It Takes More Than Love to Make a Relationship Work

After more than 30 years as a therapist and 3 decades as a married woman myself, I can say this with full confidence: love alone doesn’t make a relationship work.

By the time most couples find their way to my office at Relationship Enrichment Center, RECoachingandConsulting.com, love is often the last thing on their minds. It’s been buried under hurt, resentment, and the exhausting need to be ’right’.

Couples in crisis often lose sight of who they are — and who their partner truly is. It’s simply human nature: we're wired to spot our partner’s flaws far more easily than we notice our own.

If you’re searching for ‘how to fix a struggling marriage’ or ‘why does my relationship feel disconnected’ you’re not alone — and there is a path forward.

The Elephant in the Room: What’s Really Blocking Connection

When couples come to therapy for ‘better communication’, we often must look deeper first. Issues like drinking, drug use, financial infidelity, affairs, and pornography use need to be named and addressed head-on. If a couple wants to improve communication but a partner’s drinking never gets acknowledged, real honesty and emotional safety simply can’t happen which means the couple’s actual goal stays out of reach.

Here’s an analogy I share often in couples counseling: it’s like someone walking into the ER with an arm nearly severed from the shoulder, but all they want to talk about is the scrape on their foot. The consequences of unaddressed substances or behaviors that include lies, anger, betrayal, financial loss, public embarrassment, loss of self-respect and ripple far beyond the individual. In coupleship, the lines of blame and ownership become even blurrier, making the work harder but not impossible.

Four Universal Steps Toward Relationship Repair

Every couple’s healing journey looks different, but in over three decades of relationship coaching and marriage counseling, I’ve seen a few steps show up repeatedly.

1. Decide What Kind of Relationship You Actually Want

If you want more than a roommate arrangement, both partners need to commit to their own individual growth. This is what creates room for real emotional intimacy and access. It also means honestly assessing whether substances or compulsive behaviors are quietly driving the disconnection.

2. Identify What’s Blocking You

What’s standing between you and the relationship you want? Naming the obstacle whether it’s unresolved trust issues, poor communication habits, or outside stressors is the first step to removing it.

3. Define Trust and Safety on Your Own Terms

Trust isn’t abstract it’s built (or broken) in specific moments. If one partner keeps an emotional affair hidden or dismisses a spouse’s discomfort about a close workplace friendship, that is a violation of trust and safety even if no ‘rule’ was technically broken. Healthy relationships require both partners to take each other’s felt sense of safety seriously.

4. Commit to a Real Conflict-Resolution Process

Couples who can move through conflict rather than avoid or explode in it build lasting confidence and emotional resilience. This is difficult and often requires in person therapeutic or coaching support. It’s difficult because it’s rarely modeled in family of origin. Here are the steps:

•  Choose a time and place with minimal distractions.

•  Make sure neither partner is Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired (HALT).

•  Try a structured process, such as:

1. Attempt to resolve the issue between yourselves first.

2. If unresolved, each partner consults 3 trusted, same-sex mentors or support people, and reports back within 48 hours.

3. If still unresolved, bring in a therapist, coach, minister, or mentor couple for outside support.

5. Keep Investing in Connection

Struggling couples still need shared joy, not just shared problem-solving. Weekly date nights, a daily shared meditation, taking a class together, joining a couples’ small group, or simply protecting time together that isn’t just errands and logistics. These small, consistent habits rebuild emotional connection over time.

The Tools That Changed My Own Marriage

When a relationship is struggling, someone must be brave enough to name the problem — and then try something new. Over the years, the tools that have done the most for my own marriage are:

• Prayer: Praying separately or together before a business decision, a trip, or even a stressful family event puts everything in perspective. It’s a reminder that I’m not the one ultimately in control.

• A support system or accountability partner. Rooted in 12-step recovery principles, checking in with someone who models a healthy relationship helps me gain perspective on my part in a conflict and regulate my emotions.

• The ‘Do-Over’, When either of us notices we’re spiraling into what I call the ‘emotional suck hole’, either one of us can call a do-over. Taking a breath, re-regulating and starting over with ‘Hi, I’m struggling right now’ can shift an entire conversation from tense to open and curious.

• Gratitude: Actively naming what’s good and working rather than dwelling only on what’s wrong helps me feel more connected and balanced. This isn’t about denying real struggles; it’s about giving equal weight to what’s going right.

Progress, Not Perfection

Having a structure for the hard moments has saved my marriage from despair and potentially divorce. We are far from perfect. We still get angry. We still have days we don’t get along. But those moments no longer stretch into weeks or months they last hours, sometimes a day or two, and then we move forward.

We rely on our individual support circles, couples support, therapy when either of us asks for it, and a shared faith that keeps us grounded. Tools from 12-step recovery, years of couples counseling, and immersive experiences like Individual Therapy, Couples Therapy, Group Therapy, and Intensives, all examples of where individuals and couples learn new ways of relating when old patterns aren’t working have all shaped who I am and we are today.

After more than 30 years in this field, I can say without hesitation: it takes more than love to make a relationship work. It takes intention, tools, humility, and the willingness to keep choosing each other, one repair at a time.

Ready to Strengthen Your Relationship?

If you recognize your own relationship in this story, you don’t have to navigate it alone. Reach out to:

 Relationship Enrichment Center: RelationshipEnrichmentCenter.com — Couples counseling and relationship therapy

 RE Coaching and Consulting: RECoachingandConsulting.com — Relationship coaching and consulting services

With over 50 years of combined experience helping couples move from disconnection to lasting intimacy, REC & RECC offer both clinical counseling and coaching options to fit wherever you are in your journey.

Most Sincerely, 

Sheila