I Saved a Marriage in 3 Weeks

In this episode of The So Hard Podcast, I’m sharing the exact process I used to help a couple on the brink of divorce completely turn things around—in just three weeks.

She was one of my very first clients over a decade ago. They’ve come back to me over the years when things got tough, but this time, she messaged me saying it was over. Divorce papers were coming. What happened next was a masterclass in how powerful it is to meet each other's needs, communicate clearly, and commit to doing the uncomfortable things that keep love alive.

Inside, I break down:

• What trust in a relationship actually means (hint: it’s not just about cheating).
• Why unmet needs cause people to shut down, fight, or stray.
• The exact weekly steps I gave them that brought them from “it’s over” to 50% happier in just two weeks.
• How receiving love can feel uncomfortable—and what to do when you hit that ceiling.
• Why the thing you avoid most is probably the very thing that will change everything.

Whether you’re single, dating, or in a long-term relationship, this episode will help you understand the inner mechanics of lasting connection—and how to shift your love life starting now.

If you want to go deeper: 💻 Check out my ERECT Digital Training for men struggling with ED or performance anxiety—no coaching required, just powerful results.
📞 Book a free consultation with me to explore if 1:1 coaching is right for you.

All links are below. Let’s go.

https://beacons.ai/justinavictoria

Transcript

Welcome, welcome to the so hard podcast. I am Justina Victoria and I am a psychosexual expert for men and couples. If you're new here, welcome, if you are returning, welcome back. Some of my offerings currently, I have a few spaces available for one-on-one coaching. If you're interested in chatting with me about whether or not coaching is right for you in your situation, you can schedule a consultation with me at the link below in this podcast episode bio. um And I also have my erect digital training, which is for anybody who is experiencing experiencing erectile dysfunction or performance anxiety. It's really, really fantastic. I've had many people reach out to me where I haven't done any one-on-one coaching with them and tell me that that program totally changed their life. So if you're interested in that, that's also in the link in my podcast description here today. So let's get right into it. The title of this podcast is, I saved a marriage in three weeks. And I want to tell you how I did that and how simple it is. So these are actually a couple of clients of mine that I've had for years now. and she actually, the the wife was originally my client. She was actually the first client I ever got as a coach years and 10 years ago, essentially, something, oh wow, yeah, I I've worked with them for years. I'm thinking it's like three years. No, it's like a really long time ago that I started working with her. um When I first started my career, uh, I started out grief coaching, actually. And I thought, uh, you know, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do after school, um what niche I wanted to go into. um but I knew that I had been through a lot of deaths and a lot of grief and I thought I might be able to help somebody with this. So um I started doing some advertising and I I got this first client I ever had. And um I really helped her to move through the grief, regulate, you know, really get amazing results. And after that she was like, so you're trained in relationships, right? Like can we talk about my relationship because I'm getting ready to get married. And, um, yeah, we started we started working through some of the stuff initially for her on her end, trust issues, childhood stuff, that kind of stuff. And eventually what happened was her she got her partner involved. And this was years years later. um They were having some issues and we got him on board and then I started working with him one onone and it was really cool to see them evolve, you know, each individually as as people. So um there's been a few times over the last few years where they reached out because they were struggling. They weren't seeing eye to eye. Communication was off. They were both miserable. They were fighting all the time or they were just ignoring each other all the time. And um we were able to get things on on track very quickly. But recently, uh I have not seen or talked to them since the last kind of go-round that they had. And that was maybe like two years ago almost. I was working with them. And all of a sudden I get a message from the wife saying, it's over. I'm getting divorced. I'm going to see a lawyer. And I'm like, uh-oh. So, you know, in this work, you need to do it long enough to wire this new information in and repeat it enough times that it becomes the new automatic, right? And so the cycle that they would have is where they would have an issue. They wouldn't be able to resolve it. They would reach out. We would resolve it, and then they would slowly like they would stop coaching and then they would slowly go back into the old dynamic over time. And then they would come back, resolve the issue and then slowly go back into the dynamic over time. So like they weren't even though I've worked with them for a long time, they weren't actually doing coaching long enough. Like they would just come for a few sessions and then that would be it. So they weren't doing the coaching long enough for us to really anchor in those changes sustainably and to keep them going as the new automatic in their dynamic. So, you know, I had said to her, look, like if you're willing to chat, let's have a chat, right? And then I reached out to him and I was like, if you're willing to chat, let's have a chat, right? And they both were willing. And