Hi Reader,
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What if continuing to work so hard on the relationship is inadvertently keeping you stuck?

I say this as a therapist, and as someone who has spent plenty of time “on the couch.” Couples counseling can be incredibly valuable. And ... when I was trying to figure out my own marriage, we encountered a couples therapist who believed “the marriage is the client.”

There is clinical reasoning behind this approach. It can shift attention away from diagnosing or blaming one partner and toward understanding the patterns between two people, and how each person participates in those patterns. I understand the value in that.

But here's where it can become problematic: when supporting the marriage subtly becomes preserving the marriage at all costs.

The individual wellbeing, autonomy, desires, and needs of the two people inside the marriage still matter. An intact marriage is not necessarily evidence of a healthy one.

Society spends so much time asking women how they can improve their relationships that it's easy to overlook our individuality. Before you know it, figuring out your relationship has become its own full-time job.

You can spend years asking, “How do I twist, contort, and bend to make this marriage work?” when maybe you need more space to ask a much simpler question:

Who do I want?

What would a healthy, meaningful life look like for me? What kind of relationships do I want? Who do I want around me? What makes me feel alive? What would I create if I weren't spending so much energy trying to figure this out?

And once you've started answering those questions, there's another one worth asking:

Can we create that kind of life together?

I'm not suggesting that you give up on your relationship. I'm suggesting that sometimes the way forward isn't to put even more attention on it. Sometimes the way forward is to take some of that attention and put it back into your life.

Your friendships. Your financial security. Your work. Your creativity. Your joy. Your community. Your purpose. The people and experiences that make you feel fully known, connected, passionate, and engaged in being alive.

Your romantic relationship can be an incredibly meaningful part of your life without being the organizing principle of it.

My encouragement to you is simple: stop living as a supporting character in your own life.

You can love someone deeply without abandoning yourself. You can care about your relationship without making it the center of everything. And you can start building a life you love before you have all the answers about what happens next.

"Decenter the relationship. Recenter your life." That's what we're talking about in Girl Talk. You can join us here, Girl Talk.
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Until next Monday, bye for now.
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Melanie