090|Your Marriage Feels Over — But That Feeling May Be Lying to You

[00:00:00] When You're Sure Your Marriage Is Over

If you've been married a while and you've hit a real low point, there's a good chance you know the feeling I'm about to describe. It was June of 2021. My son was about a year old, asleep in his room down the hall, and my wife and I were sitting on the floor across from each other eye to eye.

This was the end of a long road and the beginning of a new one. It started months earlier when she finally told me the truth, that she was unhappy and didn't know if she wanted to stay married with me.

It kept going when she pushed me to go get the support I needed at a men's retreat, and it got real the moment I finally saw what I'd been doing to us and owned it. All of that came first. This night on the floor was just where the words finally came out of my mouth. I told her every way I felt like I'd failed her, every way the marriage wasn't what it was supposed to be.

I told her she deserved better than what I'd been giving her, and that the life we were living wasn't the life she imagined for herself or for us or for our son. And while I sat there saying all of it, my brain was running its own show in the background, and the story it kept telling me had already jumped to the ending.

It's over. Where am I going to live? Am I about to be the guy who moves back in with his parents? Am I going to see my son every other week if I'm lucky? My mind just kept going, doom and gloom, everything falling apart in real time in my head. And underneath all of it was the thing that felt more true than anything else in the room, that this is it.

My marriage is done, and it's all my fault. But I did one thing that night, one small thing, and that one thing is the reason I'm still married five years later telling you this story instead of a very different one, and I'm going to tell you what it was. But before I do, I need you to see what was actually driving all of that, because the same thing is running in you.

It doesn't only show up on the worst day of your marriage like it did in mine. It's there on the ordinary bad days too, and that low grinding feeling that this is just how your marriage is now and it's never going to change. That's your mind taking the moment you're standing in and swearing it's permanent.

It's always going to be like this. And it pulls the same trick when things go well, telling you you're finally out of it for good, so you coast until something hard comes back around and blindsides you. By the end of this episode, you're going to understand why your mind does this in both directions, why neither version is the truth, and the one thing you can do to come back to the day in front of you so you can actually keep going

Stick with me on this one because I'm not going to pretend it's easy. It isn't. But it's one of the most important things I can hand you, and it changes everything about how you get through the hard stretches without walking away

Let's get started.

[00:02:29] The One Small Thing I Did That Night

Welcome to Better Husband, the podcast that helps you answer the question: how can I be a better husband? I'm Angelo Santiago, a men's marriage and relationship coach, and every week I bring you practical insights to help you strengthen your marriage and become the best husband you can be

So let me take you back to the conversation I was having with my wife, because what I did next is the whole point of this episode. I didn't have an answer to a single one of those questions my brain was throwing at me. I didn't know where I'd live. I didn't know if we'd make it. I couldn't picture the conversation with my parents, sitting them down and telling them that my marriage had come to an end, then asking if I could move back into their house at this point in my life.

I didn't know what I'd say to my friends. I didn't know what she'd say to hers or to her family. I couldn't imagine how we'd even begin to tell my son or what it would do to him growing up back and forth between two houses, two parents who used to be one home.

I couldn't see six months out, let alone the rest of my life. And every time I tried to look that far, I went right back under. So I stopped trying to look that far. I asked myself a much smaller question, not how do I fix all of this, not how do I get us all the way back, just what does this moment need from me right now?

What's the one next right step I can take from where I'm actually sitting? And that night, the next right step wasn't some big thing. It was staying in the conversation instead of shutting down. It was telling her the truth instead of saying what I thought she wanted to hear. It was letting her see me when everything in me wanted to go quiet and protect myself.

That was the whole step

And I want you to notice this because it's easy to miss. I wasn't asking what all the steps were to put my whole marriage back together. I wasn't asking how far I had to go or how fast I could get there because the second you try to answer those questions, you're staring at the whole mountain at once, and it looks impossible.

There's no way I can do all of that, and that feeling of there's no way I can do all of that, that it's impossible, is exactly what throws you back into the doomsday future, the one where it's already over. It drops you right back into the belief that nothing you do is going to change any of it. That was the exact thing pulling me down. I was only asking about the ground I was standing on.

Where am I, and what does it right now need from me?

Then the next morning came, and I asked it again, "What does today need?" And I took that step. And the day after that, same question, and the steps were different every single day. Some days it was giving her more space. Some days it was opening up and sharing more of what was going on inside of me when everything in me wanted to keep it shut.

Some days it was going and getting the support I needed. Some days it was being the support she needed. And some days, honestly, the only step I could find was sitting there trying to figure out what the next right step even was. But every day, I looked at where I actually was, and I decided the next right thing from there.

