Marriage certainly isn’t easy. While the honeymoon stage will have you coasting through bliss and harmony, things can get tough when you begin to factor in handling financial hardship, the obstacles of cohabiting and getting over humps.
It can be painful to confront the possibility of divorce, and many internalize shame over their marriage “failing.” If you don’t know whether you’re just moving through a slump or if your marriage is nearing its demise, here are the stages of a dying marriage to look for.
Stages of a Dying Marriage
If while reading through these stages, you see remnants of your marriage mirrored back, rest assured that you’re not being told about impending doom. A marriage is always possible to repair, even when it feels irreparable. The first step towards healing is confronting how dire the situation has gotten, so here are nine stages of a dying marriage to measure your relationship by.
Stage 1: No More Effort
Marriage is a choice made daily. While you’ll always love your partner, there may be days when you’re annoyed or don’t necessarily like them as much. In a healthy marriage, the active choice is made to show affection, effort, compromise and desire, even when you may not feel like it. In the beginning of a dying marriage, one or both partners have stopped making an effort, no longer concerned with showcasing love and sacrifice.
Stage 2: Lack of Quality Time
While spending quality time together is usually how a couple falls in love, it’s important not to let that fall by the wayside once you’re actually in the thick of the relationship. Nurturing the connection means continuing the things you love together and going on dates. In this stage of a dying marriage, you may notice you spend most of your time apart, throwing yourself into work, friendships or outside hobbies.
Stage 3: Constant Fighting
While a certain degree of conflict is healthy and ultimately unavoidable, a constant state of disagreement will eventually lead to marital breakdown. Your fights may no longer be able to find a resolution or work towards a compromise. Instead, perhaps you’re more interested in being the winner and proving your partner wrong. A healthy marriage considers each other’s feelings during disagreements, while a dying one spends most of the time criticizing each other.
Stage 4: Feeling Unhappy and Lonely
Once you start to feel the coldness of your marriage, coming face-to-face with the fact that you’re no longer happy is a critical sign of your marriage’s health. While every union certainly has ups and downs, the unhappy moments outweigh ones of joy in a dying marriage. You may feel abandoned by or isolated from your partner as if you’re doing this alone.
Stage 5: Lack of Intimacy
Intimacy comes in many forms. Beyond sexual, intimacy can be mental or emotional, nurtured by laughter and vulnerable communication. When a marriage no longer has intimacy, the feeling of closeness is broken, which can lead to marital breakdown. Intimacy is one of the key components to maintaining a healthy marriage.
Stage 6: Detachment and Withdrawal
At this stage of a dying marriage, you’ll begin to feel detached from your partner. In a healthy partnership, your bond will keep you feeling in total sync, craving their presence even when it’s just coexisting in total silence. In a dying marriage, you’ll feel somewhat like roommates, withdrawing from engaging in any interaction that isn’t completely necessary.
Stage 7: Bringing Up the Past
If there are conflicts that remain unresolved or brewing resentment over old situations, you or your partner may find yourselves bringing them up. As if you’re subconsciously checking off a list of reasons why you should no longer be in the relationship, digging up past problems is a painful stage of a dying marriage.
Stage 8: The Last Straw
While it may seem like something insignificant on the surface, there may be a situation, action, or trigger that immediately indicates to you the marriage is over. The moment of clarity will fall over you as you realize there’s too much you’re not willing to forgive or that you no longer have the desire to repair in the first place.
Stage 9: Moving On
And finally, to drive the nail in the coffin, you or your partner may finally voice the possibility of divorce. At the very least, you may separate for a period to test it out, though by this point, one or both of you has thoroughly checked out and is not currently willing to fix the marriage.
There’s Still Hope
A marriage ending doesn’t mean that it failed. If you shared life and accompanied memories together, that’s indicative of a journey worth celebrating rather than mourning. However, with proper desire, commitment and intention from both ends, you can always repair a broken marriage and nurse yourselves back to health.