Question 5. Am I doing my best?

This is a yes or no question, which means there are only two ways you can answer it.

However...

I want you to pay very close attention to the "but..." statements that I added to each answer.

These are the crucial follow-ups that you must have in order to stay consistent and motivated over the long haul.

When you answer #1

When you can confidently say "Yes! I AM doing my best! I'm doing a great job!" GREAT! That's awesome. We love that.

But...

You must remember that consistency is king, so you can't rest on your laurels. You must keep going and stay focused on continuing to do a good job.

When you answer #2

On the flip side, when your answer is "No, sadly I have failed today. I messed up this and I should've said that," it's important that you be honest with yourself.

Face your mistakes.

Learn from them.

But don't wallow in self-pity. Instead, pick yourself up, give yourself some grace, and firmly resolve that you will carry onwards with your focus on making the most of what you can control.

In a way, this question brings us right back to where we started.

We Start & End With What YOU Can Control

Yes, this concept is THAT important in order to survive separation well. And it's something you must learn and apply continuously throughout your marriage crisis, no matter how long it lasts, no matter the outcome.

The reason that this particular question is so important is because it gives you a metric for success that YOU have agency and control over.

Guys, if you haven't realized it by now, you can't make your wife come back to the marriage. You can't make her open up to you. You can't force her to do anything.

That means the way we measure whether you're doing a good job or not in this separation CANNOT be reliant on your wife. We can't look to your wife for feedback, because most of you will only get negative feedback from your wife, even if you do everything perfectly. Hopefully it won't be this way for long, but it probably is right now.

So!

Asking this question "Am I doing my best?" gives you a way to judge your own success.

Here's what I want you to realize:

If you can honestly say,

"Yes, I am making the most of the things I can control, however few or many those things may be," 

...Then congratulations! You are doing the best that anyone could possibly do in your shoes.

In other words, this question is the key to getting your confidence back.

If you're like most men, your wife's decision to leave the marriage shattered your confidence and self-assurance.

However, the more often that you answer yes to this question, the more days in a row you can say with certainty that you did your best, the more you will see your confidence and self-assurance begin to regrow.