Draw the line. Without trying to control your spouse.
Ten lessons from Dr. Joe Beam on STOPs and COREs: real boundaries that protect you and the marriage, without ultimatums and without control.
What it actually teaches.
A boundary is not an ultimatum, and it is not a way to control your spouse. It is a safeguard: a line that protects you, your children, or the marriage itself, held calmly and enforced consistently. Most boundary attempts fail because they are really pushes in disguise, designed to force a spouse to change.
This toolkit teaches the framework we use with couples in the hardest situations: STOPs, the lines that say what cannot continue, and COREs, the conditions that say what must occur. Ten lessons walk you through deciding whether a line is needed, designing the consequence, and presenting it in a conversation that protects without controlling.
What's inside.
Ten video lessons with workbook prompts. Five on STOPs, five on COREs. On any device, yours for life.
- 1. Pushes and Pulls The five types of pushes, and which ones belong in a marriage.
- 2. Should You Set a STOP? Four questions to answer before drawing a line.
- 3. Why It Must Stop Communicating the boundary using the PIES framework.
- 4. Enforce the Consequences One-and-done versus tiered responses.
- 5. Presenting the STOP Having the conversation calmly and confidently.
- 6. Designing a CORE Shifting from what must stop to what must occur.
- 7. What Must Occur The non-negotiable goal, and the negotiable method.
- 8. The Why and the When Explaining necessity and establishing timelines.
- 9. Consequences for the CORE Rewards and enforcement approaches.
- 10. Presenting the CORE Conversation strategies specific to COREs.
Who it's for.
This is for you if
- There is active addiction, an ongoing affair, or chronic contempt in your marriage.
- Your previous attempts at boundaries collapsed or turned into ultimatums.
- You confuse protecting yourself with controlling your spouse, and you want the difference.
- You need a line, and you need to hold it without burning the marriage down.
It is not for you if
- You want leverage to force your spouse to change. A boundary protects; it does not control.
- Your safety is at risk. If there is violence, this toolkit is not the tool; please reach out to organizations built for that.
Taught by someone who has been on both sides.
Dr. Joe Beam did not learn this in a classroom first. He left his wife Alice for another woman, divorced, and watched that relationship collapse exactly the way the research says it does. Three years later, he and Alice remarried. The frameworks he teaches came out of that road back, three decades of research, and tens of thousands of couples since.
It works differently when your teacher has stood where you are standing.
Read Joe's story →What couples say on Google.
The twelve-week Save My Marriage Course was amazing to walk through and complete and I can’t wait to do more of their courses, as I learned so much.
Even in my case I saw that smart contact and PIES worked. I will apply the principles in my future relationship.
It’s user friendly and All of the information is there to help you succeed in saving your marriage. It works! It takes effort, the tools and the support are there if you need it.
One payment. Yours for life.
- Focused video lessons, taught start to finish
- Lifetime access, streaming on any device
- Self-paced, rewatch as your situation changes
- One payment, no subscription
Want it live with our team instead? See the workshop.
Questions.
- Will setting a boundary push my spouse further away?
- A boundary set as an ultimatum will. A STOP set the way this toolkit teaches usually does the opposite: it replaces nagging and threats with calm consistency, which reads as strength, and strength pulls.
- Should I get this or the full Save My Marriage Course?
- This toolkit goes deep on one piece of the picture. The Save My Marriage Course is the complete twelve-lesson framework covering the whole situation. If this one issue is what is burning hottest, start here. If you want the entire system, start with the course.
- How long do I have access?
- For life. Everything is self-paced, streams on any device, and stays yours, so you can rewatch lessons as your situation changes.