The Convenience Trap
What Your Marriage Actually Needs
You’ve bought books. Saved articles. Maybe even subscribed to a program or podcast. And when you did, you felt like you were doing something. Taking action. Moving forward.
Because you were... weren’t you?
That feeling is real. I’m not going to tell you it wasn’t. But there’s something we need to talk about, something that might explain why, despite all those purchases and saves and subscriptions, your marriage still feels stuck.
We’re Convenience-Conditioned
We live in a world that’s been optimized for convenience. And I don’t just mean “things are easier now.” I mean we’ve been systematically trained to expect that everything important should also be effortless.
Think about it:
You have a phone in your pocket that can answer almost any question in seconds. Convenient? Absolutely. But is it actually good for your relationships? Not when you’re scrolling through cyberworld while ignoring the person sitting beside you. Not when you’re experiencing life through a screen instead of through your senses.
Your house stays at a set temperature. Your car does the same. So does the store, the office, the restaurant. Convenient? Sure. But your body was built to experience temperature fluctuations. That constant comfort we’ve engineered? It’s actually terrible for our physiological resilience.
We have foods that require almost no preparation. Just heat and eat. Convenient? No question. Healthy? Not even close.
Here’s the pattern: Convenience is optimized for what’s easiest right now, not for what actually serves us. Convenience and importance don’t overlap nearly as much as we’ve been led to believe.
The Gesture Isn’t the Work
A colleague once told me something that stuck with me. He said that when someone buys a book about their problem, they genuinely feel like they’ve done something to address it.
Not reading the book. Not applying what’s in it. Just buying it.
And he’s right. I see this everywhere:
Someone reposts a meme about a social issue, and they feel like they’ve taken action on that issue.
Someone pins a healthy recipe to their Pinterest board, and they feel like they’ve taken a step toward better health.
Someone joins a gym, and they feel like they’ve started getting fit — even though Planet Fitness has built an entire business model around members who never show up.
Someone buys a marriage book, and they feel like they’ve started saving their marriage.
We’ve been trained to mistake the gesture for the work. The purchase for the process. The convenient action for the important one.
This isn’t weakness. This isn’t laziness. This is conditioning. We live in a world where clicking, buying, saving, and bookmarking all give us little dopamine hits that whisper “you did something.” And those hits feel real.
But here’s what I’ve learned working with hundreds of people trying to save their marriages: The feeling of doing something and actually doing something are different things. And your marriage doesn’t respond to the feeling. It responds to the doing.
Why This Matters When Your Marriage Is in Crisis
When you start trying to transform your marriage, something happens that catches people off guard.
It feels hard. It requires effort. It’s inconvenient.
You have to pay attention when you’d rather zone out. You have to stay calm when your emotions are screaming. You have to show up consistently when you’re exhausted. You have to be clear about your boundaries when conflict feels easier to avoid.
And when it feels this hard, most people misread the signal.
They think: “This shouldn’t be this difficult. If this were the right path, it would feel easier. If we were really meant to be together, it wouldn’t take this much work.”
But that’s convenience thinking. That’s the world whispering to you that effort means something’s wrong.
Here’s the reality: Important things are often inconvenient. They require effort. That’s not a bug — that’s a feature.
The effort you’re experiencing isn’t evidence that something’s wrong with your marriage or that you’re on the wrong path. It’s evidence that you’re doing something important in a world that’s trained you to expect everything to be convenient.
Your marriage matters. And things that matter require more than a gesture. They require work.
I Can’t Save Your Marriage. You Have To
I need to tell you something that might surprise you.
People who’ve worked with me and saved their marriages sometimes thank me afterward. They tell me I saved their marriage. And I always tell them the same thing:
“I didn’t save your marriage. You did.”
I’m honored that my information was part of their journey. I’m grateful I could point the way. But they’re the ones who took the journey. They’re the ones who walked the path. They’re the ones who did the inconvenient, effortful work of transformation.
I can give you frameworks. I can show you what works. I can help you see patterns you’ve been missing and possibilities you haven’t considered.
But I can’t do your work for you. Nobody can.
Your spouse can’t do it for you — even if you wish they would. A book can’t do it for you — even though buying it feels like progress. A program can’t do it for you — even if you subscribe to it.
The work is yours. And the work is inconvenient.
It doesn’t feel like clicking “buy.” It doesn’t feel like saving an article. It feels like effort. Because it is effort. Important effort.
The Choice in Front of You
You have a choice to make. Not about whether you love your spouse or whether your marriage is worth saving. I think you already know those answers.
The choice is this: Are you looking for what’s convenient, or are you ready to do what’s important?
You can keep looking for the convenient solution. The one that feels like progress without requiring the inconvenience of actual change. The next book. The next article. The next quick fix that promises results without effort.
Or you can recognize that your marriage is important. And important things require effort. They require you to tolerate inconvenience. They require you to walk a path, not just point at it.
The gesture won’t save your marriage. The work will.
An Honest Question
So here’s the question I’d invite you to sit with: Are you ready to do what’s important?
I’m not asking this as judgment. I’m asking it as honest inquiry.
Because if you’re ready, if you’re genuinely ready to do the inconvenient work of transformation, I can help you. I can point the way. I can give you the frameworks and the understanding and the support structure to walk this path.
But I need you to know what you’re signing up for. This isn’t convenient. This is important.
And there’s a world of difference between the two.
Ready for help?
If your marriage is in crisis and you need help to save it, please grab my Save The Marriage System.
If your marriage has been on pause, and you know you need to change that, please check out my Un-Pause App.