I was at a wedding last week, and as I watched the couple take their vows, I looked at their faces and saw the love and excitement written all over it.
I loved it.
I love attending weddings.
My favorite part is listening to the vows.
It’s a beautiful moment that holds so much depth, passion, and promise.
At that moment, so many things are on the minds of the couple: peace, fulfillment, sex, children, traveling the world, happily ever after…
So many things, but divorce.
No sane person gets married thinking about divorce, it’s just never part of the plan.
But sadly, it happens anyway.
Almost as often as marriages these days.
In addition to many other things, one major way to avoid divorce is to detect the signs that it’s coming early enough.
Divorce doesn’t happen overnight; it’s usually the result of ongoing issues that were ignored, minimized, or never fully addressed.
Sometimes, the warning signs are subtle, while other times, they scream for attention.
If you recognize multiple signs in your marriage, it’s time for honest conversations, intentional effort, and possibly even professional help.
You can do your best to avoid being a part of the negative statistic.
Here are the most dangerous signs your marriage is on the path to divorce.
7 Dangerous Signs Your Marriage Is Headed For Divorce
1. You’re both tired and uninterested
The signs of impending doom are not always loud.
Sometimes, they’re silent, non-dramatic, almost undetectable.
But if you look closely, you’ll see that they’re there.
Many people assume that constant fighting is the worst sign, but silence and indifference are often worse.
When you and your spouse become exhausted and lack interest in talking or fighting, things may have gone beyond the usual level of bad—they’re now worse.
I’ve seen a couple of marriages that crashed, and all of them, although with different scenarios, tell similar stories.
One major story is that when couples stop arguing, it’s often not because they’ve resolved issues but because they no longer care enough to fight.
And when this happens, the marriage is in deep trouble.
2. You’re resentful
Resentment is like cancer; it eats up vital organs and can lead to death.
The thing about this deep-level bitterness is that it can be tied to a wide range of different causes.
Many things can make people resentful in a marriage.
It could start to build up when one partner feels unappreciated, unheard, or constantly taken for granted.
Or when there’s infidelity, abuse, and lack of respect.
I often advise couples to set days where they have heartfelt conversations about the state of their relationship and how they feel about each other.
This constant checking can help them do a lot of unfolding and unpacking.
Many times, they can go on and on in the marriage like everything is fine when, in reality, many things are wrong, and there are a lot of hard feelings underneath.
Apart from the constant checks, another way you can know that resentment is building is when you begin to hear frequent complaints along the lines of;
“I do everything, and you do nothing.”
“You never listen to me.”
“I feel like I don’t matter to you.”
“I’m tired of the way you treat me.”
Just know that a time bomb is ticking.
If left unchecked, this resentment can destroy your marriage.
3. You’d rather be apart than together
Sometimes, couples want their personal space and time and that’s normal.
You were individuals before marriage united you as one.
So desiring to be by yourself to think and just breathe is not unusual sometimes.
But you got married because you found someone whose presence in your life makes it more wholesome, and you’d rather spend more time with them than spend it alone.
This is why when a married person desires always to be alone, it is considered abnormal.
The day you catch yourself breathing a sigh of relief when your spouse leaves for an event, work, or a trip and dreading their return is the day you need to reevaluate things.
It is a major red flag.
A healthy marriage should bring comfort and not feel like an emotional burden.
Even if you don’t mind the distance sometimes, it should be temporary and you should look forward to their return.
I see how my aged grandparents look forward to being together every time one of them has to travel.
You just know that it’s not just emotions or the excitement of sex that is making them look forward to being with each other again.
It’s love and value for what they share.
So, if you’re always happy to see your spouse leave or vice versa, your marriage may be in trouble.
This can manifest as you being happy to see them go, always inviting friends or family over to avoid spending time alone with each other, choosing to stay late at work, or running unnecessary errands to avoid going home.
Or perhaps you are both uncomfortable or awkward when it’s just the two of you and try to avoid one-on-one time.
There’s no other interpretation to this other than the fact that emotional connection is broken.
4. You keep secrets from each other or confide in other people
Saying that couples should tell each other everything may not be one hundred percent realistic even in a healthy marriage.
My husband is my gist buddy, and there’s no one I talk to more than I talk to him.
But even at that, I don’t tell him every single detail about how my day went or what I’m thinking at every point.
That would even be unrealistic because a million things cross our minds every day, and we experience a lot of things, too.
