Everybody has heard the saying, “It takes two to tango, right?”  They take that to mean that both people have to take dance lessons to do it right.  Well, we’re using it in a slightly different way here – In reality, if just one person learns some new steps, some “new moves” if you will, and does something differently, the whole dance can, and will, change.

Let me tell you of a real-life example.  We heard from one of our email list members, Charlie.  He’d read a few of our articles, watched a few of our videos and was seriously considering buying the System. He was considering it because he and his wife, Cindy, had been fighting over having a messy house for over 20 years.  He’s an admitted neat freak and she apparently is, (according to Charlie), well, a bit of a slob.  His way of dealing with this was to go to work all day, come home and then bitterly complain about the house, pretty much making her feel lousy about herself until they went to bed.  So he decided that the System might help them. There was a serious glitch in Charlie’s plan, though.  Charlie told us that Cindy, who worked all day taking care of their four kids, claimed she had no interest in putting one more thing on her plate.  In other words, she wasn’t willing at that time to try out the StrongMarriageNow System.  We assured him that just one person applying the lessons could nevertheless make a big difference.

He went ahead and bought the System and later contacted us.  He told us that after watching the sections on Understanding Each Other and Resolving Conflict, he had decided to change his approach.  He stopped complaining and blaming and took the time to find out what was happening in Cindy’s life, what was really going on with his wife.  As you can imagine, she was more than happy to tell him!  Turns out that Cindy had all kinds of reasons for not cleaning the house – some from her childhood, some based on unresolved issues between her and Charlie, and some based on sheer exhaustion.  Once Charlie figured this out, once he began to truly listen and try to work things out with Cindy, two things happened: he stepped up and started helping Cindy a lot more, but just as importantly, Cindy stepped up once she felt like Charlie really made the effort to understand her.  Not surprisingly, (to us anyway!), Charlie reports that the house is clean today.  On a side note, when Charlie made his initial efforts to change his behavior, Cindy noticed! That’s when she finally agreed to check out and then start using the System herself.

So what’s the moral of the story? One person, learning a new skill and changing their behavior, “changing their steps” if you will, can dramatically change the entire dance.

To learn more about Relationship Myths using our online videos and downloadable exercises, check out our StrongMarriageNow System.

Have you recognized any other Relationship Myths holding you back?  How can we help save a marriage?  Please comment below.

Dr. Dana Fillmore and Amy Barnhart, co-Founders, StrongMarriageNow.com

Work On Your Marriage Problems. Visit https://www.strongmarriagenow.com