Most Couples Fix Their Marriage Backwards

Most of us don’t have a plan for our marriage. We have a repair schedule: something breaks, we patch it, things are fine for a while, and then we wait, quietly, for it to break again. Lance Salazar lived in that loop with his wife Brandy until they stopped repairing and started designing, borrowing the same discipline they already used to run a business: decide what you want, build a plan, commit to it, track it. What came out of that is a framework of four elements, and Salazar is specific that the order they come in matters as much as the list itself.

The Cycle of Patch, Coast, and Break Again

That cycle, patch, coast, break, repeat, is what Salazar and his wife decided to interrupt, applying the same goals-and-milestones thinking they used in business to a part of life most couples never plan at all.

“There was a lot of this fixing what was broken. Okay, so this is messed up, let’s just fix that, put a band-aid on it, and then you just sort of go back into mediocrity until things suck again.”

The Four Legendary Relationship Elements, in Order

The framework is you, the partnership, the friendship, and the lovers, in that order, and the order is the entire point. A partnership needs a good partner first, which is why the work starts with your own health, maturity and confidence before it touches the relationship itself.

The Partnership Loop That Traps Couples After Kids

Finances, chores, who drops off which kid: Salazar says most couples get stuck relitigating this layer forever, keeping score instead of making explicit agreements about who owns what. Only once that layer is handled does friendship, and then intimacy, have room to show up.

“That’s where people get trapped after kids, by the way. We call it the partnership loop.”

A Habit That Sounds Unromantic

Salazar tracks the small stuff the same way he would a new habit at the gym: a planner, a checkbox, a literal reminder to kiss his wife if it hasn’t happened that day. It sounds unromantic, he admits, but a missed habit doesn’t mean you love her less. It means you’re out of practice, and practice is the whole point. Listen to the full conversation, “Legendary Couples with Kids,” here. For the full list of books this community keeps recommending, click here. Want a taste of what Front Row Dads is actually like? Join a free 60-minute Brotherhood Experience on Zoom here.