What happens when one partner is actively growing and the other partner… isn’t?

Maybe you’ve been reading all the books. Listening to all the podcasts. Going to therapy. Doing ALL the inner work.

And your partner? Not so much.

Maybe they tried therapy once and didn’t resonate with it. Maybe they think workshops are “not their thing.” Maybe they’re genuinely happy with how things are and you’re over here thinking…but I want MORE.

I call this the growth gap.

And it’s one of the most common patterns I see with my clients.

That gap—that difference in growth pace and growth focus—can feel incredibly isolating. Frustrating. Sometimes even enraging.

But here’s what I want you to know: the growth gap isn’t the actual problem.

The real issue is what you’re doing with that gap.

Finding Kindred Spirits on the Internet

A few months ago I had the best conversation with Emily Reuschel on her podcast Wild and Waking. Emily had put out a call asking if anyone was specifically talking about this tension—when one partner is doing deep identity work, untangling worldviews around religion, politics, spirituality, and the other partner isn’t on the same path.

Someone tagged me. I replied with my Growth Gap Workshop landing page. Emily messaged me and was like, “Are you free tomorrow?”

And here we are.

When I created that workshop, I was like, “I think this is a problem not a lot of people are talking about. I’m going to trust myself that I should put this out there in the world.” So when I saw Emily’s request, I took it like a little wink from God or the universe. Like, oh yes, Maggie, keep going. This is going to help someone.

It felt very aligned on both sides. And we had so much fun.

What Is The Growth Gap?

The growth gap is what happens when one partner is actively growing, healing, or awakening—doing therapy, reading books, going to workshops—and the other partner resists change or simply chooses a different path.

It’s the tension that arises when you’re evolving and your partner seems content staying exactly where they are.

And here’s the first thing I want everyone to understand about this:

From your partner’s perspective, life is good. You said yes. The life you built together feels complete. They’re not trying to rock the boat because they’re genuinely content.

Now, YOU may be frustrated, want to grow, want more, want something different.

So the first thing you have to acknowledge is: I’m the one who wants something different, which is why I am doing something different.

That’s just an acknowledgment of reality. And as Byron Katie says, when you argue with reality, you lose 100% of the time.

What’s real right now is: I’m the one who wants something different. My partner doesn’t.

The Power of One

Almost everybody who asks me any version of “Why isn’t my partner doing the work?” has resentment underneath.

You might ask in the most loving, kind way possible, but usually there’s this vibe of: I’m doing all the work. What the heck?

So here’s the reframe I want to offer: It’s not that you end up doing all the work. It’s that you go first.

And if you adopt the mentality of “I go first,” something shifts inside your brain. It allows you to relax. It allows you to share about your growth in a way that invites instead of demands.

This is rooted in something from systems theory, which is a recognized theory in psychology: when one element in a system changes, the other elements respond to that change.

I call this the Power of One.

Here’s how I explain it:

Imagine you and I work in one of those big cubicle offices with 20 people all sitting in gray cubicles. And we walk in one day having just found out it was the last season of Bridgerton and we’re crying and we feel terrible. We bring a little black cloud with us. Everybody kind of grunts and looks up and the energy shifts down.

Now imagine instead that we find out Taylor Swift has a new album coming out. We walk in and we’re like, “Everybody’s getting tickets! And we brought donuts!”

We just walked in. We just brought our joy, our happiness, our generosity, our excitement. And we shifted the whole room.

Anyone who’s ever worked in an office has had that experience with the doom and gloom person and the “I bring donuts” person.

This is the Power of One in your relationship, at work, wherever you are. This is how we use one person’s growth to impact the overall relationship—sometimes without the other person even actively participating.

Do-Overs: A Practical Example

Let me give you a concrete example of “I go first.”

Most relationship people teach the concept of do-overs. It’s not unique to me, but I teach it and I love it.

Here’s how it works: Let’s say I walk in the door feeling grouchy and I don’t greet my partner in a loving, kind way. I catch myself and say, “Hey, that isn’t who I want to be. Hold on, let me try again.”