And I wanna be honest about how this went because I don't want it to sound like a clean little trick that fixes everything. It was slow. It was months of this. There were plenty of days where it didn't feel like it was working at all. Days I took the step and she was still hurt, still guarded, and nothing looked different by the time we went to bed, and I had to get up the next morning and take the next one anyway.

But after enough of those days, I turned around one day and looked back, and I could see how far we'd actually come. I hadn't sprinted. I hadn't made one big leap that saved the marriage. I just kept taking the next right step day by day, and all of those small steps had stacked up into something solid under my feet, a place that a year earlier I never could have imagined getting to.

That's the one thing I did. That's what kept me from giving up on the worst night of my marriage, and it's most of what I wanna hand you in this episode. But I told you at the top there's another part of this story, and there is, because taking the next right step got me through the worst of it.

What I wasn't ready for was what my brain did once things actually started going well. The same brain that had told me it was over flipped completely, and it started telling me something that sounded a lot better and turned out to be just as dangerous. I'm going to come back to that later because it's the other half of what I want you to understand.

For now, let me show you what was actually going on in my head on that bad night, why it felt so true, and why this is likely happening to you as well.

[00:06:44] Why Your Mind Stamps Forever on One Bad Night

I call it the machine. Every one of us has one, and mine was running full blast that night, right there on the floor. The second your marriage gets painful, this machine turns on, and it does one specific thing.

It takes the worst moment you're standing in, and it stamps forever on it. Whatever you're feeling tonight, it swears you're going to feel for the rest of your life. That's the lie. That's the one to catch. It's always going to be like this. And most of the time, it doesn't even scream. It just hums along in the background, taking the worst moment and calling it the rest of your life.

Now, sometimes the machine doesn't stop at it's always going to be this hard. Sometimes it goes all the way. First, it tells you the best case is that it stays exactly this bad forever, and then it goes further than that. It tells you it's already over, done. It plays the tape out, where you'll be living, the lawyer you have to call, your kid going back and forth between two houses.

And that right there is where I was that night I told you about at the top of this episode. My brain didn't say this is hard. It said it's over, and it's all my fault. Same lie, just turned all the way up. And I wanna be fair to the machine because it's not trying to wreck you. It thinks it's protecting you.

It's scanning for the worst thing so you won't get blindsided by it. That's the job it's doing. The problem is what it hands you at the end. It hands you a story, and it swears the story is a fact. And here's the biggest problem with all of this, because this is what I want you to really see. While your mind is off living in that permanent version of the future, you are not in the room.

And here's the truth it has skipped right over. It's not over. Nothing has been finalized. She is still sitting right there. You might feel lost and she might feel 100 miles away, but the marriage is still alive in that room with both of you. You're already grieving a divorce that hasn't happened, and so you check out.

You go cold and pull back because your mind has already decided it's done and there's nothing you can do about it, and she feels that come off you. She might not be reaching for you at all.

She might already have one foot out the door, but what she feels from you is a man who has given up, who doesn't seem to want this, who isn't fighting for it, and nothing pushes a marriage toward actually ending faster than one person deciding on the inside that it already has. So this is what I need you to take out of this first part.

That forever your mind keeps showing you in all its detail is not fact. It's a story. It's a story your brain wrote in one hard moment and handed you as the truth. It feels like clarity. It feels like you're finally seeing how things the way they really are, and it's fiction, not fact. So the first step is just seeing it for what it is.

Once you do that, there's a way to stop believing it, and that's what's next.

[00:09:23] Keep Your Head Where Your Feet Are

Because here's how you set the story down. You don't do it by arguing with your brain. You'll lose that argument every time because the machine is faster than you, and it has an answer for everything.

You do it with a phrase I wanna give you, and it's the whole point of this episode. Keep your head where your feet are. Now, you've probably heard me call the work we do here relational recovery, and a lot of what I teach comes from addiction recovery, including my own, and this is one of the lines that got me through the worst of it.

Keep your head where your feet are. In recovery work, the most famous line you'll ever hear is one day at a time, and there's a reason it's the one that stuck. If you sit a guy down and tell him he can never drink again for the rest of his life, that's crushing. That's a mountain he can't climb, and he'll give up before he starts.

But today, not drinking today feels possible. It feels manageable. It feels doable. So you shrink it down to the only piece that's actually in front of you. Your marriage is the same. You cannot fix the next 40 years of it this afternoon. You can't think your way to a guarantee that you'll make it. Every time you try, you land right back in that forever story, and it buries you, so you stop trying to carry the whole thing.

