Have you ever worked so hard to fix a problem in your marriage, only to find yourself right back in the same place weeks later?
Most couples don’t struggle because they aren’t trying.
They struggle because they’re putting a lot of effort into changes that can’t create lasting results.
In this episode, I explain what it actually means to work smarter on your marriage, not harder. Drawing from systems theory, personal experience, and real coaching stories, I show why some changes help temporarily while others lead to real, lasting transformation.
We breaks down the difference between first-order change (doing more or less of the same things) and second-order change (upgrading the rules your relationship is operating on).
You’ll learn how to recognize when you’re stuck in surface-level fixes, how to identify the unspoken “rules” your marriage is operating by, and what it looks like to make changes at the level that truly creates growth—especially around intimacy, desire differences, and recurring conflict.
Resources
Next Level Lovemaking: A Virtual Intimacy Getaway (Feb 13-14)
Get Your Marriage On Coaching Program
Intimately Us & Just Between Us apps (Valentine’s Intimacy Challenge coming up!)
Transcript
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors or inaccuracies. For the most accurate and complete experience, we recommend listening to the full podcast episode.
Have you ever been so frustrated when trying to fix something and then after hours of effort over many attempts? The problem just keeps coming back. Imagine this scenario. Emily and I are getting ready for bed together.
So I turn to Emily and say, Emily, did you get the [00:01:00] email? My dad sent both of us. She says, I can’t get new emails. How come? It says I’m outta storage space again? Yes. Again, I’m so sick and tired of running outta storage space. Have you gone through and deleted old emails you don’t need? Yes. And it takes so much time to do that.
Yeah, I know. How, how about pictures and videos? Did you take care of those too? I’ve done that too. It, I just get so much decision fatigue trying to decide which baby photos are worth keeping or deleting, and just to free up some space. Have you run their large file finder tool to help you find like maybe large files to delete, to free up space?
Oh, I’ve done that so many times. I just don’t know what more to delete. Do you want me to take a look at it? Yes. Will you please? Anyway, we’ve had these conversations every few months and we had this problem over and over, and we end up spending enormous amounts of time trying to decide [00:02:00] what things to keep, what things to delete, because we keep running outta storage space.
And then one day I had a brilliant idea, why not get more storage problem solved, and then we paid a few bucks or however much it was and upgraded to their a hundred gigabyte plan. And problem solved immediately. Way worth the extra dollars. And we got our time and our piece back, and now she gets emails.
My message to you today isn’t about emails or upgrading your storage. Instead, it’s about areas in your marriage where you spend an enormous amount of energy in conflict, the same conflict, and in struggles that just tend to persist. I want to show you why they happen, why they persist, because chances are you’re approaching your problems within the confines of just one level of understanding.
So by the end of this episode. I’ll give you the key and a few ideas and scenarios to challenge you to expand your understanding of your marriage in ways that lead to inspired next level [00:03:00] solutions. Ready? First, I wanna share a personal example of where I’ve experienced this in my own marriage besides, uh, email and running outta storage.
I’ve shared on this podcast a few times about a season in our own marriage where we struggled with significant sexual desire differences. In short, I wanted sex all the time, and Emily, not so much. Now, Emily, she’s always liked sex, but she didn’t think about it as often as I did, or wasn’t as open to a wide range of novelty and creativity of things I wanted to do,
and this caused some significant struggles between us. And I used to think the problem was Emily. I would say if only she would blank, then our struggles around sex would disappear and we’d have the perfect marriage. Or if only she would be more comfortable with X, Y, or Z, then I would love her so much more.
How come she just can’t get over this? And I’d buy her books and some of them were quite good by the way. We bought some online seminars [00:04:00] to quote unquote watch together AKA, make sure she watches them right. Actually, the programs we got were actually quite good, but she’d often fall asleep. While watching the videos together, um, she’s a tired mama and I took it upon myself, by the way, in this season to be a great husband.
I wanted to be a good listener. I wanted to be really present with my wife and with my kids, and I invested in the mental load of our busy family. ’cause I was really secretly hoping that if I did those things, she would, you know, adopt more of these sexual ideas that I had and it would resolve this conflict in our marriage.
I was also secretly hoping that maybe she would have a conversation with a girlfriend or, you know, she’d read something or she’d glean something from a retreat that would persuade her to be more open to what I wanted in our marriage. The thing is, sometimes these things [00:05:00] would actually work. We’d actually have higher frequency and a few more novel experiences, maybe for a week, sometimes two.