And then I just do it again. “Hey honey, I’m so happy to see you. This is so exciting.”

I ask for a do-over when I’m not performing to where I want to be.

We create a culture of do-overs in our family and relationship. So if we see somebody who’s also a little off, we say, “Hey, do you want to try that again?” With love. Like, “Are you sure that’s how you want to greet me?”

Sometimes my husband will ask me out on a date and he’ll be like, “Hey, you know, let’s go to the movies.” And I’m like, “You could woo me. Like, that was the wooing? I’m probably available.” And he’ll be like, “My dearest darling, on this evening, would you like to join me for an excursion?” And we make it fun and we laugh and we do it over.

I taught this to one of my clients. She wrote to me legit like two years later after we had finished working together. She said, “I need to share this with you because it’s so amazing. You know I have two teenagers. And ever since we worked together, I’ve been doing that do-over thing with their dad. So they see us doing the do-overs. And now they come home and something happens and they’re like, ‘Mom, can we do that thing again? Can we do the rewind? Rewind it.'”

The whole family gave it a new name. It’s their own thing now.

THAT’S what I mean by you go first. You learn this idea, you start implementing it, and the teenagers were never even part of the equation when we were working through this with her and her husband. But now the whole family has this tool.

That’s how powerful it can be when you decide you don’t care what everybody else is doing. You’re just going to go first and then you’re going to see how that impacts the people you love.

How to Have the Conversations

No matter what the conversation is about, the first thing is asking for consent.

Never say “we need to talk.” Everybody freaks out when you say that.

Instead, add context: “Hey, I want to share what I learned in my workshop.” “There’s something I’d love to try with the kids.” “I heard something on a podcast that I think could help us.”

The more you can add context of what it is, and then ask “when is a good time?”—the better.

Consent first. Always.

Then, depending on what it is, you want to set your own expectation of what you want from the conversation. Are you just sharing? Do you want agreement? Are you trying to convince them of something?

Convincing is a no in my universe. But sharing? Inviting? That’s different.

Why Don’t They Care?

In my conversation with Emily, she brought up a scenario I hear ALL THE TIME:

She’s on a therapy journey. She’s introspective, she’s redefining, she’s setting boundaries, she’s unpacking, she’s understanding. And now she’s looking at their life, their marriage, their relationship. And she’s changing and evolving from the inside out.

And looking at him like: Why aren’t you doing this too? Why don’t you care?

Here’s where I want to pause.

“Why don’t you care?” is an assumption a lot of us make. But we need to be really granular here.

We often have the idea that our partners have to care the exact same way that we care, and that they will demonstrate their caring in the exact same way that we demonstrate our caring.

And that is a fallacy. That is not correct. That is like a glitch in the computer.

If we walk around believing “they didn’t do three hours of therapy, therefore they don’t care”—that is a thought. And we want to gently and lovingly question it.

Why aren’t they doing the same thing I’m doing? Can go back to: Well, do they want the same results I want? Do they want the same thing I want?

We’re often starting from very different paths, very different life experiences, a different set of traumas and virtues and flaws. We very rarely marry someone who’s our twin. And then we expect them to act as if they were our twin, and then we’re disappointed when they don’t.

How Men and Women Process Differently

Years ago I read a book called The Way Men Heal. It’s a short little book—you could read it in one afternoon.

The psychologist who wrote it has this hypothesis that I’m going to distill down: Women largely process verbally and through connection. Men connect through action.

They don’t NOT connect. They just do a different flavor of connecting.

I decided to test this on my husband. He’s an IT engineer. He comes home one night and I say, “So how did you feel today?”

He says, “I felt great.”

And that was the end of the conversation. He wasn’t being withholding or mad. He literally had nothing else to say.

But I had just read the book. So I said, “And what did you do today?”

And THEN he said, “Oh, my team had to troubleshoot this problem and this other thing happened. And then we were frustrated. But then we figured it out and we were also happy. And then we all went to lunch and we started laughing. And we had such a good time.”

When he talked about what they DID, he revealed like five different feelings in one shot.

