It is totally possible to turn your marriage around.
So long as the two of you are on the very same page about that.
Hear me say that again.
How do you know that your marriage is over?
Here’s how you know that it’s not — it’s that you still keep asking that question of me.
You come in and you say, “I don’t know if it’s over.”
There’s still this undertone of, “There may be hope.”
“We might be able to fix this.”
“It’s late, but I don’t think it’s too late yet.”
“I still love him.”
“I still love her very much.”
Maybe it’s, “I’m willing to do the work, but I don’t know if they are.”
Bottom line — “I still want to figure this out. See if we can figure this out.”
It’s the moment that you no longer ask that question of me — and more importantly, it’s when you no longer ask that question of yourself.
It’s when you stop asking, “How do I know that our marriage is over?”
That’s how you know — because you stop asking it.
And you stop asking the question because you know.
You’re no longer uncertain.
No longer hoping or waiting for change.
No longer confused.
You know the answer.
To all the new husbands out there — this is how you know that you’re doing it wrong.
How long has it been since you got married? Two weeks? Two months? Two years?
Here’s how you know that you’re doing it wrong: if nothing changed about your life.
If nothing changed about how you do the day-to-day, the week-to-week, the month-to-month.
Right?
In terms of how you spend your time, how you delegate, prioritize, align what you say with what you do.
If nothing changed about any of that — you’re doing it wrong.
Something should be different.
If, all of a sudden, you have this lovely human being by your side — the same person, mind you, who you’re telling is the most important person in your life.
And who, when they are not present, you describe that way to other people — as the most important person in your life.
If nothing about life changed with you now being a married man and having a wife — you’re doing it wrong.
One of my dear, dear friends got married this last weekend.
We’re so excited for her.
But it made me think again — as it does when I go to any wedding.
How is this going to change for them?
What do they need to address?
Where do they need to put certain things in place so that their marriage isn’t just standing on this, like, deck of cards thing, right?
So that it has firm feet to hold them up.
What do they need to change?
How are they doing it?
How are you doing it?
The moment that you realize and learn the difference between “this is who they are” and “this is what they did” — it’s going to move you 10 steps ahead in your marriage.
The moment that you know the difference between “here’s what they did” and “here’s who they are as a human.”
“Here’s who they are as my partner.”
“Here’s who they are as my husband or wife.”
You’re going to move 10 steps ahead.
Don’t get me wrong — you putting down an event or two on the shared Google Calendar, that’s great, fantastic even, and I mean it.
But it doesn’t equal the conversation that you need to still have with your wife about what’s coming up this next Tuesday.
About what you’re hoping to do this coming weekend that will take you away for an entire day from the family.
Hear me — you making a note on the calendar is step one.
Then, the next step — or really the more important step — is: I need to remember to bring this to my wife and not just assume that it will work because I don’t see anything on the calendar for that exact time slot.
It was never meant to be a substitution for a conversation.
You two are still going to be better off if you have that conversation.
And maybe even have it first.
To all the new fathers out there — here’s how you know that you’re doing it wrong.
How long has it been?
How old is your baby? A week? A month? A year?
If your life has not changed since you’ve had kids — and I don’t care if you’re at your first one or this is your fifth — if your life hasn’t changed one iota, you’re doing it wrong.
And if your wife is the only one absorbing all the things as it relates to your children.
If you’re still doing and keeping all of the things that you were doing when you were a bachelor — meaning before you had a family, before you had kids — you’re doing it wrong.
And if you’re at all confused about this, hit “like” on this video so you can find it later.
Share it with your wife and ask her — or better yet, let her tell you that I’m right.
