How To Tell If You're Headed For A Divorce

How To Tell If You're Headed For A Divorce

Top Five Divorce Signs

Did you know that couples typically wait six years too long to start marriage counseling? Often, by then, too much resentment has built up and it can be too late to repair the relationship.

I read an interesting piece by relationship expert, Dr. Joshua Coleman, who set out the Top Five red flags that you're headed for a divorce. Take a look and see if you agree:

1. You Often Fantasize About Divorce

Fantasizing about divorce offers a feeling of freedom. "During a crisis or during a particularly bad time in a marriage, reminding yourself that you can always leave can be a reassuring thought. However, chronic fantasizing about divorce may indicate that you're stuck in a dynamic from which you don't know how to escape and need more help to solve."

2. The Frequency of Your Negative Experiences Far Outweighs the Number of Your Positive Experiences with Each Other

"Marital researcher John Gottman found that in successful marriages, there are five positive exchanges for every negative. If the negative consistently outweigh the positive, then your marriage may be in trouble."

3. You Never Confide in Each Other

"Confiding in your spouse and having your spouse confide in you is an important way to relieve stress, strengthen your bond, and maintain a healthy 'us against the world' mentality. A lack of confiding may indicate that there's an insufficient amount of trust in the marriage."

4. One or Both of You Engages in Ongoing Contempt, Criticism, Defensiveness or Stonewalling

"Research shows that couples who frequently use these defenses are more at risk for divorce than couples who rarely use them. While conflict is unavoidable, couples need to learn healthy ways ot expressing their complaints."

5. You Engage in the Pursuer-Distancer Dynamic

"In this dynamic, one person in the marriage constantly pursues the other for more closesness, confiding, or time while the other constantly avoids interaction. Over time, the pursuer gets more desperate, hurt, and angry and the distancer gets more sullen, shut down, and rejecting."

Dr. Coleman suggests that couples take responsibility for their part of the problem in the relationship. That means learning how to communicate owning up to your character flaws. That last part is hard for all of us. Coleman suggests that you tell your partner if you're having thoughts about divorce because there may still be time to save the marriage.

Try also to confide in your partner even if you're beyond frustration. Building trust is an important step to improving the dynamic. And, he says, "if you're in the pursuer-distance dynamic, try switching your role: If you've been a pursuer, back off for the next two months and see if your partner comes to you. If you're a distancer, try approaching your partner much more consistently."

Try to be grateful each day for something your partner does. It can go a long way! And, get into therapy with your spouse before it's too late.