By Figs O’Sullivan, LMFT
You’re reading every book. Listening to every podcast. Trying every technique you can find online. And your partner is doing… nothing. Or worse, they’re actively resisting. Rolling their eyes when you suggest “talking about it.” Leaving the room when you try to share what you’ve learned.
And the voice in your head keeps saying: “If they loved me, they’d try. The fact that I’m the only one trying means this relationship is already over.”
Answer:
A couple in my office last week painted a perfectly agonizing picture of
uneven effort. The wife sat on the edge of the couch, exhausted and tearful,
pointing to a literal stack of relationship books she had purchased and listing
the podcasts she had begged her husband to listen to. Her husband sat completely
frozen on the far side of the sofa, staring blankly at the floor in absolute
silence. She turned to me and wept, saying she was entirely done because she
felt like she was the only one trying to save their marriage. I have watched
this hundreds of times in my sixteen years of clinical practice. Well meaning
friends and pop psychology blogs will tell you that a partner who refuses to
read the books or do the exercises has simply checked out and does not care
anymore. As a clinician, I have to tell you that this common assumption is
completely wrong. When you feel like you are the only one fighting for your
relationship, your partner has not stopped caring. Their nervous system has
simply gone into a profound state of biological protection.
What I actually see inside the partner who appears to be doing absolutely
nothing is a terrified human being who is drowning in the fear of inadequacy.
You are both trapped in a severe negative cycle that I clinically call the Waltz
of Pain. In this cycle, the anxious partner desperately pursues connection to
avoid abandonment, and right now, that pursuit looks like frantically
researching relationship advice and demanding that your spouse engage. But to
the avoidant partner, your intense effort feels like a massive, suffocating wave
of engulfment. They hear every podcast recommendation and therapy request as
devastating proof that they are an utter disappointment who can never get it
right. They know they are already failing at home, and the thought of failing at
relationship homework is simply too much to bear. So, their amygdala fires,
their prefrontal cortex goes entirely offline, and they withdraw into dead
silence to survive the emotional flood of shame.
The profound tragedy of this dynamic is that the harder you try to force your
partner to work on the relationship, the more their survival brain detects an
engulfing threat. You simply cannot force a flooded nervous system into
vulnerability using logic, anger, or a new communication framework. But you are
absolutely not powerless just because your partner refuses to engage in the
exact way you want them to right now. Because you are both part of the same
biological system, changing how you reach out creates a profound shift that
naturally draws the other person back in. If you are exhausted by carrying the
entire weight of your marriage and want to know how to stop fighting a defensive
roommate, here is exactly how you can begin shifting this painful dynamic on
your own.
Conversation: 2d6d572e-0615-40d0-857d-57a25ae124cd (turn 1)
I’ve heard that exact thought from hundreds of clients sitting in my office. And I need to tell you something that might shift everything: the fact that you’re the only one trying does not mean your relationship is doomed. It means you’re the one who woke up to the pattern first. That’s not a curse. It might be the most important thing that’s happened in your relationship in years.
Why It Feels Like You’re the Only One Trying (But You Might Be Wrong)
Which pattern is running your relationship?
Take the free three minute quiz and meet the creature behind the cycle you keep getting stuck in.
Here’s what I’ve learned from working with over 3,000 couples: the partner who looks like they’re “not trying” is almost always trying in ways you can’t see. They’re just trying differently.
When your partner goes quiet after a fight, they might be trying to not make things worse. When they change the subject, they might be trying to protect the relationship from another painful conversation. When they say “everything’s fine,” they might be trying to hold it together because they’re terrified that if they open up, the whole thing falls apart.
None of that looks like effort to the person who shows effort through talking, processing, and pushing for connection. The pursuer sees effort as engagement. The withdrawer sees effort as restraint. Both are trying. Neither can see the other’s version of trying.
This is the Waltz of Pain at work. The negative cycle that makes two people who love each other feel like enemies. One pursues, the other withdraws. One tries louder, the other tries quieter. And both end up convinced they’re alone in this.
The Trap of Over-Functioning
If you’re the one doing all the relationship work, I need to ask you something uncomfortable: is it possible that your “trying” is actually part of the problem?
I don’t say that to blame you. I say it because I see a specific pattern repeatedly. The partner who over-functions in the relationship, who reads all the books, sends all the articles, initiates all the conversations, inadvertently creates a dynamic where the other partner doesn’t need to do any of that work. And can’t, because all the space is already taken.
