Vivian Baruch

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Below is a guest post from Michele Weiner-Davis of Divorce Busting outlaying her six signs your relationship is headed for trouble.

“Hi, I’ve been a marriage therapist for a more than three decades. It’s my experience that people wait a very long time before getting help for their relationships. Too long.

Research shows that the average couple waits six years before seeking relationship counseling.

Plus, most people never seek professional help; they head directly to a divorce attorney’s office.

Considering the impact divorce/separation has on children, this finding is very disturbing.

What should people in the throes of relationship problems do instead?  Get help when things start going downhill. Nip things in the bud!

But how can you tell when to seek help?  Here are six signs that your relationship is headed for trouble.

1. You’re thinking about being unfaithful

There are many reasons you may be tempted to have an affair. You may want the excitement of a new relationship.

You may want passionate sex with a new partner. You may be longing for attention and appreciation.

You may enjoy the thrill of risk-taking. You may be longing to connect with someone who you think is more similar to you.

You might want to escape daily responsibilities and routines.

There’s no shortage of reasons people stray.  Regardless of the reasons you might be considering an affair, it undoubtedly signals trouble in your relationship.

Going outside a relationship doesn’t solve relationship unhappiness. In fact, affairs often create unintended problems.

Once emotional energy goes outside a relationship, the issues needing to be repaired take a back seat. Problems linger and become worse.  Lies, deceit, guilt and shame lead to avoidance and separateness in the relationship.  Suspicions run high.  Trust corrodes.

If your relationship wasn’t in trouble before the decision to stray, it will be.

And healing from infidelity isn’t for sissies.  It’s extremely hard work.  It takes time, dedication, persistence and personal strength.

So, if things in your relationship that bother you are leading you to have fantasies about straying, find solutions to your problems instead.

2. You fight about the same thing continuously

Although it’s impossible for two people to live under the same roof without arguing from time to time, and there are many problems that can never truly be completely resolved, if you find yourselves having the same argument over and over and over, you may be headed for trouble.

Your relationship will become very unpleasant and you’ll begin to focus on the negatives in your relationship.

Or you’ll avoid spending time together.  You’ll begin to feel defeated and hopeless.  You might start to wonder if you’re in the wrong relationship.  Fighting about the same subject with little or no regard for each other’s feelings should be a red flag.

3. Escalating fights

In addition to having the same fights, arguments that grow in intensity should be a concern to couples.  Sometimes, escalating fights can result in either verbal or physical abuse, both of which are unacceptable.

If you notice that your fights are becoming more and more hurtful, there may be deeper underlying causes that are not being addressed.  Poor communication skills might be preventing loving outcomes.

Either way, fights that become increasingly hostile should not be taken lightly. Do not ignore this. Danger lies ahead.

4. Spending less and less time as a couple

When my book, Divorce Busting was published, many writers wanted to know the top reason for marriages failing.

The answer to their question? Couples aren’t spending enough time together.

Everything is more important than setting aside sacred time for one another. Whether it’s the kids, work, friends, hobbies, relatives, and so on, everything seems to take precedence over the relationship.

When this happens, couples stop being friends and their emotional connection suffers.  They begin leading separate lives.

I have worked with many people who have let their marriages slip away because they were “doing their own thing.”  Unless you’re willing to reprioritize what’s truly important – time together – your relationship will remain in the danger zone.

5. Focusing more on your children than each other

Our culture has become very kid-centric. We place our children in the center of our lives.  We make them our number one priority.

There are many reasons we do this. Perhaps we felt neglected as children and we want to give our own children better lives. We see everyone else – friends, neighbors, relatives – doing it and we feel compelled to do the same. We’re busy with work and feel that all of our free time should be spent with our children, and so on.

Although these reasons make perfect sense, when we live this way, our relationships suffer.

We become strangers to our partners.

We feel more connected to our children than our partners.  That explains why empty nesters are still divorcing in droves.  Once the children leave home, the relationship emptiness feels overwhelming.

I always tell couples that the best thing they can do for their children is to make the relationship the most important thing in their lives.

Children benefit enormously when their parents have loving, close relationships.  Plus, it makes relationship longevity more likely. But most of all, putting your relationship first models for children what good relationships are all about.

If you find that you or your partner is paying more attention to your children than the other person, stop, and switch gears.  That will put your relationship on safer ground.

6. Having little or no sex

It’s not uncommon for one spouse to have a lower sex drive than the other.

This, in and of itself, is not a sign that your relationship is in trouble.  When this does become a problem, however, is when the partner with lower desire refuses to care about the higher desire partner’s feelings and rejects most, if not all, sexual advances.  This can result in the partner with the higher desire feeling hurt, rejected, deflated, emotionally disconnected, angry and desperate.

Once you or your partner experience these feelings, a multitude of things can happen.  You can stop being friends, spending time together, connecting emotionally, and enjoying each other’s company.

You can also begin fighting a great deal, sometimes about sex and sometimes about other things.  When you fight about other things, it might be a symptom of the deeper problem- being disconnected sexually.

If your relationship is sex-starved, you or your partner should re-examine the reasons it’s happening and do whatever it takes to bring back the passion in your relationship.  Even if it’s slow going in the beginning, you have to start somewhere.

Allowing your sexual differences to divide you often puts a relationship at risk of infidelity or divorce.

Watch Michele’s TED Talk: The Sex-Starved Marriage

Do you recognize yourself, your partner or your relationship when you read through these six signs your relationship is headed for trouble? If so, don’t panic.

There’s a great deal that you can do to bolster your relationship.  But don’t be complacent.

Heed these warnings. When you do, you’ll be taking great strides to divorce-proof your relationship”.

You deserve the best if you’re planning to invest time and money in your relationship. Make sure your counsellor is well-trained in couples work. Call me on me on +61 421 961 687 or email me for more information.

You can even book a Zoom session with me if you can’t personally come to either of my practice locations. If you’re not ready to book an appointment, call me on (0421) 961 687 to book a FREE 15 minute phone consultation to discuss how I may be able to assist you.