I am asked the question often in counseling, “What about my partner? I feel like I am doing all the work and my partner is doing squat. What is that all about?
Here are four things I suggest:
1. Work on the third option; not leaving which is option number 1 or not working harder on the relationship, which is option number 2. It is exercising the third option and that is working on myself in the present situation and presenting a healthy self to the present situation.
2. Know the difference between personal resolution and relational resolution. I can end any issue right now. I can choose to forgive. I can choose to resolve. I can choose to move on even if my partner doesn’t. I can choose to move on from past hurt or pain.
3. Understand I don’t have to take the role the victim or perpetrator. The fact that I am asking what about my wife could be an indicator that I have taken on the victim role. My role is to be healthy and assertive in that health. The only role I have is the role of being a healthy person in the relationship.
4. Realize that I can only change two things: i. I can change one person-me ii. I can change one time-now. I can’t change the past and don’t know the future.
A healthier question is not what about my partner but what about my life? What would it take for me to have a healthy life? Follow through on that and then invite my partner to that life.
Thoughts to Ponder: To what extent am I blaming lack of progress on my partner? What am I doing to work on my own individual health? How am I working on changing the two things that I can change?
Scripture:(Matthew 7:3) “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?