No, this isn't some electrical engineering idea. Instead, it has more to do with human nature.

We often want to find the switch, the on/off switch for some situation. Turn off stress by doing this, turn on fitness by doing this. On or off. With a switch.

This causes us to be looking for some super-easy, simple solution... often to complex issues. Particularly when it is a marriage crisis.

A marriage -- much less a marriage crisis -- is not an on/off situation, and no simple switch will turn it around.

Yet that is what many people want. The solution that is as easy as flipping a switch.

Yes, your marriage can be saved and improved, but not with some simple switch.  Instead, think about it as dials. Instead of a master switch, there can be a number of dials. Dialing up connection. Dialing down conflict. Dialing up warmth. Dialing down resentment.

We discuss this tendency to look for a switch -- and the need to focus on the dials --  in this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast.

Listen below.

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You weren't trying to blow it up. You weren't trying to say the thing that sent everything sideways. And yet — there you were, reactive and regretful, wondering how you got there so fast.

That's dysregulation. And it is not a character flaw. It's not weakness. It's your nervous system doing exactly what it was wired to do — except it can't tell the difference between a threat in the wild and a look from your spouse across the kitchen.

On this episode of the Save the Marriage Podcast, I sat down with EJ and Tara Kerwin, founders of Relationship Renovation, hosts of the Relationship Renovation Podcast, and a couple who — despite being trained therapists — found themselves in the thick of their own marriage crisis. They know this territory from the inside out.

Here's what struck me most in our conversation: dysregulation doesn't always look like losing your temper. Sometimes it looks perfectly calm. Controlled. Logical, even. EJ describes how he would shut down internally — fully convinced he was being reasonable — while Tara's system was spinning. Two very different presentations of the same problem. And neither of them could see it clearly in the moment.

That matters for you — even if you're navigating this alone. Because you can't control what your spouse does. But you can get much better at catching yourself before you're too far gone to course-correct.

In this episode, we talk about:

What it actually feels like in your body before you tip over the edge — and how to recognize the early signals

Why a trigger is neutral until you assign meaning to it (and what that means for how you respond)

The difference between facts and assumptions — and why that distinction can interrupt a spiral before it starts

Why curiosity is the path back to empathy, and how your brain is actively working against you getting there

This one is worth a listen. Not because every piece of it maps perfectly to working on a marriage alone — but because understanding your own regulation is the starting point for everything else.

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Are you and your spouse addicted to blame?  Do you find yourself pointing your finger toward your spouse, sure that it is really your spouse's fault (and is your spouse doing the same thing?)?

Or maybe you are just blaming yourself.  You see this whole mess as YOUR fault.

Blame has one single outcome -- STUCK.  It robs you of power (and steals away responsibility).

Blame is highly corrosive to connection.  And it freezes up the process of change.  It freezes out any chance for change.

And it is unnecessary.  (Oh, and don't fall into the trap of just changing who gets the blame.  Blame your spouse or blame yourself.  Same outcome.)

Let's break the addiction to blame.

And if you are ready, you can grab my Save The Marriage System HERE.

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Sounds so philosophical, doesn't it?  Your "created past."  What is that?

We all do it.  We remember things based on our emotional state, not on what happened. When someone hurts us, we think back on the other times they hurt us.  When someone is kind and loving, we think back on the other loving times.

When a couple is connected, they remember connection.  When they are disconnected, they remember disconnection.

We rewrite the past, based on the present situation.  Usually, we just think about how the past led to the present. But where we are forms what we think about where we have been.

If you are wondering why your spouse can't remember the happier times, can't remember the passion, can't remember the connection, this is it.  The memories are being selected and created based on the current pain and disconnection.

Let's talk more about this in the podcast below.

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You know something is wrong. You might even know, in some general sense, what needs to change.

But you're still stuck.

Maybe you've tried things. Maybe you've researched, listened, read. Maybe you've had the conversations, made the gestures, given it time.

And yet... here you are.

There's a reason for that. And it's not what most people assume.

Most people in a marriage crisis think they're stuck because of one thing: they either don't have the right information, or they can't seem to act on what they know. Pick one. Figure out which one is your problem. Fix it.

Except it's almost never that simple. And treating it that simple is part of why the stuck feeling persists.

In this episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast, I'm digging into the real reason most people can't move forward — and why the answer isn't more information, and it isn't just willpower either.

There's something underneath the stuck feeling that nobody talks about. And until you name it, you'll keep doing what you've been doing.

Which, as you've probably noticed, isn't working.

Listen below.

(Or find the Save The Marriage Podcast on your favorite podcast app — search "Save The Marriage.")

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Most people assume a marriage falls apart because something went wrong.

A betrayal. A blow-up. A moment where everything changed.

But that's rarely how it actually happens.

What I've watched — in couple after couple over 25 years — is something much quieter. Much slower. And in a lot of ways, much harder to reverse, because it's almost impossible to see while it's happening.

There's a path. A progression. A series of stages that couples move through — not because they want to, not because they're bad people, but because disconnection follows a predictable direction once it gets started.

And here's what makes it especially difficult: at each stage, what you notice most is what your spouse is doing. The distance they're creating. The disinterest they're showing. The disrespect coming out in their words.

What's harder to see — much harder — is your own place in it.

Last week I talked about momentum, and how the pause button sets a relationship moving in a direction most couples don't notice until they're deep into it. This week, I want to talk about where that direction actually leads.

Because there are stages. And most people, when they hear them described, can tell you exactly where they are — even if they couldn't have named it before.

A few things worth sitting with before you listen:

If your spouse feels more like an opponent than a partner right now, when do you think that actually started — and what were the signs you missed?

