Whoever says marriage is not hard work is either lying, has never been married or has already been through the struggle of making things work and has now forgotten how tough the journey was. For some people though, no matter how hard you try, you still can’t tell if your marriage is worth saving.
Despite continued efforts over time, it is possible to feel like you’re hitting a wall and seeing signs your marriage is over and not worth fighting for.
In this article, we will look at how you know your marriage is no longer worth fighting for but also how to know if your marriage is worth saving.
Read this with an open mind and heart and truly assess not just your spouse but yourself as well.
How do you know your marriage is not worth saving?
These are some of the signs that a marriage cannot be saved.
- Communication has completely broken down. You cannot have a simple conversation anymore. The most basic topics lead to a quarrel or shut down from one or both of you. You do not know what words to use to communicate with your spouse in order to feel heard or understood.
- Your partner is physically abusive. It is not just about emotional or mental strife at home – you are in physical danger around your spouse.
- You would always choose to spend time without them than with them. It’s time to decide if you would rather stay at home for the evening and chill with hubby or call a friend and go out for a drink. You don’t even consider staying home simply because he’ll be there too. You always choose to be somewhere that he’s not.
- You have lost all respect for each other. You remember when you liked your spouse. You might even still love them. However, you do not respect their values, their friends, or anything they have become.
- Therapy has not worked. You have done the best thing you could do for your struggling marriage: therapy. Session after session has not led to any practical change in your relationship with your spouse. One or both of you are unable to make any changes based on conclusions you arrived at in therapy. Perhaps worst of all, therapy did not seem to help you to reach any conclusions.
How do I know my marriage is worth saving?
These are three hope-giving signs that your marriage is salvageable:
- You are both ready and willing to seek counselling
You are both willing, even if only reluctantly, to bring in an impartial intermediary who can help you to hear each other and speak to each other. Getting a professional involved in your marriage can be a very vulnerable act for one or both of you especially if you are usually quite private people. The idea can take some getting used to. If you are both happy to try counselling, it means that you are invested enough to try to make it work.
- You cannot picture your life without him
You find him annoying and difficult to deal with. However, when you think about your future or the future of your family, you do not see life without him. It is not that you think you cannot cope without him. It is that you do not want to cope without him.
- You have some good times when you make the effort
Much like willingness to seek professional help in the form of marriage counselling, willingness to try to have good days together is a great sign that you two can make this work. You notice that when you two make a concerted effort to communicate better and avoid unnecessary squabbles, you enjoy each other’s company.
I want to save my marriage but my husband doesn’t
If your spouse has already checked out, there is not much you can do. Professional counselling is likely to be resisted as there will really be no point in his mind for it.
READ: 11 Most Loving Steps to achieving Emotional Detachment in Marriage
If he has set his mind to divorce or separation, trying to force him to stay might lead to an unhealthy situation where you spend the rest of your days together trying to make him happy and neglecting your own happiness.
No relationship is worth the cost of your mental health and self-value. Those are priceless.
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