It’s like two people on a seesaw. The harder you push down on your side, the more your partner goes up on theirs. You try more, they try less. Not because they don’t care, but because the system is balanced in a way that assigns those roles.
In the Empathi Method, we call the forces keeping you stuck in these roles “Protector Parts.” Your over-functioning is a Protector Part trying to manage the anxiety of disconnection. Your partner’s under-functioning might be a Protector Part trying to avoid the shame of getting it wrong.
When you understand this, you stop trying to fix your partner and start examining your own Protector Parts. And that shift, paradoxically, is often what creates room for your partner to step in.
What Actually Shifts a Relationship When You’re Doing It Alone
Stop Leading with the Fix
Every time you come to your partner with a new technique, a new book recommendation, or “I learned something we should try,” you’re subtly communicating: “Something is wrong with us and I’m the one who knows how to fix it.” No matter how gently you say it, your partner hears: “You’re the problem and I’m the solution.”
Instead, start applying what you learn without announcing it. When the cycle kicks in, try responding differently. Don’t explain why. Just do it. When your partner notices the change, and they will notice, let them come to you with curiosity. That’s far more powerful than any article you could send them.
Learn Your Side of the Cycle
The Empathi Discovery Quiz was designed for exactly this moment. It gives you a personalized Self-Discovery Report and Relationship Report that map your specific position in the cycle, your triggers, your Protector Parts, your attachment fears. It’s free, it takes ten minutes, and it gives you language for what’s been happening on autopilot.
When you can say “I pursue because silence feels like abandonment to my nervous system” instead of “you never talk to me,” the entire conversation changes. You’re no longer accusing. You’re revealing. And revelation invites connection in a way that accusation never can.
Regulate Your Nervous System First
You cannot fix a relationship from a dysregulated nervous system. When you’re flooded with anxiety about whether your partner cares, you can’t show up with the calm, grounded presence that actually invites them in.
The Empathi Method Masterclass includes specific nervous system regulation tools, not generic “take a deep breath” advice, but practiced responses to activation that become automatic over time. When you can stay regulated during conflict, your partner’s system co-regulates with yours. That’s not a metaphor. It’s neuroscience. Our nervous systems are designed to sync with each other, and calm is as contagious as panic.
Change Your Part of the Dance
Relationships are systems. In a system, when one element changes, the entire system must recalibrate. You don’t need your partner to change for the relationship to change. You need to change your moves in the dance, and the dance itself will shift.
This is the core principle of the Empathi Method, and it’s backed by the attachment research. When a pursuer learns to share vulnerability instead of criticism, the withdrawer’s defensive wall loses its purpose. When a withdrawer learns to stay present instead of shutting down, the pursuer’s panic loses its trigger.
One person changing their part of the cycle doesn’t guarantee the other person will follow. But it creates the conditions for change in a way that begging, convincing, and over-functioning never will.
When Trying Alone Isn’t Enough
I want to be honest about the limits. If your partner is actively abusive, if there’s ongoing untreated addiction, if there’s a refusal to take any responsibility paired with contempt for your pain, doing your own work alone may not be sufficient. In those cases, individual therapy for yourself is the right first step, not to save the relationship, but to protect yourself and make clear-eyed decisions about your future.
But if your partner is avoidant, scared, overwhelmed, or simply wired to process things internally rather than externally? You have more power to shift things than you think. The research supports this. The clinical evidence supports this. And after 3,000 couples, my own experience supports this emphatically.
When One Partner Is Doing All the Work: Related
When One Partner Is Doing All the Work: Related
Your Next Step
Stop trying to get your partner to change. Start understanding your own role in the cycle. Take the Empathi Discovery Quiz to map your pattern. If you’re ready for the full framework, the Empathi Method Masterclass gives you 16 modules of EFT-based tools designed to work even when you’re doing it alone. Buy one, your partner gets free access, and the 28-day guarantee means you risk nothing.
If you want a therapist in the room, book a free consult.
You are not stuck. You are not alone. And the work you do on yourself is never wasted, whether your partner joins you or not.
Figs O’Sullivan is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, creator of the Empathi Method, and co-host of the Come Here to Me podcast. He has worked with over 3,000 couples using Emotionally Focused Therapy. For the full overview, read the Empathi Method cornerstone article.
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