Editor's Note: Do you need sound, Biblically-based advice on an issue in your marriage or family?  Dr. David Hawkins, director of the Marriage Recovery Center, will address questions from Crosswalk readers in his weekly column. Submit your question to TheRelationshipDoctor@gmail.com.

“I’m so tired of the way my wife treats me,” Jim, an older man, wrote to me recently. “We’ve been married for over thirty years, and nothing really has changed. She’s never respected me, complains about me all the time, and we fight constantly.”

I continued reading the email, looking for a critical piece of information that was strangely absent. Nowhere did he say what he and his wife had done to end their patterns of complaining and bickering. Nowhere did he suggest they had entered into, and continued in, depth counseling. Nowhere did he share how he had read helpful books on marriage relationships. The only thing Jim did in his email was more complaining. He complained about his mate’s complaining.

Now before we become too critical of Jim, I must tell you that I receive emails like Jim’s every day. Every day! Listen to another email I received recently.  

Dear Dr. David. I don’t know what to do anymore. I have trusted God to change my husband, but he keeps drinking and looking at pornography. When I catch him he says he is sorry and that it won’t happen again. But his promises aren’t worth anything to me anymore. How can I trust a man who breaks his promises? How can I believe he won’t look at pornography again when he keeps breaking his promises? Then he wonders why I feel cold and distant from him. Am I wrong to expect him to keep his promises? Is it right for me to not trust someone who has broken my trust time and time again? Please help.

Here we have it again: someone who is profoundly discouraged, but does little to really change the situation. Both this man and woman indicate they want their situation to change, but they won’t change themselves. Focused on the shortcomings of their mate, they fail to look in the mirror at the ways they enable things to stay exactly the same.

There is a popular saying worthy of our consideration: Do what you’ve always done and you’ll get what you’ve always got. Or, said a bit differently, Doing what you’ve always done and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.