If You've Been Trying to Fix Your Marriage, Read This
Can I just say something that might sting a little?
If you've been mentally orchestrating the perfect moment for your husband to have a breakthrough — planning which church service might finally get through to him, forwarding him podcasts and feeling a flash of resentment when he doesn't listen, rehearsing the conversation that's going to finally make him see it — that's not just good wifing.
That's striving. And it's not working.
I know because I did every single one of those things. And I did them for years while honestly believing I was just being a faithful, invested spouse. It took me a long time to see that what I was calling love and hope was actually control dressed up in better clothes.
What Striving in Marriage Actually Looks Like
Striving is when we try to take control of what only God can control. In your own life, that might look like overperforming when a door closes, or pushing forward on something God hasn't said to move on yet. In marriage, it looks like trying to manage, engineer, or manipulate the conditions for your husband's change.
That doesn't mean you're a bad person. It doesn't even mean your concerns are wrong. Often, the desire underneath the striving is completely legitimate — you want a real marriage. You want a partner who shows up. You want the thing you dreamed of when you said yes. That dream isn't the problem. The striving is.
Here's what it looks like in practice, and see if any of these land:
You're trying to create the perfect environment for him to change. Maybe it's a specific church event, a conversation with the right guy, the right moment in the car. You have a mental timeline for when the breakthrough is going to happen, and when something threatens to interfere with it — a conflict, a scheduling change, anything — you either spiral or try harder to control the details.
You send him resources and feel the heat rise when he doesn't engage with them. Sometimes sharing something genuinely comes from a place of peace, led by the Holy Spirit — you mention it and let it go. But if you're sending things because you're convinced that if he just heard this one thing it would all change, and you're tracking whether he followed through, that's something different.
Your prayers have become less open-ended and more outcome-specific. You're not really asking God to move however He wants — you're asking God to confirm the plan you already have. "And there's some anxiety attached to that outcome, like okay, is it going to go the way that I want it to in the way I'm imagining." That's striving even in prayer.
Every time I went to one of those worship nights hoping something would shift in my husband, here is what happened: God did a work in me. Every single time. He healed something in me, or showed me a blind spot, or convicted me of something I hadn't seen. He never once did what I expected, on the timeline I expected, in the way I planned. And that's actually how God works — He doesn't usually let us in on the details.
Why We Do This (And It's Not Because We're Controlling)
There's a reason this happens, and it's not because you're some power-hungry control freak. It usually comes from one of a few places.
The most honest one is this: "We can only control ourselves. All we can control is our 50% of the relationship. And that is so, so hard because the rest is not in our control — and it is one of the most meaningful parts of our lives that we cannot control."
That's the root of it. Marriage is the place where the stakes are highest and your control is most limited. That gap between how much you care and how little you can control — that's where striving grows.
It also often grows from a perfectionist tendency that isn't bad in itself. You have high standards for yourself, you know what good could look like, and you can see your husband's faults clearly. It's so much easier to stay focused on what he's doing wrong than to turn that same clear eye on yourself. Not because you don't want to grow — but because looking at your own stuff is harder, and more painful, and there's no guarantee it will fix what's hurting you in the relationship.
And then there's the dream. The vision you had of what your marriage could be — serving God together, building something, actually being a team. That dream is not ungodly. God wants you to have that. But we've got to take that dream and hand it to Him, genuinely, and say: God, I want this — and I trust you with it. In your timing. In your way.Because if we hold onto it white-knuckled, it curdles into bitterness. It drives our husbands farther away. It creates exactly what we're trying to prevent.
The Two Circles Exercise (Do This Today)
Here's the practical piece — and this one is worth actually doing, not just reading.
Get a piece of paper and draw two circles: a large outer circle and a smaller inner circle inside it, like a bullseye. The outer circle is everything you cannot control. The inner circle is what you can.
In the outer circle, you might write things like: his attitude, his choices, whether he pursues God, whether he goes to therapy, whether he encourages you, the timing of the breakthrough, how he shows up emotionally. Write it all down. Get it out of your head and onto the page so you can see it clearly.
Now the inner circle. Here is what actually belongs there:
Prayer. You can pray for your marriage. Pray boldly, pray specifically — and then open your hands and give the outcome to God. We trust in our Savior, not in a specific answer on a specific timeline. Prayer shifts things even when you can't see it happening.
Your attitude. You get to decide whether you approach each day with gratitude or hopelessness. With encouragement or criticism. That attitude has a profound impact on everyone in your home — and it may be one of the very things God is inviting you to grow in, even as you're asking Him to grow your husband.
Encouragement. This is one I have to work at as a recovering perfectionist. When I can see five reasons not to encourage, choosing to do it anyway is a real act of faith. But "if you want your husband to rise up into the man of God he's called to be, don't you think he needs a little encouragement instead of being torn down?" That's yours to give or withhold. It belongs in your circle.
Your relationship with God. You cannot control whether he pursues God. You can absolutely control whether you do. And that matters more than you might think — because as God works in you, your half of the relationship actually shifts. It's not a perfect formula, but your growth has a real effect on the whole.
Getting support for yourself. You control this. Make sure people who know you, who love God, and who won't just tell you to leave are actually in your corner and aware of what you're carrying.
Setting healthy boundaries. This one is nuanced and often needs support to do well — but it belongs in your circle. You can hold limits on what you will and won't participate in, even in a marriage.
The environment of your home. The physical, spiritual, and emotional tone you set in your home is something you have real influence over. Pray over your home. Teach your kids to pray. Lead the devotional if you're the one who's willing to lead it. That's yours.
After you fill in your circles, put it somewhere you'll see it again. Because every time you feel the pull to strive — to engineer, to obsess, to send the thing, to push harder — you need that visual reminder. This is what's mine. That is what I'm surrendering.
The outer circle goes to God. Every day if you need to. God, I realize I've been trying to control this, but it's not in my control. I give this back to you.
Things will change. Maybe not exactly how you imagine, maybe not on the timeline you want. But watch what happens when you actually stop striving and start showing up in what's yours.
If you're walking through something hard in your marriage and want to understand why the same patterns keep showing up for you — what's driving the striving at a deeper level — that's exactly what the Restoration Theory framework unpacks. The Unstuck Workshop is a good starting place, and the Made Whole Academy goes much deeper into the process of identifying your pain cycle and learning to move from it to peace.
You don't have to fix this alone. And you don't have to keep trying to fix him.
If something in this resonated, you don't have to stop here.
If you're not sure what's actually keeping you stuck, the free quiz is a good place to start. It takes just a few minutes and will point you toward exactly where to begin.
If you're ready to go further, the Unstuck Workshop walks you through the pain cycle, the peace cycle, and the four steps in a few hours — and it will change the way you see yourself.
Either way, you don't have to keep figuring this out alone. Made Whole is here, and your next step is closer than you think.