So, I might not tell him that I ate a bar of chocolate today even though it wasn’t my diet cheat day or that someone needed some money for lunch at my workplace, and I gave it to them.
But me not telling him is not because I’m trying to hide things from him, it’s because there’s probably no time, we’re discussing other important things, or I don’t consider those details necessary.
Not because I’m keeping secrets.
Intentional secrets are not healthy for any marriage.
You see, marriage is a very close-knit union, closer than any form of relationship that exists.
So it’s meant to be built on trust and oneness.
This is why people always say that trust is the foundation of marriage.
It may sound cliché, but it is a simple truth.
When a couple begins to hide things, whether big or small, from each other, something is off.
Whether it’s their finances, online interactions, or personal struggles, it just means that there’s a growing gap between them.
Secrets, even small ones, breed distance and distrust.
And usually, when this happens, there’s another person in the shadows being confided in.
Your spouse should be your go-to person for emotional support and friendship.
So, if you find yourself sharing your deepest secrets, thoughts, feelings, and struggles with someone else (especially someone of the opposite sex), it’s a sign that what you share with your spouse might be fading.
5. You live like roommates or flatmates
When I hear couples say they want to live in separate rooms or houses when they get married, I find it weird.
But as weird as I see it, I’d understand if that was their mutual agreement before they got married.
It means that for reasons best known to them, they both see it as normal.
But if that wasn’t how you started, and you’re suddenly beginning to go in that direction, it is a very bad sign.
Or you might not even separate your rooms but you might as well do it because your being in the same room is almost useless.
Marriage is not just about sharing bills and responsibilities, it’s about closeness, bonding, and friendship.
If you and your spouse now sleep in separate rooms (without a medical reason), have little to no physical affection for each other, rarely talk about anything serious beyond logistics (bills, kids, chores), or begin to see sex as a chore, then you’re more like cohabitants than a married couple.
This situation is worth addressing quickly.
The earlier it is addressed, the better, because if left unchecked, these things only get worse with time.
6. You don’t care about impressing each other
I’ve been married to my husband for over thirty years, and we’ve seen each other in almost every version possible.
We’ve been through different phases of life together, including relocations, childbirth, family issues, bodily changes, in-laws issues, and so many other issues.
And you’d think that because we’ve seen each other so much, we should ‘see each other finish’ (a Nigerian term for getting used to each other).
But no, we still see new sides of each other frequently.
He’s seen me in almost every hairstyle possible, yet when I go to the salon, I still consider him when I’m choosing a hairstyle.
I make my hair and look forward to the nice compliments he gives me when I get home.
Same as him.
He looks forward to my compliments on his outfit, haircut, or handling of a situation.
Pleasing each other is an essential part of every marriage.
So you should be concerned when you stop caring.
Many couples seem to naturally put in effort at the beginning of a relationship by dressing nicely and being thoughtful and kind.
But they plateau at some point, which may not always be a serious sign; maybe life is just “life-ing.”
But when both partners stop trying altogether, it signals emotional detachment.
Marriage should never feel like a permanent state of indifference.
You shouldn’t become nonchalant about each other and act dismissive about your partner’s presence.
It’s unhealthy for marriage.
7. You desire a life without them
I’ve talked about one side to this, which is being happy when your spouse is not around.
But this is an advanced level – picturing them out of your life permanently.
The truth is that everyone experiences frustrating times in marriage.
It’s not strange.
Like when your husband casually does the exact thing you’ve complained a million times about.
Or your wife uses those words you clearly don’t like and it pisses you off.
Believe me, you’re not alone; couples annoy each other every day.
In fact, your spouse is the most likely person on earth to annoy you often.
There’s an adage in my tribe that says, “The person who is most likely to hit you in their sleep is the person you’re sleeping on the same bed with.”
This means that intimacy opens people up to the possibility of hurting each other, howbeit unintentionally, but inevitably.
The bottom line is that in marriage, you will annoy each other.
But not in life-threatening or dangerous ways and definitely not to the point where one or both parties begin to fantasize or desire life without each other.
If you frequently imagine how much better life would be for you without your spouse or even plan a post-divorce life, that’s a dangerous sign.
It means your heart is already checking out.
The marriage is about to fold up.
The thing about signs is that they’re telling you to take action.
So when you see them, it’s time for you and your spouse to sit down and talk.
Don’t just give up on the marriage or cancel each other.
Try to see what can be done first.
After all, there were strong reasons why you both took each other’s arms and walked down the aisle.