we got into a call and we found that this is typically the reason why everybody has issues. They were not identifying and communicating their needs to each other. And so trust in a relationship is really built like a lot of people think trust is like this thing that you either have or you don't have. But it is way more gray than that. That's very black and white thinking. It's it's much, much more gray when it comes to to trust in a relationship. Trust is built on feeling safe to tell your partner what you need from them and then your partner actually caring and being committed to following through with what you need from them and doing that over and over and over consistently throughout time. that is trust. Most people think it's like oh, my partner would never cheat on me or oh, they're so transparent. They tell me everything they tell me all their thoughts. You know I can really trust them. That's not really what trust is. trust is being able to talk to each other and and not have some giant conflict come out of it. Or if there is a conflict knowing and trusting that you guys can resolve it, that you have the tools to resolve it, that you can have a conflict and not have the relationship just implode or somebody's leaving every time you have a conflict, right? That you can have a fight or have conflict and know that, yeah, okay. Like we're still a team. We may not see eye to eye right now. We're still a team and we will resolve this. Trust is being able to say, hey, I need this thing from you and then your partner following through. And and doing that and you doing that for them as well and doing that over and over at that, those are the things that build trust. Okay? Now, when we're effectively meeting each other's needs, there's really no reason not to trust because the things that people do that break trust are done because their needs are not getting met in a relationship. So if they're emotionally cheating or physically cheating as an example, right? That person is not good at communicating their needs and they're not good at, and their partner is not good at communicating their needs either. So they're not coming together, looking at what each other needs to be happy and fulfilled in the relationship. And so they're walking around with this lack inside of them. Somebody else comes along and is like, oh, I can meet that need for you. You know? And they're like, oh, that would be amazing. I'm like starving for this thing. So that's an example of like people are not just necessarily inherently trustworthy or like untrustworthy. It's it's really a matter of whether or not their needs are getting met. So let's say you live in poverty. Let's say you've you've you've lived in abundance your whole life and then everything was taken away from you and you're living in poverty and you're starving and you have no money. And you go out and your only option is to steal food to stay alive, right? Does that mean you're a thief? No, like it just means you're in survival. It means your needs are not getting met. And this is the thing that people don't realize because they think like, oh, well, if I don't show my partner enough affection, that doesn't give them the right to go get it from somebody else, right? But the reality is is like the brain and nervous system do not function that way. Belonging, love, safety, physical touch, connection, sex, love, all of those things are hardwired into our brain stem next to food, shelter, water sleep oxygen light. Like the nervous system and brain, see, our connection needs and our physical needs as equal. And this is one of the reasons why in countries where adultery is punishable by death, by being literally stoned to death, people still do it. People still do it even if their life is on the line because of it. It's not because they they're just bad or they're they need sex or they're doing it because we have a drive for it and everything we have a drive for is based on our own survival. And you might be thinking to yourself like, well, what is sex have to do with our survival? Well, it's connection. It's tribe. It's togetherness, it's oneness, it's unity. That is where we gain safety. So I want people to understand the underpinnings of this so that we can really move away from all the shit we see on social media. Oh my God, there's so many just like insane things that people are throwing around and calling it personal development. So coming back to this marriage, right? The breakdown was that neither of them were communicating, right? They had a lot of things that they were avoiding doing because they were uncomfortable and they're not good at it, like asking for what they need, showing affection, um you know, not talking about certain things that their partner might get upset about, right? They're sweeping stuff under the rug and then on top of that, neither person is talking about what they need from the other. So there's a lot of resentment building up. If we don't get our needs met by our partner, we become very resentful of them over time. So sat them down, worked out what was going on. And week one, well, week one was all right, let's let's let's make a decision. Okay? So I sat them down. I explained to them what I believed what was was going on. And then I asked them, uh, I told them actually that their homework was going to be. They were both going to go away and they were going to think about whether or not they are willing to continue being committed to this relationship. And commitment is not, yeah, I'm going to be in the relationship. Yeah, I'm going to stay. That's not commitment. Commitment is, I am going to do the hard things that need to be done in order to have a happy, healthy relationship. That's what we're committing to. And I said to them, you know, you may not feel like