When To Call It Quits In a Marriage
Sonya Jensen is a marriage counselor, premarital counselor, relationship coach, and breakup recovery counselor with Growing Self Counseling and Coaching. Her practical, positive approach helps couples succeed, and individuals create positive changes in their lives.
When To Call It Quits In A Marriage?
I picked up the phone to reach out to a potential new client for couples counseling. After introducing myself, the clients first question for me was, “When do you know to call it quits in a marriage?”
This question didn’t catch me off guard because it’s the same question many couples ask me at the beginning of marriage counseling or couples therapy.
With these couples, communication problems, lack of sex, and emotional intimacy have been going on for quite some time. Attempts to fix these issues with or without professional help can leave couples feeling exhausted and hopeless.
I’m the biggest cheerleader for relationships. The investment both partners have made to keep a relationship going isn’t worth throwing away at the drop of a hat. However, there are some key signs to look for when trying to decide if continued investment in the relationship is worth it for both partners.
Top Signs You Should Call It Quits In A Marriage:
Unwillingness to Communicate
No matter how hard you try to engage your partner it doesn’t seem to work. You try the nice voice and the sweet thoughts. You try the yelling and the threatening. It doesn’t matter. You get little to no response. [More: “How to Communicate When Your Partner Shuts Down”, and “Are You Trapped in a Codependent Relationship?”]
Consistent Negativity
You don’t seem to communicate outside of what is necessary and even then the content remains negative. Most of the things you say to each other reflect black and white thinking, “You never” or “I always”. At this point you probably can’t make decisions on seemingly insignificant options like where to go for dinner or who is picking up the kids.
You Feel in Your Heart the Relationship is Unhealthy
You’ve tried everything you know to do to improve your relationship. Talked to your friends and read too many relationship books. In your heart you know that you can’t keep going on like this. You can feel the energy between the two of you isn’t getting any better, in fact its either the same or worse. [More: “Are You Addicted to a Toxic Relationship?“]
Unwillingness to Change
It takes two to tango. You’re not perfect, neither is your partner. You both see areas in yourselves that need to change in order to make the relationship work. However, neither of you seems to have the motivation to make those changes.
Won’t Seek Help
You’ve begged your partner to see a counselor. Maybe you’ve gone to one or two appointments without much buy-in from your partner. Overall, you feel a strong resistance personally or from your partner to engaging in counseling.
Maybe you can identify with some or all of these red flags. You may be asking yourself, “What do I do next?” Every couple is different but if you see these things in your relationship, things have to change. The relationship problems won’t resolve on their own. Here’s what to do next:
Get support
Even if your partner won’t come with you, reach out to a couples counselor or relationship coach. Whether you stay or leave this relationship you need help to process your emotions, set healthy boundaries and expectations, and take steps forward. There are divorce and break up recovery groups online and maybe in your area. Do your research.
Get informed
I know its scary to think about all that will change and if you’re even up for it. Gain as much information as possible from an attorney or research the state laws. The more information you have the better decisions you can make about your future.
Take your time
Don’t rush a decision. If you don’t know what to do about your situation, then seek support until you find clarity. For many couples the problems have been ongoing for years. A few more weeks or months won’t change anything. Take this at your pace. There is a lot to grieve, process, and plan.
Every couple is different, as well as every situation. I believe that if both partners are willing to work towards a healthier relationship, there is hope, and there are tools. [More: How to Stop a Divorce and Save Your Marriage] Exhaust your options, arm yourself with knowledge, and have accountability. No matter how little the step, its still moving forward. You don’t have to stay stuck.
Warmly,
My husband refuses to return my calls. I’m in the dark and hectold me that I not going to like it where he is living before he left on 10-2-16 and in 2016 for nine months I’m tried.
