10 Signs Your Marriage Is Headed For Divorce
Marriages go through ups and downs and good times and bad times. The trouble starts when your marriage seems to be full of never-ending downs and bad times.
The reality is that not all marriages work out, and in fact nearly fifty percent of marriages end in divorce or separation. Although divorce talk is no one’s favorite topic, if your marriage is heading in that direction it is important to recognize the signs to try to address them, or know the signs in order to prepare yourself.
10 Signs Your Marriage Is Headed For Divorce
You’ve Become Secretive About Your Marriage
You used to be relatively open about everything in your life with your family and good friends, including discussing your relationships and your marriage.
But now you avoid discussing your partner and your marriage because you are afraid they will pick up on your problems and you don’t want anyone to know that your marriage is falling apart.
You’re Self-Conscience About How Your Marriage Looks To Others
You used to never think anything of it if your spouse opted out of going to an event with you or if they worked late or hung out with their friends. Now you get clingy and try to tag along or make-up lies as to why they are unavailable to attend an event with you.
You feel less secure in your relationship and worry that everyone can tell that things are not good.
You Can’t Agree On Anything
You fight about money, you fight about chores, you fight about the kids, and sometimes you even fight about what to have for dinner. Everything is a battle because an unhappy person is hard to please.
Chances are if one of you is unhappy in the relationship, then you both are unhappy.
Poor Communication/Stonewalling
Talking out your issues seems to be an impossible task because one or both of your are not one hundred percent committed to fixing the relationship. You don’t want to talk to one another or one of you completely shuts down all forms of communication, basically ignoring your partner.
You’re Not Physically Attracted To Them
I think most of us want to feel physically attracted to our partners. If one partner stops taking pride in self-care and their appearance, their partner will likely be turned off and less attracted to them, and the physical relationship will suffer.
Men are more visual creatures, so the man will want to feel sexually attracted to his wife, and women also want to be attracted to their husbands as well.
You Avoid Spending Time Together
Suddenly the gym or your laptop is yours or your partner’s new best friend. Anything to avoid engaging with each other. Spending extra hours at the gym can be avoiding home life, relieving stress, and getting that new body as you prepare to become single again.
Working long hours at the office or home is to avoid having to interact with your partner, and to avoid dealing with your issues.
You Don’t Like Your Partner
It may happen slowly over time, but sometimes love can turn to intense dislike. They say familiarity breeds contempt, which may be true to some degree, but with time, you either grow to love your partner more, or you realize you are not a good fit and do not want to be with them anymore.
Sometimes you just don’t like them as a person anymore and may resent them because you feel trapped in the relationship.
You Don’t Love Your Partner
As you realize you don’t like your partner, you may also realize you don’t love them anymore, at least not in a romantic way. You look at them sometimes and feel nothing. Your marriage can survive a lack of love, but it will not be a very happy union.
There’s Someone Else
I think it goes without saying that if you or your partner are in love with someone else your marriage is in trouble. Whether the extra-marital relationship is physical, or emotional, one of you is the third wheel in your relationship and the marriage is headed for a divorce.
You Want Out
If one of you longer wants to be in the relationship you are definitely headed for a divorce. You or your partner are mentally and emotionally done with the relationship. One or both of you wants out of the relationship but feels trapped or is plotting an escape.
I think anyone in a marriage owes it to themself and their partner to try to make it work, but I also think you owe it to yourself to recognize and accept when it can’t work. There’s not a lot of options with a marriage in trouble. You either get counseling to try to work out your issues or you start preparing yourself to move on.
What are your thoughts on the signs of heading for a divorce? Do you agree with my signs? If you are divorced or heading that direction, what signs did you see? Please share!
"I do not believe that there were more happy marriages before divorce became socially acceptable, that people tried harder, got through their rough times, and were better off. I believe that more people suffered.” -Ann Patchett
