From a Crippling Crisis to Best Friends Again

What I Learned from Becoming a Surrendered Wife

Angie Kjellberg

In the spring of 2001 my marriage was in a very bad place.

We’d just had the worst fight of our six-year marriage and my husband took our son and left, saying he could provide a better life for him. I collapsed onto the kitchen floor sobbing.

We were lucky that my parents helped us have an intervention that night, and we both committed to trying again.

I came across The Surrendered Wife online after typing “Husband and Wife Games” in the browser.

I was looking for something to help us connect better. I read the free chapter and recognized my controlling mother instantly (sorry, mom), printed the free chapter and gave it to her the first chance I could.

Meanwhile, the subtitle of the book, “A Practical Guide to Finding Intimacy, Passion, and Peace with a Man” did resonate with me. I wanted that!

I read the book in days. I saw immediate improvements in my marriage, but I realized I had a problem.

I needed further help to implement the principles. I needed girlfriends to talk to, so I reached out to Laura for support and started a Surrendered Wife Circle in August 2001 to help women like me who were seeking advice to strengthen or save their marriages.

Something that Laura’s book taught me was the difference in a good guy versus a bad guy.
I had been surrendering for about a year when a series of events sent me spiraling into depression. Some repressed memories were coming to the surface about the sexual abuse I had endured in my early teen years.

Because I had restored trust and created a peaceful marriage by using the Intimacy Skills™ in Laura’s book, I was able to talk to my husband about the twenty-two year-old secret I had been keeping.

I don’t think my earlier marriage would have survived such a trauma because of the strain between us. With his support, I was able to get the help I needed.

When I first read The Surrendered Wife, I tried to turn control of the finances over to my husband and because of the strain in our marriage it didn’t go very well. It took me another three years of surrendering and creating trust and peace in my marriage before I tried it again.

He has been doing them ever since and it inspired him to take the leap into something he has always wanted to do: ranching.

That has taken a lot of trust on my part because ranching doesn’t pay right away. It has taken us several years of building up our herd to be able to put some money back in our pockets. It’s been scary, but I trust him fully to provide for us. He is the hardest working man I know.

Another lesson I have learned along the way is to beat the drum of what I like and want to see in my husband.

I use to stew on all that he had done wrong, which I vented about in the Surrendered Circle.
One day a wise friend told me I was setting my husband up to fail by focusing on all the stuff I didn’t like.

I had to get my ego out of the way to hear that message and, when I did, I realized I needed to focus on all the stuff I did like about my husband.

It was hard at first. All I could come up with was that he was a good provider and a hard worker for our family.

But that was all it took because, as I beat the drum about that, I started noticing other little things I loved and admired and respected about my husband.

Fifteen years later, my marriage is stronger than ever. We just had our twenty-second anniversary. He tells me all the time that I am his best friend, and I feel that more and more every day.

By Laura Doyle

Hi! I'm Laura.

New York Times Bestselling Author

I was the perfect wife--until I actually got married. When I tried to tell my husband how to be more romantic, more ambitious, and tidier, he avoided me. I dragged him to marriage counseling and nearly divorced him. I then started talking to women who had what I wanted in their marriages and that’s when I got my miracle. The man who wooed me returned.

I wrote a few books about what I learned and accidentally started a worldwide movement of women who practice The Six Intimacy Skills™ that lead to having amazing, vibrant relationships. The thing I’m most proud of is my playful, passionate relationship with my hilarious husband John–who has been dressing himself since before I was born.

12 replies on “From a Crippling Crisis to Best Friends Again”

I get a lot out of reading the posts here and while I can’t relate to every situation, there’s always something resonating with me.
“…to beat the drum of what I like and want to see in my husband.” My husband has said we have a disconnect. I know that recognizing and reinforcing what I like about him will work for me. Baby steps and daily conversations are what’s been keeping us together for the past 15 months. Reading posts here helps me maintain hope.
Every couple has it’s unique challenges.

Thank you Laura! My life would be drastically different if I hadn’t discovered your work all those years ago. I love and appreciate all you do for the sanctity of marriage. My Surrendered Circle girls thank you too! ?

Angie, You are an inspiration! Thanks for sharing all this with the world–for being so courageous and authentic. I love you!

Interested in the “good guy”, “bad guy” thing. I am in a serious marriage crisis where everyone, including my therapist & his family to an extent is telling me he is toxic, abusive, damaging my children & me, has mental health issues and is manipulating the situation to take our son and all our material possessions. How can I possibly surrender or submit when he consistently lies to and about me, turns every situation around to my detriment and my children are being affected? How do I know when to stay & try & when to wise up & protect myself and the children as everyone else seems to think I should.

