One Person Is Enough to Save a Relationship

"Both partners have to work on it" is true. But one of them can start. Usually the wiser one. And in time, that happiness comes back to them.

To save a relationship, in 99.9% of cases it’s enough for just one person in the couple to step up.

When women read my posts, they often leave comments along these lines: “Dmitriy, everything you write is good, but my man is closed off to these ideas, and on my side I’m already doing everything I can to save our relationship. So this is a slightly one-sided approach to family problems. Both partners should be working on the relationship, and until he steps up, I’m not sure anything will change for us. I’m so tired…”

I understand these women perfectly, and I agree 100% that a relationship is a two-way street. I would be delighted if all of us — boys and girls alike — were taught from childhood how to build a happy family.

But the reality is different. In it, 70% of families divorce, and among the 30% who stay in a formal marriage, the share of genuinely happy ones is low.

We can spend five years mastering a new profession, but not three hours learning something about family and relationships. Where would different statistics come from?

So when people come to me asking how to save their relationship, I explain the idea that it’s enough for one person to step up.

Then I listen to how he or she is already doing everything possible to keep the family together, and how the whole problem is really the other person, who doesn’t listen and doesn’t appreciate them. But the phrase “I do everything for him/her” usually turns out to be just an idea in one spouse’s head, because the other person in the session describes what they actually need and what has been missing from the relationship for a very long time.

So if one of the two in a family genuinely does everything the other one needs, that other person will be very happy.

Let’s imagine a situation. You’ve been a wife for eight years. You haven’t just grown disappointed and burned out — you have emotionally died in this relationship. Whatever scraps of respect for your husband were left, he trampled with his own actions, his lying, his indifference. You don’t just live like strangers in one apartment; you hate your husband and he irritates you beyond words. Your “emotional power bank” is at zero.

You file for divorce, because things physically cannot get any worse. The lawyers tell you the process will take a few months and you’ll have to wait.

And let’s imagine that your husband, for some reason, decides to try to save the family. He starts asking other men (the ones with healthy relationships) what they do and how, starts reading books about relationships, attending courses and seminars, starts taking care of himself and how he looks.

You come home from work. The place is clean. You go to talk to the kids, and they’re doing their homework together with your husband.

He has started genuinely taking an interest in you and in what’s happening in your life. He doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t look at his phone, asks questions. He plans time for you, and his attention is on you.

Without being asked, your husband has started leaving you money for the things you want and for running the household. Before that, the financial question was on you, and you were the one thinking about where and how to get money.

After work he calls and asks which groceries and household supplies he should pick up on the way home.

He has started listening to you carefully, responding to your requests the first time, anticipating your needs. You notice your face cream is running out — and he has already bought exactly the same one and put it in the bathroom. He saw the zipper on your bag was broken and either fixed it himself or took it in for repair.

He has started bringing flowers, sweets, and the food you love. He has started arranging real dates for you: candles, romance, the whole thing.

Your husband has started sharing things with you he never talked about before. He has started opening up and trusting you. He has started sincerely apologizing for all those years when his words and actions hurt and offended you.

If he started doing everything you so badly need, everything that makes you happy — would you want to give this relationship a second chance, or would you sign the divorce papers?

Most women, hearing a scenario like this, told me something along the lines of: “I want a husband like that myself, I’m not giving him to anyone! What are you talking about?! What divorce?!”

And let’s imagine that three months later your emotional power bank has been restored. You have become a happy, loving woman. Wouldn’t you start making your man happy in return? When you are filled with love for him, will you selfishly enjoy what he does for you, or will you do things in return that bring him joy too?

When our inner reservoir of happiness is full, it starts to overflow and fill the people around us. And when both people in a relationship are happy, they think about a shared future, not about separating.

An important caveat: please don’t think that filing for divorce might provoke this kind of behavior in your husband. Most often it turns out to be the opposite — I’m simply using it as an example of what provoked the change in this man.

So to make a relationship happy, at the start it’s enough for one person in the couple to step up. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the man or the woman. Usually it’s the one who is wiser. The one who can step over the childish position of “This isn’t fair! Why should I be the one making her happy?! Let her…”

And as soon as a husband or a wife starts making their other half happy, in time they start receiving that same happiness back.

Do you agree that to save a relationship, it’s enough for one person to step up?