Such a painful situation Vivian. I’m sorry you’re going through that. It sounds like the best thing for you right now may be to work on healing yourself and rebuilding your life. I hope you consider enlisting the support of a good breakup counselor (like Sonya). Have you considered scheduling a free consultation session with her? You might also look into enrolling in a supportive breakup recovery program like our online breakup recovery group that Sonya Jensen facilitates. Connecting with others and having a place to talk through your feelings and do the work of healing from such a traumatic relationship is what you deserve. Wishing you all the best… Lisa Marie Bobby
my husband and i have been together for 14 years. he proposed Christmas 2017, ring was 2 sizes to big and he has had no desire to get it sized. he will complain that i don’t wear the ring, but it falls off my hand and i feel like i deserve to have a ring that fits. he says the proposal was a last stitch effort to make things better. at least 10 years have been very unhappy. seems as if we have had more downs than ups. we have 3 kids under 12 yrs old. i have left twice for a few months each time. when we get back together things are good for a week or a few weeks but then back to arguing daily over the stupidest things, not wanting to be in the same room. we haven’t even slept in the same bed for months. i was 15 when we started dating. we do not communicate. hes always negative about everything. he says that he doesn’t know how to communicate or show affection. it kills me because when we started dating i told him about my past and things i had been through, my favorite thing to do was to lay with my head on his chest and his arm around me. this was my favorite because it made me feel safe. he hasn’t let me do this in years. says i’m a “heater” i make him to hot. for me feeling safe is a huge. i feel like we are two completely different people now. i feel like we have nothing in common anymore. all these articles i read tells me i should just leave. that i made a bad decision to date him in the first place. its been 14 years and 3 kids later and i feel so empty. did i make a terrible life decision to settle with him or should i hope that one day he will actually love and respect me. i feel like if we split up i’m letting my kids down, they are my world. NEED ADVICE PLEASE.
My advice is that you stop messing around reading blog posts and put your energy into marriage counseling. You’re describing a really hurtful, painful relationship that is not going to get better without intervention. You have kids, you’re fourteen years in. Get the support of a professional marriage counselor, either on our team or somewhere else. You deserve it, your kids deserve it, and this CAN turn around. I’ve seen it happen. But it will not change unless you are working with a professional who is strong enough to help you change this dynamic and start doing things differently.
Lisa
PS: When you are shopping for a couples counselor please be very careful to actually work with someone who has training and experience in couples therapy, specifically. Most of the people happily offering their services in this area do NOT. Look for an LMFT or an LMFT-C. Ideally, one who uses Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy or The Gottman Method of marriage counseling, both of which are evidence based forms of couples therapy that have been shown by research to work. This is important: What you’re describing sounds like a relationship on its last legs, and I’d hate for you to do “hail Mary marriage counseling” with someone who is not competent to help you, and then have it fail. Your marriage is riding on it.
Who’s wrong Here? Who’s Right here? Should I try to make this work? I love us together but I don’t trust my husband and now he doesn’t trust me. What happened!?
My husband and I have been together for 5 years and married for 3. I came into the relationship trying to work on myself and a little unsettled. I thought we could make it work. I had a strong feeling I wasn’t ready but an even stronger feeling that my husband was right for me.
I told him I was going through a lot as far trusting in relationships, and I didn’t want a relationship unless marriage with me was something that was on the table for him.
Him being a mental health specialist himself said he understood and that we could work through it. He just wanted me with him. While I felt uneasy about the pace of our love (moving in fully after a few weeks of knowing each other) he had a gentleness I loved and needed, and really seemed to go out of his way to help others.
I tried to settle into our relationship, but I kept noticing the way he acted around other women. He’s always super flirty and had a tendency to use the same lines I found romantic on his friends, most of whom are female. He only has one Male Friend who has crippling low self esteem.
I’m not sure how important that is when it comes to a friend’s gender. He says it’s because he was mostly raised around women which is mostly true but he never seems to desire to make the connection with other men.
Any way, since we’ve been together he’s always had this very flirty way with women since we’ve been together. Leaving hearts on pictures and saying he wanted to be the object of another woman’s sex dreams.
Each time I would talk to him about it, he’d be outraged for a few years at me. The first time I admitted to going through his computer he raged at me and didn’t talk warmly to me for an entire month. He didn’t come around until I stopped sleeping in the bed with him.
Coming from an engagement that ended in infidelity before him, I told him how much it bothered me. Each time he promised not to flirt, he kept going back to it. There was a particularly bad online affair I caught him in where they exchanged highly explicit messages. He called this woman a few times and he would even vent his frustrations to her. This was a result of me wanting to explore our relationship sexually. I wanted to impress him, but I thought he would keep me in the loop. He doesn’t consider this infidelity because I agreed to give him a chance and call it a misunderstanding so that he felt heard and had a fair shake.
It’s always like this with him when it comes to the things I know and can’t prove. He will lie, insistently, to my face, and when I catch him not apologize, make it my fault, or minimize his fault in it. When I agree to try to work through it, he holds me making it ok against me.
He even blamed me for making him end one of his inappropriate friend ships.
I admitted two days ago that I went to beer with a guy I met online because I felt unattractive. I told him this along with a lot of other very private things in hopes that maybe if I was more vulnerable he might feel comfortable to come clean too. The beer date hugged me on the waist at most. I didn’t kiss him or have sex or anything like that. I just wanted to feel attractive again.