And then things would just go back to the old way things were. And I often wondered, why is it like this? I feel like I’m doing all the right things, and how come nothing really sticks or changes in our sexual relationship? And I’d go back again to that same old thought, like if only Emily would, or if only Emily would catch up to my level and things like that.
Now, I don’t think my conflict is anything unusual, very common. But what I didn’t realize at the time is I was making what systems theorists call first order changes. And that’s a key term we’re gonna use a lot. It’s a first order change. I was doing more or less of the same thing. I was just trying it harder or differently.
But the actual system, the way Emily and I related to each other around intimacy in our marriage that stayed exactly the same.
And here was [00:06:00] a system at that level of thinking that we were operating within. I viewed myself as a sexually superior one and her as the one you know, that needs to catch up to my level. And as long as we both participated in that way of thinking, the confines of that system, you know, where I was, the more superior one and she was the one that needed to catch up no matter what we did, whether we did more of it or less of it, things were going to fundamentally stay the same.
We’re gonna have the same struggles over and over. And it wasn’t until I made what’s called a second order change, which I’ll explain more in a moment, a second order change where we actually changed the marriage system itself. That things actually shifted for us and we no longer had that old argument persist over and over.
Let me explain a little bit about first order and second order change. This is the crux of today’s episode. Systems theory became a popular idea among academics and scientists in the 1950s and sixties. [00:07:00] A system is where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Think about your body. It’s a system.
You have parts like eyes, legs, arms, a heart or brain, and various subsystems like digestion and a nervous system, and they all work together. To build an incredible system. Your body, where the combination of all these things is much more than the individual parts, but it’s also why when you stub your toe or have a headache, the whole system suffers.
Systems also work because all the parts follow a specific set of principles. The better the underlying principles or laws, the better the overall system can operate. In the 1970s, a group of marriage researchers called the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California started applying systems theory to marriage and family therapy.
The theory is that a marriage is actually a system that, again, the whole is greater than some of its parts. And the parts, [00:08:00] you know, the people in the marriage, although they work independently by working together, they create something great. That’s the marriage. And conversely, when one part isn’t working as well, the whole system suffers too.
They also found that, uh, in these marriage systems, like all other systems, theory systems follow a certain set of principles or ways of thinking. Okay. The researchers were puzzled why some couples in therapy were making lots of changes in their marriage, but nothing would actually get better. They’d keep coming back to the same old arguments over and over.
Yet they observed other couples that made a few seemingly small changes, but everything got better and they didn’t need to return to their old arguments over and over. So they really buckled down on this research and they found that the couples that made a few seemingly small changes were upgrading the rules or the principles by which their system and their marriage was operating.
While the couples that struggled with the same old challenges over and over didn’t really change the [00:09:00] fundamental principles of their marriage system. So the researchers then use the terms first order change. And second order change when it comes to helping couples overcome their challenges in marriages.
First order change is when you do more of something or less of something, but the basic rules of the game stay the same. It’s like spending a lot of time deleting or moving files around so you can keep receiving emails, because you’re at your storage limit, but you’re still up against the same storage limit.
Or it’s like rearranging the furniture in a room. Everything moves around, but you’re still in the same room, same dimensions. You’re still, confined to whatever that room can give you. Second order change is when you change the rules of the game itself. It’s like. Upgrading the storage capacity of your email or by knocking down a wall and creating an entirely different space so you can accommodate a different kind of living [00:10:00] space in your home.
The new system operates by different principles, and here’s what makes this so important for your intimate relationship. Most couples I work with are exhausted from first order changes. They’ve tried initiating differently, scheduling sex, reading books, watching videos, and some of it actually helps temporarily, but they keep ending up back in the same frustrated place.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with books, videos, scheduling, sex and so on. Those can actually be really good, but if you haven’t changed the system, those are the unspoken rules about who’s responsible for what. What sex means in the relationship, how they relate to each other’s desires, or how they believe about intimacy and self.
Nothing will fundamentally improve in the marriage system. The marriage system itself needs to change to actually. Evolve your marriage into something different. Buckminster Fuller was an American [00:11:00] architect, author and systems theorist, and he explained it this way. You never change things by fighting the existing reality to change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete in, uh, business.
