Why You Have Been Leading Your Relationship All Along

Why You Have Been Leading Your Relationship All Along

And why that is the best news you have heard in a long time.
By Dr. Jeni Wahlig · PowerfuLove

Listen, love.

I want to tell you something that might land hard at first. So I am going to tell you, and then I am going to walk you through it, and by the time we are done I think you are going to feel something settle in your chest that has been jangly for a long time.

Here it is.

You have been leading your relationship the whole time.

You just have not been trained for it…

So you’ve not been able to effectively lead it where you really want it to go.

Read that one again.

You haven’t been “Trying.”

Nor waiting.

Nor failing.

You haven’t been too much.

You haven’t been not enough.

You have been LEADING.

Let me show you what I mean

Think about the last six months. Maybe the last six years. Look at the pattern.

Someone in your partnership notices when something is off. One of you names it, or tries to. One of you reaches for connection… through a conversation, a book left on the counter, a podcast sent in a text, a bid for intimacy in the middle of a fight. And… someone in your relationship probably pulls back when it gets too hard. Someone goes quiet. One of you over-explains. One of you disappears. One of you gets defensive. One of you points out what the other is doing wrong and how they need to do better.

ALL of those moves… are leadership moves.

As in, each one of those moves positions your partner to respond in a particular way. Each move invites a certain response or reaction from your partner. Some of those moves may feel more active or pushy. Others may feel passive and disengaged, like you’re not leading at all. Butand the truth is? It’s still leadership. It is a cause that has an effect and influences the dynamic.

And… here is what most people miss: there are two ways to lead. There is primal leading… leading from your self-protective nervous system, from the wound, from the pattern you learned before you had words for it. And then there is powerful leading… leading from your values, your clarity, your love, and your conscious choice about who you want to be and what you desire to create inside this relationship.

The one who over-functions and carries everything? Primal leading. The one who withdraws and goes quiet? Also primal leading. The one who gets defensive when it gets hard? Primal leading. The one who initiates intimacy hoping it will fix what words haven’t? Primal leading.

Is this starting to make sense?

None of it is working. Not because you are doing it wrong, but because you are doing it unconsciously… because no one ever taught you there was another way.

That is what we are about to change.

And here is the part that is not your fault

I can’t emphasize this enough… no one taught you how to do this.

Think about it. We were taught how to read, write, do math, parse a sentence, balance an equation, make a five-paragraph essay. We were taught the periodic table. We were taught about the human body.

We were not taught how to have a hard conversation with our partner, nor how to regulate our nervous system in the middle of conflict. We were not taught the difference between asking for something and demanding it. We were not taught that relationships are a discipline, a practice, a skill to master… not a guessing game or an inherent ability when you found “the right one.”

Men have been taught this even less than women.

Butand we women? We’ve been taught that being a good partner meant making themselves smaller. Asking for less. Tolerating more. Performing fine…

And whether you identify as a man, woman, or a non-binary person… we ALL know the rules of the game… the old rules established by patriarchy and individualism. Rules that were never meant to serve and support the highest good and growth of ourselves and our relationships.

Essentially, we inherited a model that did not serve us. And while you may have been trying to update it on the fly… reading the books and going to the therapy and listening to the podcasts…

You’re STILL exhausted and spinning your wheels.

Because you never got the full map, nor clear directions along the path to get where you want to go in your relationship (the easy way.)

You can be doing all the right relational labor… and still be aimed in the wrong direction.

This is what I mean by ‘aimed in the wrong direction’

Most of the labor you have been doing has been pointed AT your partner.

Trying to get them to see. Get them to hear. Get them to understand. Get them to change. Get them to read the article you sent. Get them to come to the therapy you found. Get them to step up. Get them to pursue you. Get them to initiate. Get them to remember the thing they always forget.

All that pursuing. All that explaining. All that pulling. All that effort. AIMED AT THEM.

No?

(No judgement, love. Cal and I were there too! We still fall back into it sometimes!)

And here is the life-changing truth that the entire field of couples therapy has shockingly somehow managed to soft-pedal for decades… you actually have very little power over what your partner does, so focusing there is NOT the way. You can ask. You can invite. You can absolutely require. Butand you cannot make them. You cannot will another adult into the version of themselves that you need or want them to be.

And that is not a problem, actually. That is a feature. Because it means the place where you DO have power, and the amount of power you have… is staggering.

What changes when you aim the leadership inward?

Here is what happens when you stop aiming your labor at your partner and start aiming it at the place you actually have authority… yourself.

You stop getting more of what you don’t want.

You stop feeding the dynamic you hate.

You stop handing your partner the script for how to disappoint you.

You start making different moves. Smaller, weirdly. Less effortful. Less explained. More grounded. More clear. More chosen.

And the relational system… because relationships are systems… cannot stay the same.

This is what I mean when I say it only takes one. Not because the other person does not matter. They matter completely. Butand a relationship is a dance, and when one dancer changes the steps, the other dancer literally cannot keep doing what they were doing. They have to respond. To something. They might respond beautifully. They might respond badly at first. They might respond in a way that surprises you. Butand they have to respond… and a new move, WILL get a new response. Because the dance changed.

And you changed it.

That is leadership.

That has always been leadership.

And you have always been the one in charge of your moves in the dance.

So why does it feel like you don’t have power?

Great question! I’m so glad you asked. ;)

The reason it feels like, despite all the power you have to change things, and all of the “new moves” I’m sure you’ve tried, you don’t actually have the ability to get things to change is because, 1. the leadership you have been doing has been aimed at the one place it cannot land (your partner), and 2. because no one ever taught you the moves that DO change the dance, let alone how to do them well.

That is what we are about to do together.

We are going to take all that effort, all that pursuit, all that capacity, all that intelligence, all that hard-won self-awareness… and we are going to redirect it. Not at them. At you. At the place you actually have authority. At the dance steps that are yours.

And the wild thing? It is EASIER. Way easier than what you have been doing. Less exhausting… because your moves will finally land in a way that can actually create change.

This is what is true about you, right now

You are not waiting to become a leader. You already are one.

You are not too much. You are not not enough.

You are not failing.

You are using the tools you were given, on a system that requires different ones.

You are not confused about what you want or where you want to go. You are clear. You have been clear for a long time.

You just haven’t had the map to get there.

Thus… you are not stuck.

You are about to take the same intelligence, the same drive, the same fierce love that built your business or your career or your family… and bring it home, to your relationship, with new tools and a new direction.

Not leaving. Not staying the same. Staying… and changing everything.

From the inside out.

Starting with the only person whose dance steps are yours to change.

You.

Ready to learn the moves that actually change the dance?

If this landed for you… if something in you recognized what I am describing… that recognition is not an accident. It is the beginning of the shift.

The Third Path is a six-week program for the person who is done doing this the way they have been doing it. Not leaving. Not staying the same. Staying… and changing everything. From the inside out.

It is for women, men, and non-binary folks who are ready to stop aiming their energy at the one place it cannot land - and start leading from the place where they actually have power. With the full map. And clear directions along the way.

The door is open. Come find us.

➡ Learn more and join The Third Path at powerfulove.com

With love,

Dr. Jeni Wahlig

Co-Founder, PowerfuLove · Relational Leadership Mentor, Speaker & Educator