Should I focus on her or me right now?
5 min read
Focus on yourself. Full stop. I know this feels counterintuitive when your marriage is falling apart and every fiber of your being wants to chase after her, fix her feelings, and convince her you've changed. But here's the hard truth: you can't control her response, her timeline, or her heart. The only person you have any real power to change is you. This isn't about being selfish or giving up on your marriage. It's about becoming the man who can actually contribute to a healthy relationship instead of the one who drove her away in the first place. When you focus on her, you're operating from the same patterns that got you here - trying to manage outcomes you can't control while avoiding the hard work only you can do.
The Full Picture
Most men in marriage crisis make the same fatal mistake: they become obsessed with their wife's every mood, word, and action while completely neglecting their own transformation. You analyze her texts, track her emotions, and strategize how to win her back. Meanwhile, the real work - examining your own patterns, healing your own wounds, and developing genuine emotional maturity - sits untouched.
Here's what focusing on her looks like: • Constantly monitoring her reactions to gauge your progress • Changing your behavior to manipulate her response • Making promises about who you'll become instead of actually becoming that person • Trying to timeline her healing to match your urgency • Avoiding your own pain by staying busy with "fixing" the relationship
This approach fails because it's built on the same foundation that created your problems: trying to control external circumstances instead of taking responsibility for your internal world. She doesn't need another performance from you. She needs to see genuine, sustainable change that comes from a man who's done his work regardless of her response.
When you focus on yourself, you're not abandoning your marriage - you're finally bringing something valuable to it. You're developing the emotional regulation, self-awareness, and maturity that healthy relationships require. You're becoming someone worth choosing instead of someone she feels obligated to manage.
What's Really Happening
From a therapeutic standpoint, this question reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how relationship dynamics work. When marriages reach crisis point, there's typically been a pattern where one or both partners have been externally focused - trying to change their spouse instead of examining their own contribution to the dysfunction.
Research in attachment theory shows us that secure relationships require individuals who can self-regulate and maintain their own emotional stability. When you're constantly focused on your partner's emotional state, you're operating from an anxious attachment style that actually pushes them further away. This creates what we call 'pursue-withdraw' dynamics where your attempts to connect trigger their need for space.
Neurologically, when we're in crisis mode focusing on someone else's behavior, we're activating our sympathetic nervous system - the fight-or-flight response. This keeps us reactive rather than responsive, making it impossible to access the prefrontal cortex functions needed for genuine insight and change. True transformation requires moving out of reactive mode into a place where you can observe your own patterns objectively.
The therapeutic principle here is differentiation - the ability to maintain your sense of self while staying emotionally connected to your partner. When you focus on your own growth, you're developing the very capacity that makes healthy intimacy possible. You're learning to take responsibility for your own emotional experience instead of making your wife responsible for managing your anxiety about the relationship.
What Scripture Says
Scripture consistently calls us to examine ourselves first before trying to address issues in others. Matthew 7:3-5 says, "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? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?" This principle applies powerfully to marriage - we must address our own character issues before we can truly help our spouse.
Galatians 6:4-5 instructs us: "Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one should carry their own load." God's design is for personal accountability and growth, not for managing someone else's spiritual or emotional journey.
The concept of dying to self, found in Luke 9:23 - "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" - means focusing on your own transformation rather than trying to control outcomes. Philippians 2:12 tells us to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling," emphasizing personal responsibility for growth.
1 Corinthians 11:28 says, "Everyone ought to examine themselves," and 2 Corinthians 13:5 adds, "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves." God's pattern is clear: focus on your own heart, character, and relationship with Him. When you become the man God calls you to be, you create the conditions where love can flourish.
What To Do Right Now
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1
Stop monitoring her responses to your changes - delete tracking apps, stop analyzing her texts, and quit asking 'how did I do today?'
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Identify your top three character defects that contributed to the marriage problems and create specific plans to address each one
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Establish daily practices for your own emotional and spiritual health that aren't dependent on her participation
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Get into individual counseling or coaching to work on your own patterns and wounds
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Begin journaling about your own triggers, reactions, and growth areas without mentioning her behavior
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Create boundaries around your own behavior and hold yourself accountable regardless of what she does or doesn't do
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