I wanted him to come clean because his bahvior has not only gone back to flirting, but he’s been secretive, and I discovered he was snooping in my phone and has been for a while. He won’t even come clean about that because of how he reacted when I came clean about when I did it in the past.
His response was that I was a cheater. I’m trying to make excuses for my cheating, and I’m trying to make him wrong for the things he did in the past. The eerie thing about him saying I’m a cheater is how calm he is. He’s always more calm when I put my ugly out there. It’s so strange. But I’m strange too so I never held it against him.
Also! We have gone to therapy. We went consistently for about 6 months. Each time we went, the therapist seemed harder on him than on me. Maybe because he’s a fellow therapist? But it was the only way he would make convincing promises to change and do better. To give him credit he really did better for a while. I felt heard and respected in our conversations. We even managed to have a lot of fun!
While our marriage has its issues, and has gotten better in many aspects, I still don’t feel like he’s telling me everything and I never consistently feel like I can trust him because he keeps doing things to break the trust that I keep trying to give him.
Giving him secrets and truths that most couples take to the grave, I thought it would make him feel safe enough to open up to me. Instead he’s going to lord it over me, and never tell me his whole truth.
I love our good times, but I’m so afraid to leave because I don’t want to be alone. Everyone leaves me because I have ADHD (except very recently my little cousin) which is frustrating for others to deal with and the people who stay mistreat and betray me.
I’m afraid if I leave, I’ll either risk getting betrayed by love again or not ever connect with someone because of how my brain chemistry is. I’d be ok alone, I know I’d survive. But i don’t know if I could be happy knowing that I’m that damn unlovable… that’s going to be hard to overcome.
What do you think? I don’t know what to do and I’m so, so, tired of feeling disrespected, sad, and worthless.
Thank you for reading my novel lol. And I’ll take any Help I can get!
-E.T.
E.T., thanks for sharing your story. I’m hearing that emotional safety and trust needs to be the primary focus of the work in healing this relationship. In my experience, that is accomplished by changing behaviors and really working hard to show each other that you are trustworthy and committed. Once safe behaviors are re-established, it will be really helpful to talk about the hurt and anxiety that you’ve each sustained over the course of this relationship, with the focus of fostering empathy and compassion for each other.
I am glad that you are involved in good couples counseling with someone who is holding you both accountable to be trustworthy and emotionally safe for each other. I hope that both of your commitment to the relationship and love for each other is strong enough to help overcome some of the old patterns that are interfering with your sense of safety in this relationship.
If there is unwillingness on either side to follow through and commit to helping each other feel safe and secure, I agree: It might be time to let go and stop trying to make this something it might not ever be. I hear that there is fear about being alone, but there is also pain about being repeatedly hurt. It might be helpful to you to get involved in some supportive, positive life coaching or personal-growth oriented therapy that can help you get clear about your values and what you want for your life — no matter what the final outcome of this relationship is.
Wishing you all the best,
Lisa Marie Bobby
I’ve been with this man for 7 years, he is extremely generous with money but not with himself. He proposed 2 years ago but still no commitment. We planned to get married but he broke off the wedding the day before. We both sought counseling and decided to try it again. He has bought me literally over $100,000 worth of possession including a down payment on a beautiful new home where “ we can start a life together”. That was 2 months ago and he refuses to move in, he won’t leave his single wide trailer that is literally rotting and falling apart. It has been one excuse after another and has been for years. I have voiced my feelings and always get the same answer “soon” or “I’m sorry I’ll try harder”. I love this man with all my heart and don’t want to imagine my life without him, but at the same time I feel so alone and I’m honestly starting think things will never change, and he will never officially commit to me.
Christy, I agree: What people communicate with their behaviors is much more powerful than what they communicate with their words. His behaviors are saying 1) I don’t want to live with you or marry you and the financial behaviors are saying “and I feel guilty about that?” (Just speculating).
At any rate, 7 years is a long time to be dangling on the end of a string. You’ve been jerked around time and time again. I wonder if the best course of action here would be to stop focusing on him and trying to get him to be different, and start focusing on you: Who you are, how you got into this situation, and what you need and deserve to have in a healthy relationship going forward. If you’re not already in some supportive therapy or growth oriented coaching, you might consider it.
You may not be able to change him Christy, but you’re the only person in charge of YOU. If you want something different, you have the power to create it.
Respectfully,
Lisa Marie Bobby