Joe Sanok’s most striking insight from his divorce: “If I had genuinely stepped back and didn’t overcompensate as much as I did, most likely this would have fallen apart years ago because the natural disconnect probably would have been revealed much earlier.” He was “watering the lawn for two people” — using Gottman Institute techniques, implementing research-based strategies, optimizing the marriage — and the grass looked green because of his effort, not because of mutual investment.
“I don’t want to overcompensate for someone else’s lack of their own development. I shouldn’t care about their development more than they care about their own development.”
This is a form of caretaking disguised as competence. Someone with psychology training and an optimizer’s mindset can keep a failing system running for years through sheer effort. But the cost is enormous: you can’t see reality clearly, you delay the natural unfolding that would reveal the truth, and you deny the other person the consequences that might catalyze their own growth.
The lesson isn’t that effort in relationships is wrong — it’s that unilateral optimization is a form of control. When one person cares more about the relationship’s development than the other does about their own development, something fundamental is off, and no amount of technique can fix it.