In a marriage, there are marital problems of varying degrees; some are minor, some are serious, and some are at a crisis level.
The following examples use fictitious characters to illustrate how broad and wide-ranging marital problems can be.
- Minor marital problems:
Ann and Tom no longer communicate with each other like they used to. Now they spend little time together, and they often disagree about how to educate their children. They still live with each other peacefully, but they feel like they just co-exist in their daily life, and they both feel the need to refresh their stale relationship.
- Serious marital problems:
Jason and Lisa are either withdrawing or fighting, and Lisa has already threatened to leave a lot of times. They have stopped making it a top priority to relate to each other, and they realize that they can hardly stay happily married unless they break their destructive communication patterns.
- Crisis-level marital problems:
Linda is devastated to find that her husband Tom had an affair. Initially, she wants a divorce. She throws Tom out of her home although he shows genuine repentance. Later, she realizes that she still wants to repair the broken relationship, so she gives him a chance to reform himself, but she insists on a separation; after several months, Linda is pleased to see those efforts that Tom makes for her, she decides to reconcile with Tom; and finally Tom moves back in, and both of them become more committed to their relationship.
Whatever problems you face with your spouse, you should try to diagnose the core problem:
Marital problems like those described above are common; but they can become extreme when a couple fails to manage them, especially when multiple problems arise simultaneously. Many times, a problematic couple should learn to address the root problem, rather than dwell on those apparent or presenting problems. For example, when you frequently complain that your spouse is reckless with his/her money, probably the core issue is how to set appropriate boundaries between you and your spouse.
By the way, when an ongoing, unmanageable issue causes considerable distress and you have difficulty making progress in dealing with it, you might try to approach it from a different angle. Putting ourselves in other people’s shoes can make it easier to figure out the core problem behind stubborn issues, but the pity is that sometimes we just feel reluctant to do this way when we are in a heated dispute with others, especially when we treat an argument as a win-or-lose rivalry.
To timely spot your marital problems before they get worse, you might pay attention to the several signs below:
- Don’t ignore concern from your family and friends:
If your friends or family members point out that your marriage has a problem, you should think carefully about whether their opinion is right or wrong. As we all know, those closely involved may not see as clearly as those outsiders. Especially if your friends or family members have powerful intuitions and strong hunches based on attitudes or behavior that you or your spouse manifests, you should allow them to express their concern over the health of your marriage and take what they say seriously.
- If you have children, pay attention to their abnormal behavior:
An indicator that your marriage has serious problems may involve your children. Remember, their behavior may provide a barometer of how your relationship status is. Maybe, you think that the current status of your relationship with your spouse is so so, but your children sense that something is wrong with the relationship and needs to improve.
More often than not, young children sensitively react to relationship problems that happened to their parents; for example, when they sense that the relationship between their parents is not harmonious, they may act out their frustrations because they desire to have a family filled with happiness and harmony. Again as an example, when a child realizes that the relationship between their parents is getting worse, they also feel stressed in their family, and they may not only act out at home but also around friends and at school.
As explained above, to keep your marriage alive, you should watch out for your children’s behavior in daily life from time to time – once you notice that your children suddenly get involved in negative behavior that are clearly out of their character, you might reflect on whether there is something wrong with the marriage.
- Compare the present with the past from time to time:
Yes, any relationship is always changing, even it changes greatly at some point, but it does not mean that the past is not meaningless or comparable to the present. Sometimes, as long as you can compare the way your relationship used to be with the way it is currently, you will come to realize that there may be something wrong with the relationship. For example, your spouse used to compromise on unimportant issues, he/she disliked fighting with you, but now you feel that he/she seems to like to argue and challenge more and more things you say, even though those things are minor or unimportant; in such a situation, you should not take this for granted, instead, you should be alert that your relationship is probably deteriorating.
- Pay attention to the sexual dynamics:
A lot of relationship problems can manifest in sexual life. Sexual dynamics in marriage are so personal and complicated that a spouse may choose to ignore this area occasionally. Therefore if you admit that there have been some susceptible changes in the sex life with your spouse but you haven’t taken too much notice, you should be aware of it.