doing that after all this time, and that's okay. So go away, think about it on your own. We're going to come back next week and we're going to make a decision. Two people have to be committed for this to work. So they went away. They came back and they both said to me, yes, I'm committed. Great. That's all we need. and let's get to work. So week two was really simple. I asked the wife to, or actually, I started with the husband. I asked him to tell me one thing that he needs from his wife in this week that would meet his needs. And his response was, I just need ten minutes at the end of the day to connect. We don't talk to each other at all during the day. He was like, and I just want to have a conversation about our days and just reconnect. And I said to her, okay, is there anything that you need from him in order to give that to him? And she was like, yeah, like I can't give him time. I can't give him ten minutes at the end of the day because I'm swamped with responsibilities. I've got to take care of the kids and I've got to get them bathed and dinner has to be done and all this stuff and she's being crushed with responsibilities, right? I said, okay, so what do you need in order to give him his 10 minutes of connection time at the end of the day? I need him to come home and help me. Okay, cool. Let's get super specific about that. What does that look like to you? Because it's not enough in relationship for us to go, yeah, I just need your help. I need your help at the end of the day. Your partner doesn't know what that means. We have to break that down and be extremely specific. And in this case we got so specific that we had the actual wording that he needed to use in order to make her feel supported. And that that language was when he came home. It was, what task can I do for you right now? So she was like, if he can come home and help me with something, then I will have ten minutes to give him to connect with him. Okay, great. So now we go away. We do that every single day until our next session and come back to me. So session number three, this was after two weeks, right? Session number three, I asked them before we began uh what increase or decrease or maybe it's even the same as last week? Has there been in your fulfillment and satisfaction in this relationship? And they both said it has been a 50% increase in happiness, stability, harmony, connection, communication. We're talking about we're that is two weeks after she called a lawyer to start getting divorced and asked him to move out. That's where we were. Two weeks. Wow, fifty percent as a coach, we're looking for one percent. We're literally looking for a one percent shift with our client and then continued to make one percent shifts and stack them on top of one another and compound them. That's what we're looking for. You telling me in one week we had 50% change. Makes sense because we're getting our needs met. So if you're hungry and you don't eat and you don't eat and you don't eat and you don't eat, right? And then you do eat, what happens? The needs met, the hunger goes away. The the disharmony, the dysregulation, the you know, not being on the same page, being enemies with one another is literally because the needs are not getting met in the relationship. We change that, and this is what we see. It's really, really cool. So we had the next session, which was that session where I was asking them, so this is weak number, this is session number three, okay? So this is two weeks. They've done, and then now we're on the third session. So we just did it again. Cool. Okay, husband, what do you need this week? Hm. I need her to give me spontaneous affection. Cool. What does that look like? Oh, um I guess like just just a random hug or a kiss. Just random, like just maybe I'm just in the house somewhere and she just comes over and hugs me. Cool. Okay. Wife, can you do that? Yeah, I can. Is there anything you need from him in order to give that to him? I don't think so. Okay, cool. So, wife, what do you need from husband this week? Well, actually, like I just need him to keep doing what he's doing. Um, like just helping me when he comes home from work. Okay, cool. Is there any tweak we need to make to that? Right? Is there anything that he's not getting right when it comes to that? Yeah, actually, um, sometimes he just comes straight home and just takes over something without asking me. And sometimes it's like, okay, cool. Like thanks for doing that, but actually this other thing would have helped me way more. All right, great. So we just need to reiterate, Hey, when you come home, just ask me, what task do you need me to do for you? It's really cool that you try to jump right in and kind of mind read, but I would prefer if you just ask me for what I need so that I can get like the biggest bang for my buck out of this. Perfect. Can you do that? Is there anything you need from her in order to be able to give her that? Nope, that's fine. I can do that. That's no problem. Cool. Let's go away. I also had them make a list of the things. Their homework this that week was also to make a list of things that they are avoiding in the relationship. So now we have completed three weeks and we had our fourth session yesterday and same drill. Okay, let's look at what did our partner do right this week? What did they get right? They shared what their partner was doing right. I asked them, is there any conflicts we need to talk about? Is there anything that's come up this week that you didn't feel comfortable talking about on your own or or anything that needs to be resolved? They both said, no, it was a great week. perfect. Okay. um now let's go over. What do we need? And it was kind of more of the same, right? So for her, it was uh, like, and she started laughing because again, if