Your guts tell you that things are not right between you and your significant other. You used to be so intimate with him/her, you two used to share everything under the sun, you were so happy together, and you ever felt like you and he/she were so synced. However, these days, you start to feel like there is a big disconnection between you two. It seems more and more difficult to get a strong relationship bond back. So what is going on? Is this just a bump that wrecks your relationship, or does this mark the beginning of the end of your relationship?
There are a variety of indicators that can serve as warning signs that your marriage is headed for divorce, but you should spot those signs in time.
When you feel your marriage is failing, the issues below need to be closely watched:
- You feel like the two of you are opponents instead of teammates:
To better know the status of your relationship, you should bring attention to the dynamic between you and your spouse. In your married life, do you still feel that you and your spouse operate as a team? Do you feel that the desire for justice has taken precedence in the relationship? A telltale sign of a failing relationship is when one partner consistently chooses revenge or justice over forgiveness. For example, when a partner makes a mistake, the other one feels the need to make him/her pay for his/her wrongdoings or make him/her back down.
In love relationships, sometimes we expect too much from our partners; as to some things that they did not do well, we think that our partners should have done them better. What is more, everyone inevitably makes some mistakes that hurt the relationship at times. Understandably, being faced with those of your spouse’s mistakes is frustrating; but marriage is about how to operate as a team, a spouse needs to learn how to accept the other one’s mistakes and move on.
To keep a marriage alive, married couples should work together to overcome challenges and obstacles in their relationships by determining the root causes of problems and finding out solutions. And when a spouse is constantly seeking justice, it undermines the relationship bond and drives the other one far apart – resentment and tension will only reduce the intimacy between you and your spouse.
Therefore, if you always feel vengeful towards your spouse and are unwilling to forgive him/her (or vice versa), then it should be viewed as one of the signs that your marriage is headed for divorce
- There is a perpetual sense of isolation:
One of the warning signs a marriage is headed for divorce is when one or both spouses feel alone and the sense of closeness that used to exist seems to have dissipated. If a couple no longer feels connected to each other, it is difficult to maintain a marriage and get through rough patches. The more alone a spouse feel in a marriage, the less inclined he/she is to rectify problems that the relationship is suffering. And a strong feeling of isolation makes it easy for a spouse to consider stopping working on a failing relationship.
- You are lack of desire to understand each other:
When a marriage is rolling towards the edge of the precipice, usually two sides in the relationship become less and less willing to understand each other. Disagreements and challenges are inevitable in any long term relationship; but if a spouse no longer tries to understand the other one’s desires, feelings, and thoughts, then there is a serious problem with the relationship.
When a person chooses to take someone as a companion, he/she should do what is necessary to sustain the bond. That entails trying to understand the other one when he/she and his/her spouse greatly differ from each other. And the way a couple chooses to approach the situation can be very telling about whether the relationship is on the rocks.
We are more likely to listen to and take advice from people who want to try to understand us deeply. On the contrary, we do not like to listen to someone who is not empathetic with how we think. This concept also applies to marriage. Therefore, if your spouse does not feel truly understood by you, you will not be perceived as credible, and he/she will discount your view. Then the two of you will head into a downward spiral that creates more distance in the relationship.
So if you want to make a careful assessment of your marriage, you should think about how much you and your spouse care about being understood, and how well you two understand each other.
- You are caught in a blame game:
When a spouse condemns the other one pointing the finger at him/her, it will create a lot of unnecessary misunderstandings and grievances. Especially when past shortcomings or transgressions are constantly brought up during the heat of the moment, such a relationship bond is extremely weak and unstable.
In a healthy marriage, a couple is committed to building each other up by navigating through disagreements together and working past flaws; by contrast, a spouse in a failing marriage no longer sees good traits in the other one; therefore, if you always see your spouse in a negative light and you are always annoyed with him/her for his/her mistakes or character flaws, probably you are playing a blame game without realizing it.
Moreover, another subtle sign a couple is caught in the blame game is when they refuse to take responsibility for mistakes and wrongdoings; so if you no longer accept that you did something wrong and no longer make a conscious effort to implement solutions for problems, or if you admit that you often blame your spouse for what should be your faults, you should be aware that the blame game is ruining your marriage.
In short, if you realize that every single argument can quickly turn into a blame game, you need to take action to fix the marriage.
- You feel the friendship in your marriage is gone:
An effective way to protect against resentment in marriage is to preserve the marital friendship. When the friendship between you and your spouse remains intact, the relationship has a great facility to overcome external disagreements, arguments, and challenges that happen suddenly and unexpectedly. As that friendship erodes, the sense of protection tends to become weak; when you feel like you no longer stand on the same side with your spouse, you feel unsupported by him/her; and over time, the two of you will loathe each other. A deep sense of resentment and hatred can cause unprecedented tension in a relationship. And hence, if you realize that your resentment and hatred have already significantly outweighed feelings of compassion or love for your spouse, it can be a sign that your marriage is headed for divorce.
- Room and space no longer bring you closer:
Having time apart is healthy and helps keep freshness in a relationship. But when space no longer brings you a sense of closeness, then there is a problem with the relationship. For example, when your spouse travels a long distance, you feel a palpable sense of relief; and you don’t feel how much you miss him/her when he is not with you; yet when he/she returns, you feel tense. If such a situation persists for a long time, there is something seriously wrong with the relationship.
Time apart should serve as a way to get you and your spouse closer together by allowing you two to miss each other; so you might ask yourself how it feels when you two reunite after some time apart.
- The future no longer excites you:
In a healthy marriage, a spouse should feel hopeful about the prospect of marriage. However, in an unhappy marriage, a spouse may feel uninspired, trapped, or even oppressed by the long term relationship, and he/she may feel condemned to spend the rest of his/her life with his/her spouse; surely, it is normal for people to feel frustrated in their marriages sometimes due to overwhelming challenges of married life; but if this becomes a constant emotion, such a marriage will be struggling. On the other hand, if you often feel more at peace or excited while you are imaging spending the rest of your life with someone else outside the relationship, it is one of the obvious signs that your marriage is headed for divorce.
The final word:
When in the midst of a marital crisis, a lot of couples do not do well with fear and anxiety, and they keep messing up; but this does not mean that there is no hope for marriage restoration. Therefore, when you realize that your marriage is collapsing, even if you feel hopeless and unable to change the outcome of the marriage, don’t give it up immediately; maybe you still have chances to salvage the relationship. And if you want to learn more about what you can do to save the marriage when you are the only one trying, you might go on to watch the presentation to follow the step-by-step guidance that is provided by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
What to do when your marriage seems hopeless – Save your marriage.
How to save a failing marriage alone – Try to save your marriage.
Should you divorce your spouse – Top reasons for divorce.
8 tips on marriage reconciliation after separation – Survive the separation.
Signs your spouse wants a divorce – Is your marriage in crisis?