Have you ever been in something you care about deeply, whether it’s your marriage, your career, or a long friendship, and quietly wondered whether it’s still working for you?

Almost anything we do for a long time will have a season, or more than one, that can feel like a grind. It happens in our careers (I worked in HR for about 15 years before I became a coach, and I definitely had those “am I still in this?” moments), and it happens in our marriages too.

So in this episode I’m joined by one of my absolute favorite humans, the brilliant Lindsay Dotzlaf, a master coach’s coach and the host of the Mastering Coaching Skills podcast. Lindsay originally explored this idea through the lens of business, and we realized it applies just as powerfully to marriage and any long-term commitment. This is how to decide whether it’s time to recommit or release.

Put the Question on the Table

The first move is simply to let yourself ask the question: Is this still the right path for me? Do I still want this? Is this still working for me?

I especially love “is this still working for me?” Because so much of what I want to help women do is create marriages that work for them. We get to collectively rethink what we assumed marriage should be, and ask instead how it actually works for us, in this era, in this season of life.

But here’s what Lindsay named so beautifully: so often we don’t even ask. We’re afraid of the answer, so we avoid the question entirely, and we coast. As she put it, the worst thing is to never really make a clear decision and just stay somewhere in the middle. (Or, as the youngsters say, mid. We don’t want it to be mid!)

Just giving yourself permission to put the question on the table is the first step to everything that can come after it.

The Drift

There’s a concept from the Gottman Institute’s relationship research called the drift. Imagine you’re floating in the ocean and your partner is floating nearby. Unless you purposefully turn toward each other, on purpose and with intention, you’ll drift apart. That’s the natural order of things.

So turning toward each other, over and over again, is what keeps connection alive. And it’s not just marriage. Lindsay and I have been friends for years, and in this season we have to consciously turn toward each other too. We turn toward the thing we want more of.

The drift, Lindsay said, is going through the day to day, looking fine on the outside, without ever checking in: Hey, how’s this going? Is it going the way we want? And if not, what do we do about it?

Coming Off Autopilot

So much of the drift is autopilot. We made a decision 20 years ago, for the people we were then, the life we had then, the circumstances we had then, and then everything changed. New jobs, moves, kids, medical stuff, pandemics, all of it. And we never came back to update the decision.

Coming off autopilot means saying: I need to be intentional. I need to see where I am and what I want next. And sometimes we don’t know what we want next, and that ambivalence is uncomfortable, so we avoid it and stay on autopilot to pretend it’s not there.

Here’s what I tell my clients: your resistance is welcome here. You don’t have to have it all figured out. We can just be with it, and being with it doesn’t mean we’re deciding anything yet.

From “Am I Safe?” to “Am I Capable?”

For years I oriented everything in my coaching toward safety: what do you need in order to feel safe to look at this? And there’s nothing wrong with that; I’ll always do that.

But something my therapist helped me see was to try a different question: not “am I safe?” but “am I capable?” Am I capable of looking at this today? Am I capable of considering options? Am I capable of asking one question? When we took it out of safe-or-unsafe and moved it to capable, for me the escape valve released. All the steam came out, and suddenly we were cooking with gas.

And letting “no” be okay matters too. High-achieving women often don’t give ourselves permission to say: actually, today is not the day. Today I need to coast. That’s allowed, without judgment or self-condemnation.

Doubt Is a Signal to Collect Data

When we feel doubt or ambivalence, so many of us want to solve it with action, do something, now. But the real question is: do I have enough data to make this decision? Most of the time, honestly, we don’t.

In a marriage, that might sound like: if this isn’t working for me anymore, what would need to change for it to work? And is my partner available for that? Sometimes you find you need certain things to change and your partner is all in, and you’re off to the races. Sometimes your partner isn’t available for it, and then you have other things to consider. But trying to decide without collecting the data just creates more frustration and more ambivalence.

The signs you’ve got data to collect: fear, confusion, avoidance. And a great question when you feel stuck is simply, what is unclear? It doesn’t hand you the answer; it hands you the next thing to look at.

One more piece that comes up here: so much of what keeps us stuck is happening only in our own heads: assumptions about what our partner thinks or would say, gaps we’ve filled in ourselves. Have you actually talked about it? And when you do bring it up, it lands so differently to start with “I miss you” than with “you’re never here.”

Making the Exit Plan (Even If You’re Staying)

One exercise I love: make the exit plan. If you were leaving, what would you do? Where would you live? What would change, what would stay the same? Whether you do it in your head or write it out or talk it through in a session, it’s incredibly empowering to know what you’d do, because it returns your sense of agency.

And part of why this matters: as women, we’re often woefully undereducated about how divorce actually works, the practical nuts and bolts. (I did a two-part episode called Understanding Divorce with divorce lawyer and coach Lauren Fair that walks through exactly that.) We can’t make clear decisions without the facts.

Recommit AND Reimagine

Here’s the reframe I most want you to take: recommitting or releasing is not all-or-nothing. What you may be releasing isn’t necessarily the relationship. It might be the way it worked before, the way you did it before. You’re not automatically getting a divorce; you’re saying, we’re not going to do it this way anymore, we’re going to try these other ways and see what works for both of us.

Lindsay recommitted to the parts of her business she loved and reimagined the parts that needed to evolve, and the same is true in marriage. Recommitting is the fun part: okay, now what do we want this to look like? Not everything has to come along in the car. We get to take stock of how we’ve each changed, and ask what we want now, what we love now.

And a huge part of that is doing new things together. When we’re dating, we feel amazing partly because we’re constantly doing new things, and doing new things together releases all the best chemistry in your brain. My husband and I have tried gym classes we’d never have picked, and years later got into watching Formula One races together, which became a whole new shared hobby. Recommitting can look like finding fresh connective tissue (the joy, the peace, the excitement you’re craving) and building it together.

The Real Takeaway

You get more power the moment you’re willing to ask the question, is this still working for me?, and then collect the data, come off autopilot, and decide, on purpose, what you want to recommit to and what you’re ready to release.

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Listen to the full episode

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Connect with Lindsay Dotzlaf

Lindsay Dotzlaf is a master certified coach and a coach’s coach who helps coaches master the craft of coaching, not just the business of it. She’s the host of the Mastering Coaching Skills podcast, a favorite for coaches and for anyone who leads or supports people in any capacity. Visit Lindsay’s website: lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com  Follow Lindsay on Instagram: @lindsay.dotzlaf

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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 post was inspired by The Marriage Life Coach Podcast and prepared with support from my team and AI. (It really does take a village — and I’m grateful for mine. ✨ 

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