Episode 32: The Best Interest of the Collective
If your marriage feels like a constant tug of war, you are not broken and your relationship is not doomed. What you are experiencing is incredibly common, and it usually has far less to do with love than it does with survival.
The “me versus him” dynamic does not show up overnight. It builds quietly through stress, exhaustion, unspoken resentment, and nervous systems that have been running on high alert for too long. When that happens, everything starts to feel personal. His time feels like it is taken from you. Your effort feels invisible. Support feels uneven. And slowly, the marriage stops feeling like a team.
But there is a way out, and it begins with one powerful shift.
The Best Interest of the Collective
True partnership is not about keeping things equal at every moment. It is about making decisions with the whole in mind.
When you operate from the best interest of the collective, you stop asking, “Is this fair to me?” and start asking, “How does this support us as a whole?”
That shift alone can completely change how a marriage feels.
Something as simple as taking a walk can illustrate this. A walk is not just for the dog. It supports your body, your energy, your patience, your children, and your household. When you feel better, everyone benefits. That is the collective.
Every marriage already operates this way, whether consciously or not.
One partner works to provide stability.
One partner supports the home so the other can build.
One partner carries more when the other is sick, depleted, or stretched thin.
The issue is not who does what. The issue is whether it is framed as sacrifice or as teamwork.
Why It Stops Feeling Like a Team
Most couples do not wake up one day and decide to become enemies. What actually happens is nervous system dysregulation.
At some point, an emotion went unprocessed. Fear, frustration, disappointment, stress. Instead of being addressed, it was pushed aside in the name of survival. Over time, those ignored emotions stacked up.
When the nervous system is dysregulated, the lower brain takes over. This is the part of the brain designed to keep you safe, not connected. It sees the world in black and white. Friend or foe. Safe or unsafe.
And in that state, even the person you love most can start to feel like a threat.
That is when the marriage shifts from “we” to “me versus him.”
Arguments become about protection instead of resolution. Requests turn into accusations. Distance feels safer than closeness. You may still be polite, loving, or even accommodating, but underneath it all, your body does not feel safe.
This is not a character flaw. It is biology.
How the Pattern Gets Locked In
The brain loves efficiency. Once it learns a pattern, it repeats it.
If your nervous system has learned that certain behaviors lead to emotional pain, it will react before logic ever has a chance to intervene. Over time, these reactions become automatic. The same arguments. The same triggers. The same internal story about who your partner is and what they mean.
The collective disappears because survival takes center stage.
Instead of thinking about what supports the family, the marriage, or the future, your body is focused on one thing only. How do I protect myself right now?
That is when resentment grows and connection fades.
Healing Is Remembering
Healing does not start with fixing your partner. It starts with remembering who you were together before fear took the wheel.
Remember when dreaming felt easy.
When everything was “ours.”
When risks felt exciting instead of terrifying.
When you trusted that you had each other’s backs.
That version of you still exists.
Your higher brain, the part of you capable of love, curiosity, compassion, and collaboration, is still there. It just needs safety to come back online.
When you reconnect with that part of yourself, the collective becomes visible again.
You start to remember that the marriage is not the enemy. It is the container that allows both of you to grow.
Partnership Is a Living Balance
Balance in marriage is not stillness. It is movement.
Like walking across a balance beam, you are constantly adjusting. Sometimes one partner carries more. Sometimes the other leads. Sometimes both wobble and have to climb back on.
That is not failure. That is partnership.
When you hold the collective in mind, you stop keeping score. You stop framing life as who did more or who got less. You start seeing how each role supports the whole, even when it looks different season to season.
Taking Care of You Is Not Selfish
Resetting your nervous system is not indulgent. It is responsible.
When you are regulated, calm, and grounded, you have access to your higher self. You communicate more clearly. You feel safer in connection. You are able to see your partner as a teammate again.
Taking care of yourself is in the best interest of the collective.
That is where healing actually begins.
Choosing the Collective Again
You do not have to stay stuck in me versus him.
You can choose to return to partnership by first creating safety within yourself. From there, you can rebuild the marriage as a place of collaboration, trust, and shared vision.
This is not about going backward. It is about remembering forward.
When you lead from your most loving self, when you regulate your nervous system, and when you intentionally choose the collective, the marriage becomes a place where both of you can breathe again.
And from that place, everything else becomes possible.