You bring your head back down to where your feet are, and I mean that literally. Look down at your feet right now. That spot on the ground is where you actually are, not the future your mind keeps running off into, not the next 40 years, just this one day, the one you're standing in, and that day is the only thing you actually have to deal with.

And then you ask one question. What's the next right step right here today? That's it. That's the practice. When you catch your mind bolting off into the future up or down, you notice it, you walk it back to your feet, and you ask that question. Now, I wanna be clear about what the next right step is because guys turn this into a checklist, and then it feels like there's too much to do, and some of it feels too hard, and they freeze up.

So it's not a checklist. Some days, the step is a small repair you owe her. Other days, it's finally raising your hand, admitting you just need support, that you can't do this part on your own, and sometimes it's just looking honestly at your own part in the mess. You don't need all of it. You need the one thing this day is actually asking of you, and you need to take it.

And the step counts even when it's small, and that's what I couldn't see that night on the floor, and it's what saved me. I wasn't strong enough to save my marriage that night. Nobody is. But I was strong enough to take one honest step and get up the next day and take another.

That's how a marriage actually comes back, not all at once, one step stacked on top of the last. So when the machine tells you it's always gonna be like this, you don't have to win the argument. You answer it by keeping your head where your feet are. This one hard day, not the whole ma- marriage. What does today need from me?

And then you go do that one thing. That's the practice when things are bad. But I told you that there was a second half to this because the machine doesn't only run when things are bad, and what it does when things get good almost costs me more than the bad night ever did.

[00:12:33] Why Feeling Fixed Is Just as Dangerous

Because things did get better for us. Slowly, over a lot of those small steps, we climbed out of the worst of it, and you'd think that that's where the danger ends. It's not. It's where a different kind of danger starts. The same machine that spent the whole bad night telling me it was over did not shut off when things got good.

It just flipped direction. Now it started telling me the opposite story. We did it. We're out. We're fixed. Our marriage is going to make it, and it's always going to feel amazing like this. And I want you to catch that last part because it's the same line we just talked about, just pointed in a different direction.

It's always going to be like this. Before, that meant the bad was permanent. Now, it means the good is permanent. Same machine, same line, just aimed the other way. And that version has a problem, too, only a sneakier one, because if I've already won, why would I keep doing the work? So I eased off. The daily step that got me out, I stopped taking it as often.

I coasted. I told myself I'd earned it, and I'd gotten better, and that part was real, but I started treating a good stretch like a finish line, and then further down the road, the old thing came back around. My wife brought something up that I was sure we had already dealt with.

We'd talked about it, we'd worked through it, and this is what my brain did in that moment. It didn't say, "Okay, here we go again. Take the next right step." It said, "Wait. Why is this still here? I thought we were past this. Why are we back here again?" That question feels reasonable, and it's actually the fantasy falling apart, and it's more dangerous than the first spiral because now it comes with evidence.

You see? The work doesn't hold. You did all of that, and you're right back to where you started. Nothing really changes. That letdown, the crash after you thought you were done can do more damage to a man than the hard thing that set it off ever could. It's what makes guys quit after they've already come so far.

So let me tell you what's actually true. The good stretch was never a finish line, and the old thing coming back is not proof that the work failed. Recovery doesn't run in a straight line. It circles back. The same issue showing up again isn't your marriage breaking. It's your marriage asking you for the next right step one more time.

It's not a relapse into hopelessness, which means the practice doesn't change. Keep your head where your feet are in both directions. When things are good, you don't get to tell yourself you're done and drift off, but you also don't just grit your teeth and march onto the next thing. You let yourself enjoy it.

You appreciate it. You look back at every step you took to get there, and you let the goodness of this moment actually fill you up, and then you take the next step. When the old thing comes back, you don't tell yourself it's hopeless. You take the step. Good day or bad day, you come back to your feet, and you ask the same question.

What does this moment need from me right now? A good day is not the end of the road, and a hard day that circles back is not the end of your marriage. They're both just the day in front of you asking for the next step. Now, I don't want to leave you thinking I'm promising you it all works out as long as you stay present because I can't promise you that, and I need to be honest with you about that before we finish.

[00:15:40] Nothing Is Permanent. Nothing Is Beyond Repair

So let me be straight with you because you deserve a lot more than just a pep talk. I can't promise you it gets better. I'd be lying to you if I did, and somewhere in you, you'd know it.

I can't see the future. I don't know your marriage. I don't know your wife. I don't know what the two of you are carrying into this. Anybody who tells you it's all going to work out as long as you stay positive is selling you something.

But I'm not going to tell you the opposite either because the opposite is the same lie we spent the whole episode taking apart. The this is it, this is the rest of my life. That's the machine again, freezing today into forever, and it's still not telling you the truth. And there's a whole crowd out there ready to feed you that version.

