Most people enter their marriages with a lot of hope and the expectation that the relationship will last. While some do, it’s also an unfortunate fact there are more than 630,000 divorces per year.
For some spouses, divorce is a mutual agreement and relief. In other cases, one spouse feels blindsided by the other person wanting out of the marriage.
Yet, divorces don’t come out of thin air. There are signs of divorce that can alert your that your marriage is in trouble. Keep reading for some of the key signs that your spouse is thinking along those lines.
Lack of Intimacy
Granted, the level of physical intimacy that is “normal” in a given marriage will vary from couple to couple. Beyond that, physical intimacy will wax and wane over time.
An absolute lack of physical intimacy as the status quo in a marriage is often one of the key divorce causes. If your partner shows no interest in sex and makes no effort to initiate it with you, consider that a warning sign.
Poor Communication
Many people think of not talking as the working definition of poor communication. While that is one way that people can fail to communicate, it’s not the only or even the most common way.
In many marriages, shallow communication is the hallmark of poor communication. Your conversations simply never get beyond the surface of things like how your day went. If you’re not discussing the state of your relationship, it’s a major sign of marriage problems.
Change in Values
Values can change a lot over time, particularly when people marry young. Most people don’t finish figuring out who they are until they reach their late 20s or early 30s.
That idealistic boy who wanted to change the world may become a much more pragmatic version of himself when the financial realities of adulthood set in. That girl who wanted three kids may decide she likes her career more than the idea of nursing newborns and dealing with daycare.
If values change, it can create unresolvable conflicts and ultimately a failed marriage.
The Other Person Doesn’t Make an Effort
For any marriage to work, both people must put in the effort to maintain the relationship. One person can’t make it work by themselves. If the other person clocks out on the marriage, there is a pretty good chance that they’ll start looking at hiring a divorce attorney before too long.
Dealing with the Signs of Divorce
Spotting the signs of divorce isn’t necessarily a signal that the relationship is in a doom spiral. People pull back from their partners in a marriage for a lot of reasons. The good news is that many of those reasons are fixable problems if both people will put some effort into it.
With that said, some marriages will fail because the other person has already decided that they are done with the marriage. If that happens, you should look at getting a divorce lawyer.
Looking for more relationship tips? Check out the posts in our Lifestyle section.
