inner work’ and outer strategy.
What this looks like is learning to accept that neither of you are perfect, and both of you are playing a role in the dysfunction.
This means accepting responsibility for your side of the street, and taking accountability for how you’re contributing to the problem (through no fault of your own, typically).
This means learning to discern where you’re self-sabotaging, where you’re hurting things and where you’re perceiving the situation perhaps inaccurately, or more negatively than needs be (based on your upbringing, patterns, and wiring).
This also means learning to emotionally regulate yourself, and do the inner work to clean up after yourself and become a better, brighter, more calm, secure, and ‘healed’ version of yourself - one that is more stable, compassionate, and well equipped to handle emotions and the challenges of living and loving another (imperfect) human.
This also means that you will have to learn to accept your partner, warts and all.
And, crucially, you will have to learn to have a lot of difficult, gnarly, hard conversations that require vulnerability, courage, and you to dig deep into your own truth.
You will have to know yourself better than you’ve ever known yourself before, and at the same time you will have to surrender your ego and learn to show up with kindness, compassion, and understanding.
You will have to learn to communicate, negotiate, and compromise.
You will have to, ultimately, learn to be a better human.
This phase is GOLD.
Hard, yes.
But crucial for growth.
Because once you are through that phase, you enter the Bliss stage, where you reconnect with your partner in a way unlike anything you've had before.
Your love now will be a mature love, a kind love, a tender love - not one that’s teenage, fun, drunk and full of hormones - but one that is older, wiser, and deeper.
This is where the real magic happens.
Now - the problem is, a LOT of couples, especially high achieving couples, delay this phase.
Why?
Because they’re too busy focusing on business projects and chasing new highs, new distractions, that detract from the realities of the relationship.
Once the honeymoon period wears off, the business endeavours, the new projects, the climbing of the ladder takes over - and this becomes the focus, the priority.
Likely the couple are entering power struggle, but it won’t be as intense nor deep as other couples because they’re fundamentally distracted. In many ways, they’re avoiding it through the external pursuits.
And so, that power struggle ends up being delayed, and delayed, and delayed.
Until years later, once the wealth has been created, the kids have been raised, and things are more stable, they wake up to realise:
‘I don’t know my partner anymore’
‘How did we get here?’
‘How am I so lonely?’
‘What happened’?
All of that beautiful growth, connection, and revival of their love never got to happen - because they were distracted.
Now, this is unfortunately more normal than not for high achieving, ambitious professional couples.
Doesn’t mean it’s the end though - far from it.
It just means that you have to navigate the power struggle a bit later in life, and unravel deeper layers and patterns than someone who’s doing it in their 20s or early 30s.
Totally doable, and well worth it.
Unfortunately, typical marriage therapy or marital counselling isn’t the best solution here though.
Because that sort of solution tends to use talk therapy - just talking about the issues - which is an extremely long-winded way of solving the problem.
When there are years, decades even, of disconnect, of distraction, talking about the problem is going to take a very long time indeed.
Equally, bringing two folks who have a wide gap between them into a counselors office to ‘talk things through’ is fraught - there’s simply too much emotion, hostility, frustration, disconnect, and dysregulation - to wade through.
What I find to be FAR more effective is to work with one individual in that dynamic, typically the one that wants to lean in and do the inner work, and help them clean up their side of the street individually with me.
This lets them get vulnerable, deep, and move much faster, on their own, without external trigger and volatility, to rise higher and become the best version of themselves. To become securely attached, if you will.
And as they do this, inevitably, the partner experiences and perceives their transformation.
Because the first person, the client in this case, is behaving more calmly, wisely, and with more compassion (since they are becoming calmer, more wise, and more compassionate with themselves, in their own growth), the partner starts to question what’s happening.
And this often invites conversations that lead to the partner wanting to dive into do the inner work because they see the benefits - and want to grow with the client.
This is far more inspiring and kind than trying to drag one another to a counselor's room and thrash it out there.
Yes, it requires patience and willingness to show up.
But ultimately it’s FAR superior to do this inner work because it’s going to benefit you in every otheR arena of your life too - including your health, mental health, other relationships, spiritual sense of self, happiness and so on. It’ll literally boost your wealth since studies show secure people go on to earn more, and live longer, happier, more fulfilled lives.
It’s a no brainer to do this.
If you want to make a start yourself, then I’d love to help you.
I have a 90 day program (that can run for 6 months, if you want to go at a slower pace) that takes you from feeling disconnected, frustrated, and lonely, to feeling connected, secure, and fulfilled.
It’s rooted in proven behavioral science solutions, in my trademarked methodology called the Successfully in Love ® method.
And you can make a start on it today.
You can work with me 1:1 on this, or in a tiny, intimate group of less than 10 folks if that feels more accessible to you.
Everything can be done remotely or in person in Vancouver, and you’ll need about an hour a week to stay on top of the program. You are welcome to do more, if you want (some folks invest hours) but I’ve designed this to be as efficient and streamlined as possible, cognizant that most of my clients are very busy professionals living in airport lounges ;)
If you want to learn more, watch this video here.
Book a call with me today to start the conversation on how I can help you. I’ll ask you a few questions about your situation, and then if it makes sense, we can go from there.