Guys who talk down about marriage, about women, about the whole thing, always ready to hand you someone to blame for why it fell apart. Go read the comments section under any relationship post online, and you'll find them. They're selling you something too. They're selling you their own bitter, twisted picture of what marriage even is, that it's a trap, that it never works, that it's always going to be like this.

And if you buy it, that's the marriage you'll end up living in. So instead of a promise, I'll give you two things I actually believe, and I believe them all the way down. Nothing is permanent, and nothing is beyond repair. Whatever you're sitting in tonight, it's not the final version of your marriage, and it's not too far gone to come back from.

I've watched men rebuild from worse than where you are right now, and I did it in my own marriage too. And I'm not going to hand you that and pretend the rest is easy, so let me tell you the truth about what it takes. Is it hard? Yes. Does it require two people?

Yes. Is it going to take longer than you probably want? Yes. Might things get harder before they get better? Maybe. Those are the realities, and I'm not going to hide them from you to make this episode feel better than it should. But watch what happens if you get stuck in that other mindset, the one that says, "This is it.

This is the rest of my life." From in there, of course it's tough to believe anything good is possible. You've already decided how the story ends. You're just waiting for it to catch up to you. That's the whole reason to keep your head where your feet are. Not because being present magically repairs your marriage.

It doesn't. You keep your head where your feet are because it's the only spot you can actually do anything from. You can't take a step in the future that hasn't happened yet. You can only take one today. As hard as it is, as uncertain as it is, today is the only day you are ever actually standing in.

[00:18:02] Awareness, Action, Accountability

So let's take all of this off the shelf and put it to work because none of it counts until you're actually standing on it in your own life. Here is your awareness question, action steps, and accountability for this week. First, awareness. This week, I want you to get honest with yourself about one thing.

When your marriage gets hard, catch the story your mind starts telling you. Does it say, "This is permanent, that it's always going to be like this, that this is just how it is now"? Then watch for the exact same trick when things get good, when it swears you're fixed for good and it's always going to feel this easy.

It's the same lie just pointed in two different directions. You don't have to fix any of that yet. Just catch it. You can't bring your head back to your feet if you never notice it left them in the first place. Now, your action. This one's different. I don't want you to just think about it, I want you to physically do it.

It takes about a minute, and you can do it anywhere. Step one, anchor. Stand still and look down at where your feet actually are on the ground. Then say it out loud, "This is where my feet are." Keep your head where your feet are. Drop into this moment right here, right now.

Step two, scan. Check your mind. Is it here with you or is it somewhere else?

Is it running out into the future, up or down, good or bad? Step three, come back. Bring yourself back down to your feet, and from right here, decide your next right step, the one that's actually in front of you. And step four, name it and take it. Say it out loud, "My next right step is to blank." And then physically take one step forward as you say, "I am going to blank."

That next right step is yours to name, and it'll look different for every man. Maybe it's talking to somebody instead of carrying it alone. Maybe it's doing the one thing you've been putting off or keeping a promise you made to her. It can be small. Taking it is the whole point And last, accountability, because there's one catch built into everything I just gave you.

When your mind takes today and calls it forever, telling you it's all over or that you're already fixed, you're the last person who can see it clearly. You're inside it. You need other men in the room who can look at you and say, "Hey, you're future tripping again. Come back to your feet." That's what accountability actually is.

It's letting people around you catch what you can't. That's what we've built inside Better Husband Academy. It's a room full of men doing the same work, where I get to walk with you and help you make sure your next right step really is the next one, on the good days and on the hard ones.

So if the step in front of you is getting somewhere you can be seen and supported, take it. Come join us at betterhusbandacademy.com or click the link in the show notes. Getting in that room can be the next right step you take today.

[00:20:49] Closing Takeaway

Here's what I want you to take away from this episode. That night in June, the story my brain was telling me felt like the truth, and it wasn't. It was a story about forever, about that one bad moment being all there was ever going to be, and it was wrong in both directions the same way it's going to be wrong for you.

Your marriage isn't won or lost in some forever you're busy picturing right now. It gets built in the day you're actually standing in. So when your head runs off up into the fantasy or down into the doom, walk it back to your feet and ask the one question, "What does this moment need from me right now?"

Then take the step. Not the next 40 years of them, just today's. That's how a man gets through the hard stretches without quitting. One day at a time, one step at a time. Keep your head where your feet are.

So thank you for spending this time with me today. If this one hit home, do one thing for me. Send it to a man you know who needs to hear it, and then go take your step. You're listening to Better Husband. I'm Angelo Santiago, and I'll see you on the next one.