Most struggling marriages don’t have a love problem. The couples I talk to love each other. They’re committed. They’re trying. And yet something still feels off. They’re managing a household together but living parallel lives. Roommates with a shared calendar.
After years of walking with couples, here’s what I’ve learned: what’s missing usually isn’t more date nights, better communication techniques, or a bigger house. What’s missing is a sense of Us.
In this episode of the Change the Odds podcast, I break down why so many marriages quietly drift from “us” back to “you and me,” and how to begin reversing it.
When a marriage drifts into parallel lives
The drift is rarely dramatic. No one decides to stop being a team. It happens through a thousand small, reasonable choices: work gets busy, the kids need rides, the to-do list never ends. Two people who genuinely love each other wake up one day realizing they’ve become excellent co-managers of a household and near-strangers as a couple.
The danger of this kind of drift is that nothing looks obviously wrong. There’s no affair, no screaming match, no crisis to point to. There’s just distance. And because there’s no emergency, it’s easy to keep ignoring it, until the distance feels normal.
What’s actually missing: a sense of “us”
A healthy marriage has three identities running at once: you, me, and us. When life gets full, the “us” is almost always the first thing to get squeezed out, because it’s the only one that requires two people to protect it on purpose. Rebuilding it doesn’t start with a grand romantic gesture. It starts with small, intentional choices to turn toward each other instead of past each other.
How strong is your sense of “us”?
Don’t guess. Measure it. The Creation of Us Assessment is a short, free tool that shows you where your marriage stands today and where the two of you have the most room to grow. It takes about three minutes, and most couples tell me the results name something they’ve felt for years but couldn’t put into words.
Take it yourself, or better yet, take it separately from your spouse and compare answers over coffee. That conversation alone is worth the three minutes.
If the assessment reveals your marriage needs a stronger sense of “us,” my book The Creation of Us is the roadmap for getting there.
Prefer to listen?
You can listen to the full episode here or find Change the Odds wherever you get your podcasts.
Your marriage doesn’t change by accident. It changes by choice. Make a choice today to have a better marriage tomorrow.