you are not good at identifying and communicating your needs, you're not good at receiving. like we have to get good at that, right? So they're not good at receiving, so they're not used to getting their needs met. And once we start meeting each other's needs, we kind of hit a ceiling of like, oh God, like this is this is unfamiliar. I don't really know what to do with this. So this is kind of the next level that we go, right? And so for her she was kind of like, I have a question like, like can I ask for more than one thing? And I'm like, yes, yes, we need to be asking for what we want. Like that is the goal. Yes, absolutely. And she was like, well, like he's been really good with helping me and it's been so amazing. But like I also was just wondering if we could just go on a date. Like I would just love to go on a date. Absolutely. You can have that. All right, cool. Like what does that look like to you? What does a date look like to you? We had to literally take like 20 minutes to break this down and and understand, like the date she wanted to go on was half fun and half connection. So the fun was like, I want to do something like we go ax throwing or like bowling or something and we just like laugh and have a good time. And then I also want the other part of the date to be like where we're just talking, but not about anything like heavy, not about problems or anything, but just like how we used to like shoot the shit when we first started dating. Cool. You see, if you just say to your partner, I want to go on a date. And this is what you're trying to get, because I asked you I, what do you want to get out of the date? What's the point of the date? And you're not telling your partner, oh, I want to have fun. I want to have connection and what fun and connection looks like to me are these things. Your partner is going to miss the mark. They're not going to meet your expectations because you're not telling them to at T what the expectation is. You don't even know. Most people don't even know what it is. They haven't even broke it down for themselves. So we're able to like really look at what is the point of the date? What are you trying to get out of the date? We broke it down and it was really fun and there was a change in her. She typically is more of the avoidant in the relationship. So she shuts down and she can get very like cold and like very independent. And what I noticed in her was that she went from being very like hardened to like, I mean, is it okay for me to ask to go on a date? And like she's like, yeah, it would like be cool to go X orang ha ha ha ha, like just giggling through the whole thing. And I can see like the softening. The nervous system is calming and relaxing. She's coming back into safety. And now she's hitting a different ceiling, which is, oh my God, like I'm allowed to have stuff. Like I'm allowed to get stuff. Like, whoa, I don't know what to do with this, right? So there's a lot of shyness and even like a resistance, like a playful resistance of like, oh my God, like what do I do with this? And that is an amazing place to be. That's the next level that we're going to cross and go through together as a team, the three of us. So I said to her husband, okay, uh, is there anything that you need in order to give this to her? And he was just like, no. And I said, do you feel that that's achievable for you? Do you feel like that's doable for you? And he was like, um, yeah, he's like, I love that. Like, I love when we go on dates. I love when we have fun. Like I'm so excited about it. Now we're starting to see that their needs are overlapping. This is so beautiful when we come out of survival. And I asked him, so I put, you know, pushed both of them a little bit. I asked him, okay, cool, what do you need this week? And he was like, um, yeah, I just think like what I've been getting is just like, it's good enough. I don't really need anything else. And this is something that not only do women do and we haven't learned to really receive or or haven't really gotten our our needs met in our life very well. But it's also something that men do because men associate need with like life or death, right? It's like, I'm either experiencing a lot of pain and suffering because I'm not getting this thing or like, I'm just fine and I don't need anything. So I pushed him a little bit to go outside of his comfort zone and I said to him, okay, I said, so right now you are happy with good enough. And he was like, yeah, yeah, like it's it's good. Like I don't really even know what I would ask for. And I said, okay, I'm going to throw something out there. I'm going to ask for something for you. And he was like, okay. And I said, how would it feel if in addition to getting random little hugs and kisses throughout the day or throughout the week? How would it feel if your wife also gave you some words of affirmation? Like just a couple times throughout the week just saying, hey, you know what? I noticed that you did XYZ and that that really meant a lot to me. Thank you so much for doing that. Or, you know, oh, you you look really handsome today. And same reaction for him that she had he just started giggling and kind of like you could see we're hitting the ceiling of like being able to receive. And he was like, like that would that would be great. Like that would feel amazing. And he's just like giggling and he's just like, ah. And I'm like, do you guys see how when you're not getting your needs back from each other at all you become enemies. And when you start meeting each other's needs, there's a cap on it. It's like, oh, I don't really know what it is to actually get the things that I've been asking for. things that I want. So like, and like, you know, just like a little bit's enough. We' going to keep challenging them to go