Meg Tuohey “Making Relationships Work” Program Review

This is a review of a program aimed at women to improve their marriages. I hope this is allowed.

Megan Tuohey’s Making Relationships program was advertised to me in my Facebook feed. Her sales video lays out the broad steps to the program and how one partner can change the trajectory of the relationship. I especially identified with her metaphor of each spouse being on their own “island” and how this program would teach me to connect with his “island”. That is what my marriage needed! I signed up for a breakthrough call and that’s when they ask you lots of questions, explain the program in-depth, and tell you the price. The woman who I spoke to on the breakthrough call was so kind, understanding, and sympathetic. I enrolled. Once you enroll, you start immediately. It’s an eight week course with video lessons. You are assigned a “coach” who you chat with three times: beginning, middle, and end of the eight weeks. Also, there are twice weekly live q & a chat sessions held via zoom. For those, you can submit a question in advance. Finally, there is a private Facebook community where only current members of the program, Meg, and the coaches hang out.

First, my coach: I didn’t like her. The first coaching call was useless as the breakthrough call and subsequent email from the program had explained how everything works. That first call was basically just her saying “hi, I’m your coach; here’s how the program works”. The call at the half-way point was awkward as I hadn’t made much progress to share and my coach was just trying to get me to “celebrate” something. (I’ll get back to that.) What made the call truly awful was that I felt that my coach was manufacturing tears. I am not crying about my life but you are? It felt like acting. The final call was more of the same with the added bonus of the coach trying to sell me on joining another paid program. When I called her out on “pressuring” me, she said that feeling was coming from inside me and not caused by what she was saying. Grrr.

Second, the video lessons: They were really good! I got so much out of the first three weeks of the course. They give a foundation of Gottman principles, along with a lot of deep inner work. There was an inner-child exercise that I was surprised worked so well via a recorded video format. The first three weeks of lessons make me recommend the program to anyone. However, after that my progress faltered. In week four, the program moves on to more direct communication with your spouse – -exactly why I signed up and exactly where the program failed me. Basically the program has you begin these long, deep conversations with your spouse called “rapoport” and “dreams within” conversations. Starting slowly is mentioned but never mapped out in any detail. The syllabus ends in week six, but the program continues until week eight. This is meant to give you extra time to implement the rappaports. Because I failed to ever approach having a rapoport with my spouse, I felt like I stagnated for the final five weeks. In fairness, there is a lot of additional video content that is outside the six week syllabus. There is great stuff in there for special circumstances (cheating, addiction, etc) and more inner-work type techniques. I did think that the additional content was really beneficial and high quality.

Third, q&a: If you can’t make it live, they are recorded to listen to later. It is much more beneficial to attend live, though. There are multiple coaches in different “rooms” who have been assigned to answer the submitted questions. When you’re live, you can see what topic will be the theme of each room which helps you pick where to join. After a few calls, you may discover who your favorite coaches are and that allows you to just re-listen to their sessions. Overall, q & a was good for what it was. It made me feel connected and provided one-on-one feedback and conversation. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend as many as I would have liked. I really wish the program had been able to accommodate those who missed, like everyone gets to attend 16 q & a sessions within a year so if you missed some during your eight weeks you could utilize the offered amount. (Wishful thinking, I know.)

Fourth, Facebook: Not as helpful or supportive as I anticipated. Basically, you are pressured to post “celebrations” and keep any negativity to a minimum. While people do post questions, it is really discouraged from being “negative”. Instead you’re told to do a specific type of journaling and return to the group when you’ve clarified your question. I found this to be just cold. I was in a group focused on improving bad marriages and I was prohibited from complaining about my marriage. One part of me gets it – the program is focused on improvement and therefore we should be focused on improvement. The other part of me feels so sad and lonely because I have no one with whom to share my sadness. I often thought “What’s the point of a community if we’re prohibited from sharing our reality”? Once you complete the program, you are transferred into a FB group for alumni of the program and once again, the instruction is to focus on “celebrations”. Grr.

In conclusion: I recommend this program if the cost can be justified by the self-growth aspect. I also recommend this program if you tend toward criticism, nagging, and contempt. (See Gottman’s four horsemen.). I don’t mean that to offend anyone. What I mean is that many members of the group reported tremendous growth in not only themselves but also their relationships. A common theme I heard from those students was that their previous inclination was to blow-up. Further I suspect that the people for whom the program worked best were the ones who held more power in the relationship to begin with. I feel that this program did not benefit me because I tend toward defensiveness more than anything else. I have an avoidant attachment style which causes me to shy away from emotions and causes me to be unable to communicate when I feel emotionally unsafe. I found it nearly impossible to create emotional safety in my relationship when I was the only one working toward improvement. Perhaps those with more anxious attachment styles benefitted from this course more because they don’t have trouble accessing or sharing their emotions, they just needed guidance on how to express themselves more productively.

I am new to reddit and posting this because I could not find any other reviews/mentions of this program online. I am hoping that others who have been through the program will comment below with their own honest opinions and experiences. I would love to find a space outside of the alumni Facebook community to openly speak with others who have experience with Meg Tuohey and Making Relationships Work and/or The Rise Alliance and/or The Women’s Circle (her other programs).