So some men are going to say no to therapy because they don’t want to sit and talk. But if you told them “let’s go on a wilderness adventure” or “let’s go kayaking”—they’ll be like, “Oh yeah, I’ll do that.”

We want to remember: they do it in a different flavor. Like ice cream. It doesn’t mean they’re completely incapable of doing it.

And here’s what I want to name: we live in a culture that has socialized women to do the emotional labor, to be the relationship managers, to carry the growth work. So when you’re feeling frustrated that you’re “doing all the work,” part of what you’re bumping up against is centuries of conditioning. Your frustration is valid AND you get to choose how you want to navigate it.

Now, some relationships do have deeper issues that require different conversations. But most of you are married to good guys having bad days.

A Quick Note on Safety

The tools I’m sharing here are designed for relationships that are stuck but safe—where there’s a foundation of love and respect, even if things feel frustrating or distant right now. 

If you’re experiencing patterns of control, manipulation, or contempt that feel unsafe, please reach out to a therapist who specializes in those dynamics. You deserve support that matches what you’re navigating.

The Critical Distinction: Scared vs. Dumb vs. Don’t See the Value

When your partner resists your growth, there are different flavors of resistance. And each one requires a different approach.

If they’re scared: Yellow flag. It’s normal to be scared by things we don’t understand. Being scared is not an actual problem—it’s just part of the process of growth. It’s fine. We can work with scared.

If they don’t see the value: Yellow flag. There’s still a spot where we can stretch, we can adjust our approach. They can see the value or not. There’s a place where we could create more connection, and there’s a place where they may never see the value and we may have to part ways.

If they think it’s dumb: RED FLAG. Red, red, red. Stop. Adjust. Take a beat.

Here’s why:

When there’s a foundation of love and respect in a relationship, even if you’ve gone through really hard things, if there’s an ember, we can build that ember into a fire. I’m 100% confident.

But if the person doesn’t fundamentally accept you as a human—if there’s contempt—that is poisonous to the relationship.

The Gottman Institute has decades of research on thousands of couples that says contempt is one of the relationship killers.

So if you come home excited and you get insulted, or verbally assaulted, or told “this is dumb”—that’s a red flag.

But if they’re like, “Oh, I don’t understand. Why does that mean so much to you?” with curiosity—that’s very different. That’s workable.

When Worldviews Collide

Emily brought up a scenario that I know many of you are navigating: What happens when your growth involves questioning long-held beliefs about religion, politics, spirituality, or identity?

What happens when you’re asking different questions and your partner is doubling down on “No, this is what we believe. This is what we do. Everything outside of that is bad”?

Here’s what I want you to understand:

We live in a society that is colored by the cultural narrative that there’s one way and everything else is the wrong way. This is embedded in our culture.

When you add religious beliefs to it, you’re not just challenging one idea. You’re challenging the worldview of the person that’s predicated upon believing this since they were a baby.

When you challenge the idea, they feel completely disrupted. You have to be wrong because otherwise their entire thing they’ve built their whole life on is wrong. And they can’t entertain that as a notion.

Their brain cannot compute what you are saying if they’re going to keep their worldview.

It doesn’t mean they don’t love you. It just means they can’t walk on that journey with you.

I gave this analogy in my conversation with Emily: Pretend you met when you were both in kindergarten. They graduated from high school. They went to all the workshops at church. They live a faithful life. They try to be a good person. They’re doing the best they can with what they have.

And then you said, “I’m not just going to college, but I’m going to NASA and I’m going to ride on a rocket.”

They’re in high school. High school works. High school is not bad. It’s good.

But it’s never, ever, ever going to be NASA.

And now you’re like, “Oh my God, I just saw a flying comet and I’m going to Mars.” And their ability to understand that you have the capacity to go to Mars—it’s not lack of regard. They cannot compute that.

So the question becomes: Can I go to NASA and they stay in high school, and we’re okay with that? Can we visit each other’s worlds without having to live there?

Sometimes that’s fine. And sometimes the person in high school is like, “No, high school is where everybody lives and I’m not moving. And NASA’s crazy.”

