Are you concerned that your marriage is heading into a deep pit that you won’t be able to rescue it from? Or do you simply just feel like it’s not going as you planned it to? I completely understand that this can feel like a difficult and confusing time for you. You might feel angry that you let it get to this point, or you might wonder how it actually got to this dark stage.
The first thing you need to do is not go into a state of despair too quickly and start a frenzied panic. We will get to the bottom of it. This article is going to help you so that you can figure out if your marriage really is or isn’t over. Then, towards the end of the article, we are going to decide how you really feel about your marriage, and how you can move forward in the best way possible.
So, firstly let’s go over the ten alarming signs that your marriage might be over.
Table of Contents
This might seem like an obvious one, but you might not have really thought about it before the sentence was placed in front of you. Do you still enjoy spending time with your spouse? Or, do you prefer spending time with other people a lot more? Ask yourself these questions and answer honestly.
Of course, we all go through periods of time where our partners annoy us, and we prefer the good company of friends. However, this is definitely not how you should be feeling long term. Your spouse should be the person you want to spend the majority of your time with because when you are around them you feel happy and at peace. If they are not, and you actually couldn’t think of anything worse than spending time with them, it is a sure sign that your marriage is over, definitely for you emotionally anyway.
If you feel like you are constantly arguing, this is a bad sign. Of course, we all argue with our partners, but that should only ever be occasionally. You might notice that no matter what you are talking about, an argument will always come out of it.
It’s especially bad if you get annoyed at each other and pick arguments where there is no need for them. A lot of this will probably occur when it comes to domestic work. For example, you might complain to your husband that he didn’t load the dishwasher, but it might end up that he is shouting at you about something much deeper and more serious.
Can you actually remember a time where you are your partner were just simply happy living together? If you can’t, and all you can think of is all the times you have argued or been upset, then this is a really big concern.
Completely contrary to my previous point, if you don’t argue at all this could also be a sign everything is getting worse within your marriage. Arguing to a certain extent is essential, it shows that there is still a fiery passion within the relationship.
If you can’t remember the last time you disagreed, it could be because you are becoming accustomed to your dull marriage, sorry to put it bluntly. Do you feel like it is easier to agree with your spouse rather than cause a commotion? This is a huge red flag that not only the passion has disappeared from your relationship, but also that you are allowing yourself to be complacent and not speak your truth. This is not what a marriage should be like.
Intimacy is crucial in any and every relationship. Being intimate allows us to physically cement our emotional bond to someone. Can you remember the last time that you had sex? If it was over a month ago, this could be slightly concerning but if it was over six months ago, this is something you need to address right now. You should not be in a sexless marriage unless that is your personal choice and you both feel happy and fulfilled with that.
It’s important to say that I am not just speaking about having sex because intimacy is so much more than that. When was the last time you held hands whilst you were walking? Do you kiss every day? These are the kinds of questions you need to be asking yourself when it comes to thinking about intimacy in your marriage.
A big sign that your intimacy has gone out the window is if you both choose to sleep in separate bedrooms. This just confirms the fact that neither of you wants to even lie next to each other, never mind have sex together.
Lack of all types of intimacy in a relationship can lead to infidelity. People that aren’t having sex and sustaining an intimate connection in their marriage will be tempted to look elsewhere. This should be a big concern because cheating is definitely a one-way ticket to your marriage being over.
Of course, a lack of intimacy might not just be because your marriage is failing, it could be due to some sexual performance problems that your husband might be experiencing in the bedroom. Perhaps you need to make sure that he is doing good down there, and that he hasn’t got a more serious problem.
In a happy marriage, your partner should be your number one, unless you have children, of course, then it goes without saying that they are your number ones. However, if your marriage is over or is on its way to being there, your husband will not be the first person you choose, to do anything.
For example, at this very minute, answer these questions:
If you chose your partner for all of the questions, then there is nothing to worry about. However, if you didn’t, this is a real concern. You might have pushed your partner to the bottom of your choices when they should be right at the top.
In a marriage, one thing you should never feel is loneliness. You are together, with another human being that you love more than anyone else, every day. You live together, you share everything in life together, the good times and the bad. So, if you notice that you feel alone in your relationship, this is a big red flag that something bad is happening.
