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Sara Szal MD<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n I read every book, cover to cover, dog-eared them and highlighted the relevant sections. I did this because I was trying to get a marriage back on course. I believed I could save it single handedly, and that if I was determined enough, the right information would be enough.<\/span><\/p>\n I spent ten years in couples therapy with my husband, in a marriage that had real joy in it, but more rancor, hanging in there longer than I should have. We tried nearly every technique available to us. Some helped in ways I didn\u2019t expect. All of it taught me something that I still bring into every relationship since then, including the one I\u2019m in now.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s what none of them taught me until the last one made it impossible to ignore: sovereignty was never in whether the marriage survived. It was in what I refused to abandon of myself when I was in it.<\/span><\/p>\n Seven ideas got me there.<\/span><\/p>\n Before any technique works, you have to know what you\u2019re fighting about, because it is almost never the thing being argued.<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Harville Hendrix was the first to name why I\u2019d chosen who I\u2019d chosen: we unconsciously choose partners who activate our oldest emotional wounds, because some part of us is still asking to be healed. <\/span><\/p>\n I saw one of Harville Hendrix\u2019s Imago-certified therapists for two years, learning to mirror what my husband said, validate that it made sense from his side, and offer empathy for how he might feel, before I ever tried to defend myself or fix anything. It sounds simple. It was the hardest discipline I had ever practiced.<\/span><\/p>\n