There is no wrong answer. And nobody has to be the villain.

Quality Matters More Than Length

In our culture, we have decided that a relationship is only good if it’s long.

We prioritize length and minimize the importance of quality.

And I want to be the voice in your head that says: Quality matters more than length.

A relationship can be amazing and wonderful. Maybe you had 25 years with someone and raised amazing kids and had great adventures and it was great. And now it’s time to call it.

And there’s no shame in that. The things you did were still beautiful and powerful and awesome. And it’s okay for relationships to end.

Your Turn: What Is The Best Relationship I Can Have?

One of the questions I like to ask as a frame for personal development work in your relationship is:

What is the best relationship I can have with this person? And then do I want that?

You might try everything. Invite them to workshops. Do the exercises from books. Share what you’re learning. And they may show up—sloppy, but they’re showing up.

And you might think: You know what? The best relationship I can have with them is they’re never fully going to get it, but they kind of come along with me. I can work with that.

OR you might realize: They really did show up. They came with me on five retreats. But guess what? I don’t want that. That’s not it.

That’s also a valid outcome.

How do you know you’ve done enough? How do you know when to call it?

Ask yourself: How often am I making lemonade out of lemons?

Once a month? Fine. I like lemonade. Once a week? We can still work with it. Every hour on the hour? That’s too much lemonade.

And check: Am I going against my values or my wellbeing? Is maintaining the status quo somehow violating what I just learned, what I just embraced, what I just unleashed?

Those are your filters.

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Connect with Emily Reuschel

Emily Reuschel is a coach who helps women navigate deep identity work, untangling worldviews around religion, politics, and spirituality. She hosts the Wild and Waking podcast.

Listen to her podcast: Wild and Waking

Visit her website: https://www.emilyreuschel.com/ 

Follow Emily in Instagram: @emilyreuschel

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Join the Growth Gap Workshop (FREE)

If you’re navigating any kind of relationship challenge and want support, I invite you to join my free Growth Gap Workshop. I teach you how to bridge the gap when you and your husband are growing at different speeds—and these principles apply to all aspects of your relationship.

Get access to the workshop for free here

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Work With Me Privately

If you’re a woman in a marriage that’s safe but stuck, mostly good but not nourishing, private coaching might be perfect for you. I work with women who have already decided to stay and want to close the gap between where their marriage is and where they know it can be.

Learn more about private coaching here.

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About Maggie Reyes

Maggie Reyes is a Master Certified Life Coach and feminist marriage coach for high-achieving women who want to strengthen marriages that feel stuck but not broken. She is the host of The Marriage Life Coach Podcast, ranked in the top 2% globally, where she teaches high-achieving women the practical relationship skills they were never taught in school.

Through individual marriage coaching for women, Maggie helps clients improve communication, reconnect emotionally, and create real change in their relationships — even if their partner isn’t interested in couples therapy or coaching. She is the author of the bestselling Questions for Couples Journal and creator of the Soul-Centered Communication framework.

Maggie’s work is rooted in feminist values. While she primarily works with women married to men — navigating the patriarchal programming (and deprogramming) that shapes those relationships — she has also supported women in same-sex marriages. The same kinds of communication patterns, emotional disconnection, conflict loops, and repair skills apply regardless of gender. Her work is inclusive of diverse identities and experiences.

Marriage coaching for women who want to feel connected, not just committed

If you love your husband but feel disconnected, stuck in the same arguments, or exhausted from carrying the emotional load of the relationship, you’re not alone — and your side of the table is where your power lives.

Maggie specializes in individual marriage coaching for high-achieving women who want to feel loved, respected, and deeply connected again. Whether you’re looking for communication tools, emotional clarity, or a new way forward in your marriage, you’ll find support here.

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✨ Transparency Note

This blog post was inspired by The Marriage Life Coach Podcast episode, prepared by my team and helped by AI. IT REALLY TAKES A VILLAGE PEOPLE ;-).

Thank you for reading, it’s an honor to be part of your day.