7 signs your marriage is headed for disaster

As Chris and I approach our sixteenth wedding anniversary, I think about what we’ve learned together through our own experiences and the mistakes of others, observing and counseling hundreds of couples going through trouble in their marriage. My goal here is simply to put up warning signs along Marriage Road so that if you see them on your marriage journey, you know you need to do something about them or maybe even get some help.

This list is not exhaustive, but I would rank each of these seven signs very high on any such list. Clever? Here we go:

1. Crisis in the bedroom department. At the top of the list, a couple’s intimate life acts as the thermometer of their marriage. When a couple no longer physically bonds, or rarely, they are leaving a door open for other problems. To be ‘one’, the husband and wife must keep the bedroom temperature high. The keywords are frequency, disinterest and quality.

2. You are not each other’s best friends. Husband and wife should be able to talk to each other about anything. No secrets. A best friend is someone you can trust, who doesn’t judge, and whose company you enjoy. They laugh together. You know everything about each other. Unfortunately, some couples withdraw and don’t get involved in their lives. The result? Strangers sharing the same house.

3. Your best friend is another woman (man). As a married person, if you keep a close friend of the opposite sex other than your spouse, you’re asking for trouble. Not only problems in the sense that you will be tempted, but also because you will make your spouse jealous. Do you want a friend? Read number two again.

4. Unresolved laundry issues. There is a golden rule that my wife and I set for ourselves early in our marriage: We will not sleep until we have talked AND RESOLVED any issues between us. An unsolved problem is an evolved problem. It will bite you again later, wanting revenge. Why wait? Nip it in the bud, end this.

5. They have lost respect for each other. When you no longer care what the other person feels or thinks, you are going down a very dangerous path. Call me old-fashioned, but I have found that marriages are healthier when the wife lets the husband lead, be the head of the house, and when the husband cares about his wife more than himself.

6. You are putting yourself first. What is the first thing couples do when they divorce? Fight over who gets what. In other words, see how they can get the most out of each other. If that is what happens in a divorce, the opposite should happen in a marriage. It’s not what you can get from your spouse, but what you can give them. If you normally think first of pleasing yourself, you are not in a marriage relationship.

7. You don’t want to listen. Experts say that effective communication is 80% listening and 20% talking. The reasoning behind this is that we can’t really say anything meaningful until we’ve heard and understood the other person. In no other situation is this more true than in marriage. You can’t have a relationship without communication. And you can’t have proper communication without listening, a lot. Somehow I think God had that in mind when he gave us two ears but only one mouth.

Make no mistake, marriage is a difficult thing. But it’s only difficult because people are difficult. If you try to fix the other person, you will make it worse. You can only change yourself, not others.

Don’t know where to start? Need some relationship advice? Email me at [email protected]