beyond that. And then we talked about the list of things that they created that they are avoiding. So for her, she had a great couple of things on her list that she avoids affection. She avoids initiation. She avoids, you know, talking about her feelings, sharing her feelings. And um for him, he is avoiding talking about things, like communicating about things that he knows she might get upset over. And so what we have done now, in addition to the needs, is, okay, cool, we're going to do the things we're avoiding. Because we can only get good at things that we're practicing. Like we can't go like, oh, I'm not good at setting boundaries. And like for some reason, we think in our our brains, like there's just going to be a day at some point in the future where like we'll just get over that and like we'll just be good at setting boundaries. That's not how it works. We cannot get good at anything unless we're doing it. right? So you have to set boundaries in order to be good at setting boundaries. And it's the same with this. We have to talk about things that are scary or uncomfortable or feel unpredictable to us in order to get good at. We have to have conflict in order to get good at conflict. right? We have to be affectionate in order to get good at feeling and and and and receiving affection, right? So we got to be in it. And it's this is a skill. I mean, people don't realize like people a lot of people say like, oh, we're not compatible. Oh, my God, it just wasn't meant to be. Okay, like, actually, if two people are committed to doing the things that are difficult for them and getting good at the skills they need to have a healthy, happy relationship, like that's all we need. So to me, I don't see compatibility as a thing. I see commitment as a thing. Two people it doesn't matter how opposite they are if they are both committed to creating a happy, healthy relationship and doing whatever is necessary to do that, no matter how uncomfortable they are and how much they want to avoid and go back to it being very, very easy, like it's it's not going to work. We need two people going, okay, here are the things I typically avoid. And this is the beautiful part, is that whatever you typically whatever it is that you want is on the other side of whatever it is you avoid, especially if you haven't been able to get the thing you want. So you might want to look at whatever you're avoiding and start doing that thing. So if you're not good at communication, okay, cool. I'm going to do 30 days of communicating. And that's what I've given to them. She's got 30 days of affection. He's got 30 days of communicating. and doesn't need to be big heavy stuff every day. Just be like oh I wouldn't normally share this because I don't know, just maybe my partner wouldn't really care about it or not be interested in it. Or, you know, I wouldn't uh bring this thing up because she might get upset about it. Okay, just do it. just do it get upset so we can figure out how to resolve conflict together. Let it be messy. It's okay. It's the same thing as learning how to play the piano or learning any new skill, right? You're not if you don't know how to do it and you've never been successful at it yeah, if you start practicing, it's going to be garbage. It's not going to be good. You've never played the piano before. You sit down. You're not going to be able to play your favorite song and make it sound beautiful. You're going to struggle to play a single chord. You're going to struggle to stretch your fingers out in the shape that they need to beat in in order to press that chord. You're going to struggle to get all three or four of those keys down at the same time to make it sound coherent. That's why we practice like do it again and again and again, and by the end of the week you could play the sea cord. You're like, oh, I get it now muscle memory. This is easy. All right, cool. Let's let's learn D flat. And we oh God, that's really hard to play. It sounds weird. Okay, cool. Now we know C and D flat. Now let's do an E and you just keep doing this, right? And now you know all of now you've practiced all of the notes you need in order to play your favorite song. Okay, let's let's play let's try to practice the song. Oh, it sounds like shit. I'm not getting it right. Keep doing it. It's the same thing with relationships and a lot of people do like because of the brainwashing of our media and and and our movies and I just it's like you just are you have some kind of meat cute with somebody and then happily ever after. And that's insane. That is not how relationships work. They don't even work like that with friends. right? It's like, of course we're going to go through periods where we piss each other off. Cool, piss each other off and then figure out how to clean it up. That's it. So this is how I saved a marriage in three weeks and this is possible for for anybody, right? So even if you're not in a relationship, you can get good at vetting people. You can get good at identifying healthy people to date. If you are in a relationship and you're worried it's not working out, okay, what are you avoiding? What are you not good at? Start doing that thing. This is how we build these skills, right? Figure out how to resolve conflict together. What do we need to do to resolve conflict? Every time you have conflict, just sit down and really go over it. Like, what could I have done differently? do the thing and do it over and over and over and over and over, and don't do it for an outcome, do it for information. Every time you do the thing, not only do you build the skill and get stronger at it, but also you get the information you need in order to be successful in it. So I hope this was helpful for you. I hope this was interesting for you and I will see you in the next one.