Sex life is an area of your marriage that needs to be protected and nurtured regularly. Especially if you sense that some seemingly trivial sexual problems become persistent and you feel difficult to ignore or avoid them, maybe it indicates that your spouse is trying to hide some serious problems, or maybe he/she wants you to use such a cue to let you figure out certain secret problems on your own… For example, when your spouse holds a grudge against you, probably he/she will show a disinclination to sleep with you or have sex with you.
On the other hand, sexual problems themselves can also result in various problems in a long-term relationship. As we all know, unhappy sex life is also one of the common reasons why a spouse seeks an extramarital affair. In a word, regular, healthy sex life is important to maintain good marital health.
- Mind those ongoing emotional problems:
Ongoing emotional problems/disorders can be a sign that your relationship goes sour. They are very likely a reaction to something that is seriously out of balance in the relationship; and over time, emotional problems that are left untreated will also breed extra serious problems; so if you start to experience ongoing anger, abnormal stress, guilt, or anxiety, don’t be blind to this. Probably, those emotional disturbances will keep reoccurring until the core issues are properly addressed. For example, long-term suppressed anger can ultimately lead to depression and frustration.
- Do you discover some unhealthy patterns in your relationship?
Do you or your spouse often follow the same unhealthy patterns? No doubt, it is unwise to repeat the same bad thing because that will get us the same bad result. But when a marriage is deteriorating slowly, it is quite easy for a couple to get into a boredom rut without realizing it.
So if you realize that your relationship is stuck in a deeply ingrained pattern, it’s high time to change course on some key relationship issues. Many times, you do not have to wait for your spouse to actively change for you, you can take action to pull yourself out of the rut. Many patterns can be altered by ourselves without outside intervention, as long as we can increase awareness of the seriousness of problems. For example, it’s a bad pattern to consistently nag and complain as soon as your spouse gets home from work; why? It is because your spouse may have little willingness to respond to you with a good disposition at that time; and if you become aware of it, you will naturally motivate yourself to break it; probably, you will feel the need to give your spouse some minutes to unwind after he/she returns from work.
- Are you experiencing a prolonged withdrawal in the relationship?
Understandably, when you feel like you have already reached a point of intense pain that you can no longer function inside a relationship with someone, you may withdraw emotionally or physically; of course, you also know that withdrawal is a behavior pattern that can happen for many complicated reasons. So, when your spouse withdraws in front of you, you may not quickly link it with the marital problems.
But once you realize that your spouse has withdrawn for a prolonged time, you had better be alert to the health of the relationship because it is very likely a sign that he/she feels dissatisfied or even miserable with you. If left unchecked, the result of your spouse’s prolonged withdrawal can be a downward spiral into a depressed and apathetic state where you and your spouse don’t care about each other anymore – over time, you both will lose the motivation to build and nurture relational necessities (e.g. sex, and communication).
The final word about marital problems:
Typically, a marital crisis occurs when unresolved relationship problems cause a spouse’s negative emotions to become too intense for him/her to manage; as negative emotions (e.g. resentment, anger, hopelessness, frustration, and anxiety) gain control of the relationship, the couple tends to disengage from each other and interact negatively, and the relationship tends to be pushed to the verge of breakup.
But don’t be pessimistic; in most cases, a problematic marriage is worth saving; and divorce is not a beneficial solution for solving relational or personal dysfunctions, especially for a couple with children. And if you feel the need to repair your problematic marriage and want more expert marriage-saving advice, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a world-renowned relationship coach who has already helped thousands of couples save their marriages:
Maybe, you are also interested in the related posts below:
How to remain happily married with your spouse.
5 warning signs of a toxic marriage – Toxic relationship patterns.
How to deal with marital conflict – Resolve conflict in marriage.
How to have a long lasting happy marriage – Marriage-saving tips.
Unhappy couples’ common questions – is your marriage unhappy?