A jargon. People use the word disruption, like disruptive businesses, disruptive thinking. It’s where the new model makes the oldman obsolete. It’s like the automobile replacing the horse and buggy. In my mind, moving to a second order change doesn’t mean you just categorically discard everything you’ve left behind. Rather you fulfill it or you expand upon it, kind of like those Russian nesting dolls. The course still the same, but you’ve expanded upon it. Jesus’s teaching in his day. Introduced a second order change for his followers.
He upgraded the system relative to the laws and principles espoused by the Jews. In his day, he said things like, I want you to give alms, but when you do it, do it in such a way your left hand has [00:12:00] no idea what your right hand is doing. Or, the law says not to commit adultery, but I say, don’t even allow lustful imaginations.
in your heart, he was teaching a higher and holier way to live
the religious establishment of his day could not reconcile how a person like him could perform miracles on the Sabbath, because in their mind, they had a rigid view of what was allowed on the Sabbath. Jesus challenged their views by reminding everyone what true religion is actually about. And it’s not to omit the weightier matters of the law, such as judgment, mercy, and faith. Those matter so much more. Am sure you can think of a few times in your life when you have made significant improvements and where you have adopted a second order change in your life.
Uh, for me a few years ago, I wanted to grow, get your marriage on. I felt like I could grow it as much as I could in the confines that I had, um, but I [00:13:00] kept running into some limitations because at the time, get your marriage on was a part-time gig. ’cause I had a full-time gig running my software development agency.
I wanted to shift gears and devote my full efforts to get your marriage on, but I couldn’t do it unless I changed the system or the rules in which I operated. And it wasn’t until I made a commitment to find a way to go all in on get your Marriage on, when a very talented and dear friend of mine reached out for me for lunch.
A month later, he became the CEO of the software development agency and has taken over all of my duties, allowing me to devote my best efforts to serving you in this way. And not ironically, he is running that software development agency much better than I ever could. And this was a example of a second order change for me.
I see couples make second order changes when it comes to their sexual relationship. Very often In my work as a coach, I view my role as an agent of [00:14:00] change to help marriage systems adopt better rules, principles, and laws that make the old systems obsolete. This is inviting couples and individuals to make second order changes in their lives.
I admit second order change is scary, kind of like remodeling the living room. It’s often dusty and messy for a time while the new system is under construction because of the dust, the mess, and the inconvenience during the remodel.
Too many couples postpone making significant changes in their lives and stay stuck in that first order. Muck, hoping things would change, but things won’t change because you’re still in the old operating system. Say for instance, you wanted to lose weight and adopt some lifestyle changes such as exercising more and eating healthier.
Do you wait until you’re 10 pounds, 30 pounds, or 60 pounds over before deciding to make the change? How bad do things need to get before you realize the cost of change is actually [00:15:00] less than the pain of keeping living the old way you are living? My friends life is hard sometimes. Marriage is also hard sometimes, and intimacy and sex in marriage is even harder.
However, the more we’re willing to look at reality and truth and humbly acknowledge our options in the face of that truth, the hard becomes doable. The suffering is less, and the joy is deeper and fuller. Earlier I told you about how Emily and I struggled with sexual desire differences for a long time.
The second order shift in our marriage that helped us overcome that challenge was when we both stopped playing that game that I was a sexually superior one in our marriage. Once we were threw away that old paradigm and adopted a different one more like this. We’re sexual equals. We each bring strengths to this marriage.
Even if we go about it differently when we approach things in that way. A lot of our old problems were no longer relevant. [00:16:00] We just kind of grew out of those problems. Another example is a couple who are fiercely committed to each other, but he had a high sex drive and hers was less, and it caused friction in their marriage for him.
The longer they went without sex, he could physically feel the tension building up in in his body, and he egged for sexual release. He’d essentially turn into the Hulk. He didn’t get sex often enough. He would pursue her a lot and she felt used, so she resisted, which added more to their attention because earlier in their marriage they both decided that they should both work to be available whenever one of them wanted sex.
And this understanding was, you know, it was good. It was a good idea. It’s like we will be each other’s outlet whenever we need it. And this understanding though. As the years went by, was partially responsible for her feeling used and often led to having sex out of a sense of [00:17:00] obligation for him. And it wasn’t about her pleasure and her replenishment.
They’re both sick of feeling resentful towards each other in their sexual relationship.
They would try different things and things would get better maybe for a week or two, but they just fall right back into the old patterns. One day they listened to one of my past podcast episodes on the topic of masturbation, which is kind of a touchy subject for some people, pun intended. They were opposed to the idea of masturbation because they felt it was selfish.
