When Enough is Enough in a Difficult Marriage

It is a bad sign if you are searching “how do you know you should get divorced” into Google—that’s for starters. Having an exit strategy is not exactly a vote of confidence for your marriage.

Sunny Joy McMillan, the author of Unhitched, says that confusion is often an illusion we create because we don’t want to look at the truth. “We block our own answers when we tell ourselves we don’t know.” It isn’t easy or comfortable, but your mental health and social stability sometimes demand honest self-reflection at knife point.

Here are four signs you should consider finding a lawyer or at least a marriage counselor:

· Your Spouse Is No Longer Your First Choice
· You Wouldn’t Care If They Cheated
· It’s I and Never We
· Constant Criticism

They Are No Longer Your First Choice

Telling her partner is one of the first five thoughts to go through the head of somebody in a healthy, adult relationship when something major happens. It might sound corny, but sharing is actually caring.

The slippery slope of not prioritizing or sharing with your partner usually has no clear beginning or end, but when couples find themselves sliding into this trap it inevitably turns into a headlong snowball of unappreciation and contempt.

Contempt is bad. Really really bad.

Spouses that feel unappreciated can become contemptful. Contempt is a kind of nonverbal aggression with the intention of insulting or abusing your partner psychologically. These behaviors include eye rolling, sneering, name-calling, and hostile humor and sarcasm. Psychologists call contempt an enemy of love and consider it one of the four horsemen of a relationship.

You Wouldn’t Care If They Cheated

The pain we feel when somebody we care about shows preference for somebody else over us is obviously unhealthy when it rages out of control, but a little twinge of jealousy here and there to keep you on your toes really just means you are human and you care about your partner’s feelings.

Even in open relationships, the idea of cheating exists. Adultery has been a source of passion in human beings since before the first pharaoh doodled a Nile Crocodile on a piece of papyrus.

Is Marriage Sacred to You?

The important thing to understand is that if your marriage is sacred to you, that means you and your partner have a responsibility to protect the purity of your life together by being fully conscious of who enters.

You Don’t EVER Say ‘I Love You’

Dr. Pennebaker, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, has conducted years of research about pronouns. What they really mean what they really represent subconsciously. Turns out people who use ‘I’ rather than ‘we’ tend to be lower status but more honest communicators. One of the differences between ‘love you’ and I love you’ is that the person using the pronoun I is putting herself in a vulnerable position.

When somebody uses ‘I’, they are taking ownership of the phrase. What ‘I’ means in a sentence is “I actually mean this.”

Not saying ‘I love you‘ can mean many things, but if it feels truly unnatural to get it out, that is a huge red flag.

Be Honest with Yourself and Your Partner

It’s important to be honest with yourself and with your partner, so if you have a problem saying this to out loud in a natural way, ask yourself why that is. Changing this is not as simple as spitting it out between your teeth and crossing your fingers. Ideally, you will get to the point where you can say it and mean it.

Constant Criticism

The four horsemen of a relationship that were mentioned above are common and utterly toxic communication patterns that destroy relationships when left unchecked. The four horsemen are Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling.

Avoid Feeding Hate

One reason why it is important to treat these vicious cycles, even if you have already made up your mind that you need a divorce, is that divorce can be peaceful or warlike. Before pressing the nuclear button, you should consider that if you have kids your relationship with your ex might still be important in the future. According to https://www.ljacobsonlaw.com/. “In order for a step parent to adopt your child, the court does require you to have the consent of your spouse. You also need the consent of the absent parent. He or she must give up his or her parental rights.”

Conclusion

None of these problems combust spontaneously.

One of the reasons you might find it near-impossible to solve spousal discord is that traditional cause and effect reasoning is useless. It tends to devolve into a never-ending tit for tat. It is more useful to approach these long-term issues by ignoring cause-and-effect and instead thinking of these problems as feedback loops that you need to unravel.

Thanks to Daniel Bailey