The cause of every unhappy marriage is most likely a deep-rooted sense of unfulfillment. A feeling that there is not enough love, affection, trust, respect, or other crucial components for a satisfying connection. By nature, a woman is more connected to her emotions.
There are several reasons why a marriage could become loveless. It could be that one or both has fallen out of love. It could be that their careers have forced the marriage to take a backseat in terms of their priority. Financial stress can also result in a loveless marriage.
Red flags in a relationship include excessive jealousy and frequent lying. You should also be wary of a partner who frequently criticizes you or puts you down. Another major red flag is an unwillingness to compromise — relationships shouldn't be one-sided.
"If you're no longer spending any time together, if one or both partners is spending all their time at work, with friends, online — and if feels like a relief not to be with each other — it's a sign that you've already disengaged from the marriage."
There are times you MUST leave—if there is ongoing abuse or if you are in danger of physical harm, you should only consider staying safe. Repeated bouts of addiction, cheating, emotional badgering, and severe financial abuse need to be handled with extreme care as well.
Contempt
John Gottman found out that contempt is the No. 1 predictor of divorce. Contempt is poison for marriages. Behaviors such as disrespecting, cursing, name-calling, and anything else that makes the other person feel bad about themselves reflect contemptuous intentions.
Loneliness in a marriage can be caused by a number of different things. Family, work, and stress often play a role, but internal factors such as your own unrealistic expectations and fear of vulnerability can also make it hard to connect with your spouse.
According to relationship therapist Aimee Hartstein, LCSW, as it turns out, the first year really is the hardest—even if you've already lived together. In fact, it often doesn't matter if you've been together for multiple years, the start of married life is still tricky.
Signs of Being Married and Lonely
Feeling disconnected from your partner. Feeling lonely when they are around. Unable to share feelings or be heard by your partner. Lacking quality time.
A loveless marriage is a relationship where one or both partners do not feel in love. Instead of being romantic lovers, they often feel more like roommates or siblings. Being in a loveless marriage often breeds isolation, resentment, and hopelessness.
The study found that on average unhappily married adults who divorced were no happier than unhappily married adults who stayed married when rated on any of 12 separate measures of psychological well-being. Divorce did not typically reduce symptoms of depression, raise self-esteem, or increase a sense of mastery.
Self-Esteem Issues
Where physical intimacy is lacking, this can cause self-esteem problems. If your partner shows no interest in you physically, you might feel like they're not attracted to you anymore, and this can cause you to question yourself.
Usually, these four horsemen clip-clop into the heart of a marriage in the following order: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
A study led by the American Sociological Association determined that nearly 70% of divorces are initiated by women. And the percentage of college-educated American women who initiated divorce is even higher.
Warning signs include emotional disconnection, loss of romance, and living like roommates. Once contempt enters a relationship, it may be too late to save the marriage. To fix an ailing marriage, partners will need to confront the issues together—or end the relationship respectfully to avoid further damage.
What is gaslighting in a relationship? It's a form of psychological manipulation in which one person makes the other partner doubt his or her perceptions, experiences, memories, or understanding of events that happened.
There's No Emotional Connection
One of the key signs your relationship is ending is that you are no longer vulnerable and open with your partner. A cornerstone of happy, healthy relationships is that both partners feel comfortable being truly open to sharing thoughts and opinions with one another.
In healthy marriages, spouses are sexually and emotionally faithful to each other. On the other hand, infidelity is one of the most common causes of divorce. Intimacy and Emotional Support. Spouses who are intimate, emotionally supportive, trusting, and caring have healthy marriages.