Is it possible that what looks like a character flaw in your spouse is actually a stage in a process? And does that change anything?

If you knew there was a map of exactly how disconnection progresses — and a point on that map where you currently are — would that give you more hope or less?

That last question matters more than it might seem.

This episode walks through the full arc, from the moment connection begins to build, through each stage of how it comes apart, all the way to what I consider the deepest point of crisis. And what it takes, even from one person, to begin reversing it.

If you've been wondering how you got here, this is the episode.

Listen to this week's Save The Marriage Podcast below.

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My high school science teacher almost helped me make TNT in the chemistry lab!

That's how this episode starts. But it's not really about chemistry.

It's about physics. Specifically, it's about momentum... and why the same force that keeps a relationship strong is also the force that quietly destroys it without anyone noticing until it's almost too late.

Here's the thing most couples never consider: love isn't what holds a marriage together over time. It's what starts the process. What actually carries a relationship forward — or pulls it apart — is momentum

And momentum follows rules.

When couples come to me in crisis, one of the most common things I hear is some version of: "I didn't see it coming." Or: "I thought we were just going through a phase." Or: "I thought once things settled down, we'd get back to each other."

They're not wrong that something changed. They're just wrong about when it started.

The damage was already done — quietly, gradually, in a direction they couldn't feel — long before the crisis arrived.

This episode is about why that happens. And why the natural response most people have when they finally do notice?

It often makes it worse.

A few things worth thinking about before you listen:

If you can feel that your relationship has lost something, but you can't point to when or why — is it possible the answer is further back than you think?

What happens to momentum when you stop adding energy to something? And what happens after it stops?

Why would reaching hard toward your spouse in a moment of crisis push them further away instead of closer?

The physics are more predictable than you'd expect.

And understanding them might be the first thing that actually makes sense of where you are.

Listen to "Momentum" now, below.

If you're past the point of just feeling the drift and you're now in real crisis, the Save The Marriage System is built for exactly this moment. It's the roadmap back, from where momentum has taken you, to where you actually want to go.

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It almost seems redundant, doesn't it? If you have limited beliefs, they could limit something -- say, for example, your marriage.

I say IF you have limited beliefs.

Full disclosure: We ALL have limited beliefs that are limiting us. We ALL have blind spots, assumptions, even untrue beliefs. We just don't notice them. And we pay a price for that.

Especially since we usually fail to notice or address these limiting beliefs.

Do you think your limiting beliefs MIGHT be limiting your life and your marriage?

I'm betting that is the case, since it is true for all of us.

Here's the good news: you can change your limiting beliefs. Once you know what they are. And decide to change them

Listen below for this week's podcast.

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Probably more than you want to admit.

I've been playing pickleball for about four years. Started when my wife and I moved to a new community — we were looking for something to do and a way to meet people. Neither of us expected it to become a weekly ritual.

But somewhere along the way, I started noticing something I couldn't shake.

The patterns showing up on that court? I'd seen every single one of them in struggling marriages. Not as a loose metaphor. As an almost exact parallel.

The partner who can't stop criticizing every shot — and wonders why the other person stops trying. The player who decides if the game isn't going their way, they won't play at all. The one who takes every shot, carries every point, and then complains their partner doesn't contribute. The "coach" nobody asked for, offering feedback that doesn't land as helpfulness.

Sound like anyone you know?

Here's what got me thinking: pickleball, at its best, is a partnership game. You win together. You cover each other's deficits. You communicate before the moment demands it. You keep playing even when the score isn't going your way.

And at its worst? It looks a lot like the patterns that quietly destroy a marriage.

There's one thing in particular I talk about in this episode that I think will stay with you — something most people never notice on the court or in their relationship. It has to do with the difference between the last shot and the setup that made it inevitable.

Most of us only see the last shot.

A few questions worth sitting with before you listen:

Do you and your spouse actually have a strategy — or are you just reacting to whatever comes at you?

When something goes wrong, are you looking at the last moment, or the conditions you both built leading up to it?

Are you the kind of partner you'd actually want to play with?

That last one might sting a little. It's supposed to.

This week's episode of the Save The Marriage Podcast is a little lighter than usual — but lighter doesn't mean less important. Sometimes the clearest mirror is the one you least expect.

Listen to "What Does Pickleball Have To Do With Marriage?" right here.

And if you're at a point where the game feels broken — no strategy, no direction, and you're not sure your partner is even still playing — the Save The Marriage System is where to start. It's the map for getting back on the court together.

Einstein said we can't solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.

And if you've been working on your marriage—trying hard, putting in effort, doing everything you can think of—but nothing's actually changing? You might be spinning the wheel.

Pursuing harder. Forcing conversations. Making grand gestures. Reading every article, watching every video, trying every technique the algorithm throws at you.

That's effort. Real effort. But it's pointed in the wrong direction.

In the last episode, I talked about why "if it's meant to be" is dangerous thinking. This episode is about what you do instead. Not just recognizing the myth is wrong, but understanding what intelligent effort actually looks like when you're trying to save a marriage.

Because here's what most people miss. The marriage that's in crisis right now? It didn't fail because you picked the wrong person or because your love wasn't strong enough.

It failed in design.

The culture gave you a destination—happily ever after—and almost nothing about how to actually get there and stay there. So when things fall apart, it's not a destination failure. It's a navigation failure.

And that changes everything.

In this episode, I walk through what it actually means to rebuild a marriage. Why it feels so much harder than it did at the beginning. Why you're not maintaining orbit—you're relaunching. And what to do when you're the only one putting in the energy.

Listen below.

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