You would hear this often at ladies' coffee meets or even at cocktail parties. 'I strongly feel that my marriage has hit the bottom' or 'I know that my days with Tom are numbered' and so on. I call them wild guesses by wives who are going through some rough patches with their husbands. Be that as it may, how do you actually know when your marriage is over? Should you rely on hunches or base your conclusions after some normal tiff with your partner? In a situation as serious as a marriage, you would agree that there is no place for guessing; either you are sure or you are not. There is no place for 'may be' or 'I think'.
Sometimes you may find it difficult to know what is exactly going wrong with your marriage. Your partner may be disinterested, irritable or even seem remote. But does this mean that it is over? Are there more genuine and reliable signs which confirm your worst fears when your marriage is over? May be not - your spouse could just be busy with some other thoughts!
Usually the trouble starts when the spouse does not meet certain set parameters of 'expected behaviors'. These may include small trivia like a hug before he goes to work, or a call to check whether the flight took off on time and so on. As soon as such behavioral patterns fall short of expectations, most couples start to wonder and sometimes even draw baseless conclusions. In stead of relying on guess work or allowing your imagination to run wild, why not be a little more flexible in your thoughts: your spouse could have developed several other priorities; he or she could have simply become forgetful and so on?
Usually with time, couples lose track of their individual growth in the relationship. You perhaps firmly believe that your husband would forever remain the way he was in the first few years of marriage or the wife would forever dress the way she used to when you met.
Coming back to the all-familiar doubt - how to tell when your marriage is over. Here are some signs to confirm your fears:
o Complete breakdown of communication. When this happens, you know something is going seriously wrong.
o Personality clash on every issue. Lack of patience and the already-known inadequacies seem to be unbearable leading to frequent clashes.
o You would know when your marriage is over when none of you go out of your way to be helpful.
Seeking opportunities to flee from situations where both of you might have to be together, insensitivity, forgetfulness about each other's important needs, consistent rudeness in behavior are some of the other signs that tell you that that your marriage is on its last leg.
Why is saving your marriage so important to you? Because a good marriage is one of the most treasured of human interactions. It colors everything else around us.
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