Divorce does not always begin with an affair, a dramatic betrayal or a catastrophic argument. The warning signs your marriage is headed for divorce, are sometimes more subtle.
Sometimes it begins with almost nothing.
A little less conversation.
A little less affection.
Less curiosity about each other.
Less time together.
A different tone.
The feeling that the person beside you is no longer your favourite person.
In a recent episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast, US divorce lawyer James Sexton described the earliest stage of divorce as one that can be remarkably difficult to recognise.
You may not necessarily be thinking about divorce.
You may not even be thinking there is a serious problem in your relationship.
You just know that something feels heavier than it used to.
Sexton calls this the pre-contemplative stage: the marriage is changing, but you have not yet connected your unhappiness to the relationship itself.
And that may be one of the most important moments in a marriage.
Because sometimes the earliest warning sign is not conflict.
It is absence.
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What has disappeared in your marriage?
When people think about marriages ending, they often look for what has appeared.
An affair.
An argument.
A lie.
Financial problems.
But it can be equally important to look at what has disappeared.
When did you stop asking about each other’s day?
When did physical affection change?
When did you stop laughing together?
When did time alone together become something you avoided rather than looked forward to?
When did your partner stop being the first person you wanted to tell?
Think of the original relationship experience, at the beginning of your marriage, as being your relationship baseline. Ask yourself – how has your relationship baseline changed? In what ways has that base line dropped?
Not by comparing your relationship with somebody else’s marriage.
Comparing your marriage with your marriage and your previous relationship baseline.
How did you speak to each other when you were connected?
How did you treat each other?
How much affection was there?
How interested were you in each other’s lives?
And then asking a deceptively simple question:
Did the relationship change by design — or by default?
Sometimes relationships evolve because two people consciously choose a different way of living.
But sometimes nobody chooses anything.
Life gets busy.
Children arrive.
Careers become demanding.
Health changes.
Responsibilities increase.
Two people gradually stop tending to the relationship and eventually look across the room and realise they have become something closer to housemates than partners.
That does not necessarily mean the marriage needs to end.
In fact, recognising it early may create an opportunity to do something about it.
But ignoring it because “nothing has happened” can be a mistake.
Are they still your favourite person?
There is another question worth asking.
Not: Do I love them?
Many people continue to love somebody even when the relationship itself is deeply unhappy.
Instead:
Do I actually like the person I am married to?
Are they someone you want to spend time with?
Are they the person whose company you seek?
Do you respect them?
Do you enjoy who you are around them?
Are they, in some meaningful sense, still your favourite person?
There is no legal test for any of this.
And no podcast, lawyer or therapist can decide for somebody else whether their marriage should continue.
But these questions can reveal something that day-to-day routine sometimes hides.
When unhappiness becomes contemplation
There is a point where vague dissatisfaction becomes something more conscious. You start to become consciously aware of the warning signs that your marriage is headed for divorce.
You start thinking about the marriage itself.
You begin mentally listing the problems.
You notice the same issues repeating.
You start asking yourself whether things will ever change.
You may imagine what life would look like if you separated, even if you are nowhere near ready to make that decision.
Sexton describes this as the contemplative stage of divorce.
It does not necessarily mean the marriage is over.
But it does mean the question has entered the room.
At this stage, people often begin building an internal case for and against staying.
You may find yourself thinking:
We never talk anymore.
I am always the one trying.
Nothing changes.
I do not feel like myself in this relationship.
I cannot imagine doing this for another ten years.
Or, on the other side:
We have built a life together.
We have children.
We have been through difficult periods before.
Maybe this can still be repaired.
The important point is that contemplation is different from a passing bad day.
It is the stage where you are no longer simply experiencing problems in the marriage — you are beginning to ask what those problems mean for the future of the marriage itself.
That is often a useful time to slow down rather than make an immediate decision.
What are the actual problems?
Are they temporary or entrenched?
Have they been properly addressed?
Is there genuine willingness on both sides to change?
And are you trying to repair the relationship you actually have, or the relationship you hope it might become?
Those questions can help distinguish a marriage that is going through a difficult season from one where the same unresolved issues are becoming the relationship itself.
Does your marriage help you become more yourself?
One of the most interesting ideas in Sexton’s discussion is that a healthy relationship should allow both people to become more authentically themselves.
A good marriage does not require two people to remain exactly as they were when they met.
People change.
That is inevitable.
The better question is whether the relationship allows that growth.
Does your partner encourage you to become the person you genuinely are?
Do you feel more confident, more secure and more yourself within the relationship?
Or are you increasingly required to perform a version of yourself that keeps the relationship functioning?
Sexton identifies 5 categories where, in his view, the issue moves beyond an ordinary difficult marriage to warning signs that a divorce is necessary or at least warning signs that your marriage may be headed for divorce.
They are not legal tests for divorce in Australia. They are a framework for thinking about what may be happening inside a relationship.
5 warning signs that divorce is necessary or that your marriage is headed for divorce
1. Abuse
Physical violence.
Threats.
Financial abuse.
Coercive or controlling behaviour.
Fear.
Where abuse is present, the question is very different from whether a couple simply needs to communicate better.
Your safety comes first.
Does this sound like your marriage?