And like not quite the way they wanted to use their sexuality, but they were realizing that he was using his wife as his stress ball for release, and that actually wasn’t very loving for him. It was actually an unloving use of his sexual energy and it was actually harming the marriage. So after a long and careful discussion, they agreed to try occasional masturbation as a tool.
To help ease some of the pent up tension with the understanding that it wasn’t a replacement for the [00:18:00] other, and it wasn’t a behavior one would do in secret or in the dark, or as a way of directing sexual energy away from the marriage. It felt risky for them, by the way, to allow something they thought was wrong.
They were afraid that it would be a slippery slope and lead to other harmful behaviors in their marriage, but they agreed to try it and communicate about their experience and just take it a week at a time. Now, fast forward a few weeks, he was no longer an ogre or the Hulk, and she felt a huge release from a sense of obligation, and their sexual encounters were less rushed.
They were more replenishing and pleasurable for both of them. The second order change for them meant rewriting some of the old rules and principles that weren’t serving them anymore. And replacing them or expanding upon them with better rules and better principles that actually did serve them in their marriage.
Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that masturbation is a solution [00:19:00] for sexual struggles in your marriage. Now, masturbation might help, but it also might not help. It entirely depends on the system of rules. That your marriage is operating on. My point in sharing this story is to encourage you to courageously examine the ways you operate as a couple and to get clarity and truth on the table.
What is serving both of you and what is not serving both of you and have a discussion about it. Let me conclude with one more short example. A few weeks ago I had Robert and Leticia as guests on the podcast to share their story and inspiring Journey with you.
So if you listen to that podcast episode with Robert and Leticia, they both introduced second order change into their marriage when they learned that they weren’t actually responsible for the other person’s emotional state, this required each of them to take more personal responsibility for their own emotions, which.
Isn’t always easy to do, by the way, and also give the other person space to have their own feelings without [00:20:00] necessarily being in reaction to them all the time, which also isn’t easy. But with practice, they learned that the only way to actually have a deeply loving and caring relationship for each other was to support, encourage, persuade, listen, and be present with the other person without trying to take on or ultimately manage.
The person’s emotions, which they realize is actually never actually works out that way. Anyway, in conclusion, remember this. Marriages are a system, and systems follow a set of underlying rules or principles. Oftentimes, couples try to resolve conflict unsuccessfully because they’re operating within the confines of a system that’s frankly no longer working for them.
Much like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, it might look like you’re busy, but you’re working on the wrong problem. It is also how people fail to get their house in order, right? They buy a bunch of bins at the new year, but we’re gonna organize and store [00:21:00] all the clutter where second order change would actually be getting rid of the clutter, so you have less to organize and worry about.
Real shifts in an intimate marriage happen when we move from first order to second order changes. Second order changes require us to upgrade our operating system. It actually pushes us to grow up, grow who we are, and to expand our understanding to new and higher levels.
In short, In short, it invites us to bring our best selves to the relationship and we evolve and mature as a result.
Second order change is not easy to implement at first, but it is easier to live with the new changes of second order change than staying stuck in the difficulty and frustration of an outdated system that keeps you stuck. In this episode, I gave you a few examples of first and second order change from my own marriage and from those that I have the privilege of serving.
So I want you to try this tonight. Pick one area of conflict that seems to [00:22:00] persist in your marriage and see if you can identify patterns of first order changes. Then consider what second order change might look like for you. And sometimes having a neutral outside view can help you see things you miss.
That’s why we offer a program at Get Your Marriage on called Next Level, which we’ve revamped the whole program, by the way, for 2026. It’s affordable and gets you access to expert coaching from our certified coaches up to eight times a month. So if you’re curious about how it can help you in your marriage, listeners to this podcast can actually try my program free for 30 days until the end of February and you’ll find out those details at Get Your Marriage on.com and click on program.
Now, let’s say you’re a couple, you’ve done some second order changes and things are going great, and now you’re ready for your next level. You want more erotic fun. You want something that will deepen your sexual relationship and you wanna do something in person. I’ll invite you to check out [00:23:00] our upcoming Get Your Marriage on Cruise.
We sail the first week of October, and this is ideal for couples who are already in a good place but really wanna take their sex lives to an even better place.
We have just a few spots left, so at quickly, and you’ll find all those details at Get Your Marriage on.com/events. And as always, thank you for listening. Please share this podcast with all of your married friends. And remember, go get your marriage on.
