If you sit around waiting for your spouse to make changes, it will likely be a stalemate.

You can only change yourself. You can make some small tweaks yourself that can likely impact your marriage.

If you don’t nag or engage in the fight, then your spouse will have nothing to lash back at. If you don’t criticize, then they don’t have to get defensive. If you treat them as their best self, they will likely live up to it.

Typically, when there are changes in the system (the ones you made), the rest of the system changes too (your spouse). That is ‘systems theory’.

Caveat: It may not happen instantaneously, so keep at it. Your successful marriage is worth the effort and patience.

– based on “It Takes One to Tango” by Winifred M. Reilly, MA, MFT