Rae, Sounds like a very painful situation you’re in. I always found plenty of people who would support me acting on my fear, but it was harder to find those who would support me choosing my faith in my marriage. You reached out to me, which tells me that you still have hope. If you wanted permission to leave you would have written to someone else. I suspect you still have hope, and that tells me there is hope for your marriage. While I don’t know you or your relationship yet, I can tell you that practicing The Six Intimacy Skills is miraculous for clearing up problems like the one you describe and also giving you clarity to know what the best move is for you and your family. Since you describe your situation as a crisis, I would love to see you get support. You can apply for a complimentary discovery call to see if working with one of my coaches would be right for you. You’d find it so valuable.
https://lauradoyle.org/marriage-relationship-coaching/

That was a very inspirational story! I too, was having serious marital problems a couple of years back. My husband and I fought constantly and we were at the end of our rope. He often told me that I was controlling. In my defensiveness, I asserted that if he wasn’t messing up all the time, then I wouldn’t have to bicker constantly. If only he would do better, then I would stop. I also didn’t believe that I was controlling. After all, I just wanted a happy marriage like every other girl. Over time I finally began to get curious about his accusations, so I started searching the Internet for”signs of a controlling wife.” Through this search I found Laura’s book, “The Surrendered Wife.” It wasn’t long before I realized that indeed, I did have a problem. I focused on the negatives, which falsely painted the picture of a terrible man. Nothing could’ve been further from the truth. The dangerous practice of putting my husband under a microscope and offering him no grace to be human made me desperate to FORCE him to change….never did it occur to me to take a look at myself. I began implementing the recommended changes in my marriage. I had heard that it could take some time to see changes, so I was prepared for some tough transitioning, but my husband responded right away. Man, I was really missing out. He is such an incredible man, and I had been holding him back. We celebrated our 11 year anniversary in November and things have never been better. I can never tell you how grateful I am for the book that set this all in motion. If I have learned anything it’s that some hard self-reflection and a willingness to change, coupled with an inherently good man, will bring about a wonderful and happy marriage!

Hello to everyone who will read this and to the ladies who were kind enough to write the book, (I haven’t read it yet but have fallen in love with this blog & want to get the book!) I am a mother of 3, and been with my husband since we were in high school, but married 2 years this June. We have had more than fair share of problems to deal with & life has definitely become ‘strained’ for us. It’s as if we are just complacent and never actually get to the problems root to deal with it in any kind of healthy way. I’ve learned to ‘let it go’ or at least to just not bring it up again (whatever our argument had been about or whatever it was that hurt me) because when I do try to confront him or explain that I felt hurt by something that was said or something he did, it will ALWAYS turn into an argument. Which is his way of shutting me down to argue at me and not have to admit that he was the cause of whatever it was. Of course I’m no Angel when we argue, I’ll give in and go back to keeping score of eachothers wrongs and say things purposely to get him mad since he had just said something awful to me! I recognized our insanity and knew that I wanted to do whatever I could to fix or find a cure for what was wrong with us and that’s when I started searching the internet like a lot of the other ladies mentioned and found this website and sign up for the emails and that’s been about 2 weeks ago and I’ve gained so many helpful tools to use to help our communication in my marriage and I just wanted to say thank you so much and I have found that many other marriages many other wives go through the same thing so if someone is new to this and feeling like we’ve all felt that were the only ones and were broken and can’t be fixed there so many testimonials out there that these tools have helped them and I’m grateful for it and or the ones who have shared what helped turn their marriages around! God bless !!!

Laura,
Hello… I wonder if you could help me… I need advice on how to handle being married to a workaholic. I love my husband & I know he’s one of those good guys u talk about but I feel so lonely & neglected by him… even when he is home … he finds something to occupy his time. We have been married 4 years & he is constantly promising after the next project ends we will have more time together but after every project ends … another one always begins. I have talked it to death & my words are falling on deaf ears… & it just gets worse. He’s rarely affectionate… doesn’t do any of the little things that he did in the beginning and even claimed he didn’t have time to get me a gift this past Christmas because he was just so busy. The hurt just keeps building but I don’t want to give up… I just want to turn it all around… please help me!
thanks for all u do!
Alisha

Alisha, I still remember how bad it felt when my husband was ignoring me. I’m sorry to hear you’re going through that too. This is totally fixable, but talking about it never worked for me either. I have a free webinar called how to Get Respect, Reconnect and Rev Up Your Love Life and you would find it so valuable. Your husband doesn’t need to come. You can register here:
https://connect.lauradoyle.org/six-intimacy-skills-waitlist

I’m at the end of the rope ,, no more trying from my end , had enough , been trying for 3 years , my husband has a lust and porn addiction I have tried to support him but I just see a slim effort from his side only when I mention divorce , two days later he forgets and goes back to the same , as he ages it get worst , but as a man he’s far from being a great lover ! He has no erection ,, and ,, well I’m sick and tire , i don’t have the strength to even talk about it ,, suck , I’m done !!

Mely, I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling so hopeless. I can see why you feel that way. You’re the expert on your own life, so I know you are doing what’s best for you. I also felt hopeless about my marriage, and discovered that I had more power than I ever imagined. I’d love to see you get your hands on the Intimacy Skills too because they improved my relationship so much! I hate to see any woman suffer unnecessarily. I describe them in detail in the book/audiobook, The Empowered Wife, and you can read a free chapter here:
radoyle.org/first-kill-all-the-marriage-counselors/

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