Perhaps you feel alone because you feel less of a pull to share things with your partner. It could also be because you are spending a lot of time apart. The most upsetting thing in a marriage is feeling like you are single. A lot of people that feel lonely in their relationships will then begin to act like they are single. I don’t mean that they start dating other people, although this could happen. I mean that they will act as if they are single in their daily lives. For example, they will do whatever they want, start making financial decisions on their own and thinking about their aspirations, alone.
So now it is time to have a good think and ask yourself if you really feel complete with your partner at your side, or you feel alone in your marriage?
In happy relationships, the couple will normally make time for each other, so they can simply speak about their day or something else that is on their minds. Communication is key in a relationship, and even though we might think of communication being something that can help us avoid arguments and resolve everything peacefully, here I am speaking about a more day to day communication. I’m talking about speaking about what you did during the day, or sharing a story that happened to you at work, or confiding in your partner about something you are worried about.
When a marriage is failing, you will start to communicate less., especially if you are just going to argue if you do speak to each other anyway. Neither of you will actually take an interest in what the other has to say, so there might be an unwritten rule that you don’t speak to each other at all. The sharing of experiences and each other’s emotions will, therefore, start to shut down too. This obviously ends badly if you don’t notice it straight away.
Of course, some couples do just live very independent lives, and sometimes other commitments such as work can interfere, which means you can’t spend a lot of time together. However, typically in a marriage, people do tend to spend the majority of their time with their spouse. Isn’t that the whole reason you married them in the first place? I’m not saying that people in healthy marriages go on dates three times a week, but they do sit down to dinner most nights together, sit and watch television together and spend weekends together.
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You should want to speak to your partner and spend time with them. So, if when you think about it you realize that you rarely spend any time with your partner, this could mean that your relationship is breaking down. For example, some couples might both be home but they will always sit in different rooms in an evening, not spending any quality time with their partner except when they are asleep in bed together.
Obviously, we all do this sometimes, especially if we need our ‘me time’. Time apart is important too. However, this should not be a regular occurrence. You should both want to spend time together whenever you can.
Things that you once thought were endearing and sweet now make you want to scream at them. This is not because suddenly you have realized that the way they laugh really irritates you, it is because there is a deeper-rooted reason for which you feel angry at them.
You might throw out insults to them for no reason, and they might also start picking out the things that you do that annoys them. It can seem genuinely strange that once you genuinely thought that these quirky little traits in your spouse were attractive to you.
You will likely only be at the point where everything they do annoys you when you are in a really weak place in your marriage already. So, if this is happening then you can be pretty certain that your marriage is coming to an end.
However, it’s important to say that at some points in all of our lives we get annoyed by everyone and everything around us. Sometimes we just have days where we can only deal with ourselves. But, as I say, they should only be days. If your spouse has been irritating you more long term, the matter is a lot more serious.
You know yourself and you know your partner, so you will be able to tell when you are both genuinely unhappy with the situation. You might only realize that you have been unhappy for a long time when you stop and think about it, but as soon as you realize it, you won’t be able to go back from there.
Only one person in the marriage could be unhappy, but usually, it will be the both of you that feel miserable. It then becomes a cycle of negative energy going from one person to the other, and you might both know that the only way to break this is to break the marriage.
After reading and thinking about the ten signs above about your marriage, you should now have been able to work out if your marriage is safe or in danger.
If you don’t relate to any of the points mentioned above, then your marriage is in the all-clear, and you can move past this article and keep enjoying your relationship. If you do relate to some but not all of the points mentioned above, it could mean that your marriage is slowly deteriorating, but you do have a good amount of time to pull things back on track before it goes wrong. If you relate to all of the points mentioned above, I am so sorry that you are feeling like that, and that is a strong indicator that your marriage is coming to an end.
If you have realized that your marriage is coming to an end, or it is showing some dangerous signs that it is worsening, then you need to take some kind of action to fix the situation.
The first and most important question that you need to ask yourself is:
This is clearly a really heavy question, and I don’t expect you to answer it now while you are reading this. If you are not sure, then you could always ask for some advice from people in your support network, and you could even make a list of the positives and negatives of your relationship. However, I need to say that if you really have to think about whether you want to stay in your relationship, then you should probably leave it. You clearly are not that invested in it.
I really hope this article has helped you with identifying some of the signs that might be showing in your marriage is it is coming to an end or over. However, you move forward in a situation like this is completely down to you, but make sure that you know you are a perfect human being capable of loving and being loved.
Did this article help you at all? If it did and you liked what you read, please let us know in the comments. We would love to hear from you.
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