In an ideal world, when someone has checked out of a marriage or relationship, they tell their partner.
But unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world.
And like a male friend once told me, sometimes men prefer to act up than tell you when they are done with you.
This is cowardice, if you ask me, but if you ask them, they say they want to give you the grace of ending the relationship.
This usually happens when they cannot pinpoint something you have done wrong and, ironically, grow a conscience.
So, they try to avoid the tough conversation that may come from bringing it up themselves.
Therefore, they start misbehaving intentionally so you can leave first, and they can say you did the leaving.
At other times, their true feelings spill out even when they try to hide them.
In those cases, even when they don’t intentionally misbehave, they still do because that’s what they feel about you anyway.
Having said that, let me show you the signs you could be in this situation.
9 Signs Your Husband Is Secretly Hoping You’ll Leave Him First
1. He becomes harshly critical
When you love someone and want to be with them, they would still do many things that grate.
The difference, however, is that you may roll your eyes at some of them.
And even though you can’t stand it, you will try not to be destructive with your criticism because you still want them in your life.
But when someone is done with you, everything you do will annoy them – even things that shouldn’t or didn’t used to, like the way you talk, cook, or even dress.
You will find that nothing you do is good enough.
Note that I said that even when he tries not to be blatant about his disinterest in you, his real feelings will spill.
So, even when he is trying not to be so harsh because he doesn’t want you to know he has obviously checked out, he will be unable to help himself.
Because of how he feels about you, he will become hypercritical, nitpicking at things that may legitimately require criticism, even at things he once loved about you.
This is a result of an accumulation of his negative feelings towards you, which he is frustrated he can’t openly show.
2. He dodges serious conversations
A man who secretly wants to leave you – because that’s why he is hoping you leave him anyway – will not be able to bring himself to have serious conversations with you.
Having deep conversations with someone requires some level of interest and commitment.
So, when you bring up anything remotely important about your marriage, the future, or your feelings, he will always be too busy to engage.
He will either pretend to be too tired, or something more urgent will spring up.
This can be intentional or not, but that’s inconsequential; what matters is that avoiding deep conversations with you is his way of distancing himself from your marriage.
He knows tough talks might lead to change, and he doesn’t want that.
Additionally, he doesn’t want you to know his true feelings, which he might inadvertently reveal during a serious conversation.
And he is hoping that by avoiding, you can become frustrated and leave of your own accord.
3. He starts avoiding you
Similarly, a man who wants you to leave will also start avoiding you point-blank.
Times when he used to look forward to spending time with you will slowly start becoming a distant memory.
Now, he will stay out, stay glued to his phone, or engage in activities that conveniently don’t include you.
The main reason is that he has emotionally checked out, so spending time with you has become like a chore.
But the other reason is that he’s hoping the growing distance will eventually push you to make the final call to leave.
4. He stops making an effort in the relationship
This is another unintentional sign a man is done with a marriage, and he is just hanging around until you get the message.
Marriage takes two interested people putting in effort to make sure it thrives and lasts.
However, when one person is no longer interested, whether they have expressed it or not, they will naturally stop making such an effort.
If your husband was the type to send sweet texts or plan surprise dates, you can forget about those.
He will no longer check on you or bother to solve problems between you.
Before long, you will realize that your relationship is one-sided.
He is doing that because he wants you to notice how he feels or have enough and do the hard work of ending things.
5. His friends can’t look you in the face
In many cases, most people may communicate what they are struggling to tell their spouses or significant others to their friends.
So, because his friends know something you don’t, they may suddenly start acting awkward around you – avoiding eye contact or being overly nice out of guilt.
It is likely because he has confided in them about wanting to leave, or worse, they know he’s doing something shady behind your back.
Therefore, they won’t know how to act around you and will seem super uncomfortable around you.
6. He is cranky around you
When someone enjoys being around another person, it will be obvious because they will naturally be in a good mood.
The converse is true when you are around someone you don’t want to be around but are forced to be with them.
So, a man who wants to leave his wife will be snappy around her.
She may ask him to pass the salt, and he will act as if she has just ruined his life.
It is because he is not enjoying himself; he is growing resentful because he is frustrated.
Here is he wanting to have nothing to do with this woman, but he can’t even have that.
I mean, it is ironic that all he has to do is voice his intention, but since he can’t, he becomes resentful, and that affects how he treats her.
Every day with her will be bad because he’s feeling trapped in a marriage he’s too afraid to leave.
7. He reminisces about his single life
When a man doesn’t want to be with a woman, he will constantly talk about the “good old days” when he was single.
While he might not blatantly say he wants to go back, he will speak about life without her longingly.
He will constantly allude to the fact that he had more fun or freedom then.
There is nothing wrong with occasionally talking about the past, but if it has become a constant topic, he wishes he could literally go back in time.
So, he’s subtly planting the idea that he was happier before.
8. He speaks glowingly about divorce
Most people don’t casually praise divorce unless it’s on their mind.
So, if he starts making comments like, “Some couples are better apart” or “Divorce isn’t always a bad thing,” and it’s not about a third party, take note.
It might be his way of easing you into the idea and testing the waters to see how you will react.
He could be mentally preparing both of you for an inevitable split.
When someone is truly committed to their marriage, they don’t fantasize about the benefits of divorce; they focus on making things work.
If it seems like divorce is appealing to him, it might be because he wants it.
9. He cheats
And when all else fails, he might cheat.
He might cheat because he connected with someone else genuinely, which could be the reason he wants the marriage to be over.
Or maybe his dissatisfaction with his marriage made it easy to cheat.
Or he could deliberately cheat and shove it in your face so you can be forced to leave.
Either way, when a man wants you to leave, he will use the cheating door and hope it’s a deal breaker for you.
As you will agree, not every man who cheats on his wife wants to leave.
The difference is that the one who doesn’t want to leave will hide it and try to apologize when caught.
But the man we are speaking about will either not even try to hide it or make amends.
If you are faced with the latter situation, your husband is silently telling you he’s done.
He wants out, but he’s too much of a coward to say it outright.