Australian family law takes family violence seriously. If you are experiencing abuse we recommend that you obtain appropriate legal advice as soon as possible to protect yourself and your children. Importantly, seeing a lawyer does not mean that you need to instigate the divorce process and, it is very important for you to get that advice early on, so you can make smart decisions following separation. Do not wait until things hit the fan, before obtaining preliminary advice from a lawyer about your circumstances.
2. The false self
Sexton describes what he calls the false self.
One person is genuinely in the marriage.
The other is performing a role.
They may be pretending to be the faithful spouse.
The devoted husband or wife.
The person their partner believes them to be.
But the reality is fundamentally different.
This is more than ordinary imperfection.
It is discovering that the person you thought you were married to was, in an important respect, presenting a version of themselves that was not real.
Perhaps there has been ongoing infidelity.
Perhaps significant parts of their life have been concealed.
The issue is not simply that they made a mistake.
It is that you suddenly realise you were participating in a relationship you did not fully understand.
If this sounds like your marriage, and you are in a relationship with someone pretending to be someone they are not, you have probably already acknowledged several warning signs that your marriage is headed for divorce.
3. A stolen reality
The third category is particularly powerful.
Sexton describes a stolen reality: one person has made decisions that fundamentally alter the other person’s life without their knowledge or consent.
You discover that the family’s savings have been lost through gambling.
That substantial debts have been accumulated secretly.
That your spouse has maintained another relationship for years.
That they have another family.
The shock is not simply the conduct itself.
It is discovering that the life you believed you were living was partly fiction.
Everybody else may have known the truth except you.
And suddenly you are being forced to catch up with a reality somebody else has already been living.
The most fundamental requirement in any relationship is trust and respect. If trust has broken down but you are still contemplating whether to stay in the relationship and attempt to mend the relationship because of your children, consider this – what relationship are you modelling for your children, by staying in this relationship? Ask yourself, would you be excited if your son/daughter was in a relationship with someone treating them the way you are being treated?
You will have noticed several warning signs that your marriage is headed for divorce, once the trust between you and your partner has broken down.
4. The apology that changes nothing
Most people will behave badly at some point in a long relationship.
Somebody may say something cruel during an argument.
Someone may breach trust.
Someone may do something they deeply regret.
Relationships can sometimes recover from serious mistakes.
The question is what happens afterwards.
Is there genuine remorse?
Is there change?
Or is there simply another apology before exactly the same behaviour happens again?
It is important to distinguish a mistake from a cycle.
Apology.
Forgiveness.
Repeat.
Apology.
Forgiveness.
Repeat.
That’s not a mistake, its a cycle.
Eventually, the issue is no longer whether the person understands that the behaviour causes harm.
They have demonstrated that they do.
The issue becomes whether anything is actually going to change.
People show you who they are, not by what they say, but what they do.
5. The shrinking marriage
The shrinking marriage is the quietest category and the hardest to recognise of the warning signs your marriage is heading for divorce.
It is a relationship that gradually requires you to become less and less of yourself.
Smaller.
Quieter.
Less ambitious.
Less expressive.
Less connected to friends.
Less connected to interests that mattered to you.
Less recognisable to yourself.
Relationships naturally involve compromise.
Nobody gets to live entirely independently of the needs of the person they love.
But compromise is different from disappearance.
A relationship should not require somebody to repeatedly suppress fundamental parts of themselves simply to keep the peace.
A good marriage should make room for two authentic people, to become more of who you are.
The opposite is a marriage that requires one or both people to continually become somebody they are not.
Sometimes “happily ever after” means happily ever after separately
There is enormous cultural weight attached to staying married.
We celebrate anniversaries.
We talk about marriages “succeeding” because they lasted and “failing” because they ended.
But duration alone does not tell you whether a relationship was good.
A marriage can matter enormously and still come to an end.
Two people can have loved each other deeply, built a family, shared years of their lives and still eventually reach a point where remaining together is no longer the healthiest path forward.
Sometimes happily ever after means happily ever after together.
Sometimes it may mean happily ever after separately.
Leaving a marriage is not automatically evidence that the marriage failed.
Sometimes it may be an act of protection.
Protection of yourself.
Protection of your children.
Protection of the relationship that remains between two parents.
And, sometimes, protection of the other person’s opportunity to become a more authentic version of themselves too.
The important question is not simply:
“Can this marriage continue?”
Most marriages probably can, in one form or another.
The harder questions are:
What is this marriage asking both of us to become?
Are we becoming more ourselves — or less?
Did we consciously choose the relationship we now have, or did we simply arrive here by default?
And perhaps most importantly:
If nothing changed from today onwards, would I want this to be my marriage five years from now?
These questions do not provide an easy answer.
But they may tell you when it is time to stop avoiding the conversation.
Contact Us
The warning signs your marriage is headed for divorce can be subtle or they can be big glaring signs.
If you are considering separation, or simply want to understand what separation may mean for you before making any decisions, contact us to book a reduced-rate initial consultation with one of our experienced family lawyers.
We can provide advice tailored to your individual circumstances, including your children, property, finances and the practical steps you may need to consider. Our aim is to help you make informed, strategic decisions following separation, maximise your prospects of achieving the best possible outcome, and resolve your matter as quickly and cost-effectively as possible so you can move forward with your life.
