SWM 148 – 14 red flags your marriage is drifting towards divorce, affairs or lifelong unhappiness

Apr 13, 2025 by Jay Dee in Communication

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I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend lately on social media. It’s certainly not new, but it’s becoming more prevalent. As our society becomes more fractured and each side of the political aisle drifts further away, there seems to be less and less shared common ground. I’ve noticed we’ve gotten to the point of very little productive discussion, not from our leaders, the media, or the population. There used to be a healthy respect, even through disagreement, but now there is only contempt. As a result, the vast majority of the memes, comments and more coming from all levels boil down to one thing – demonization of the other side.

This demonization is a terrible symptom of contempt that feeds into even more contempt. The more we, as a society, post “Sleepy Joe” and “Orange Man”-type comments, the more we move away from rational discourse and towards hate-fueled rhetoric with no basis in reality. This dynamic invariably leads to each side believing that they are the only rational one left, and the other is so far gone that they are barely human anymore. We throw around terms like NPC, sheep, and more.

The danger of this is that we stop valuing them as thinking individuals. We start seeing them as a sub-class, as less than human. This is the entire point of demonizing the other side – so that we can reject their thoughts/facts/ideas/logic outright and dismiss them as the ramblings of someone less-than-human.

The problem is that this doesn’t just happen with politics. It tends to happen in all facets of life. If you’re willing to demonize your political opponents, you’re likely to demonize others. Schooled vs homeschooled. Christian vs non-Christian. Protestant vs Catholic vs Mormon. The other faction on your church board. Anyone who thinks differently than you. Your spouse.

Sadly, I see this behaviour happening in marriages more and more as well, and also in the support networks surrounding these marriages. Often, I find so-called marriage support groups are actually fairly anti-marriage in their practice. Someone complains about their spouse, and sure enough, everyone jumps in to defend whoever is complaining and pile on the spouse. It doesn’t take long for it to devolve into cries of abuse, toxic behaviour and recommendations for divorce. I wish I could say it only happens in secular groups, but I see this same pattern in Christian areas as well.

I’ve seen this in my own coaching practice as well when a spouse shows up fully expecting me to agree with them that their spouse is 100% at fault and they are doing their best in a difficult situation – that their spouse needs to do a complete 180, or else they are fully justified in divorcing them. You can probably guess how well that goes over – because if you’re coming to me for help, I’m all for equal opportunity – I will challenge you both to improve what you’re responsible for. Sometimes those who are convinced they’ve done nothing wrong can get quite frustrated when faced with some questionable decisions, behaviours or habits they have.

I have lost coaching clients over this. I’ve had others get angry and rage quit, then come back after a while when they calm down and realize they may have some part in it.

One of my favourite clients started with this attitude: They were so fully convinced that their spouse was THE problem that they refused to participate in coaching themselves at first and only joined in once we started making some progress and realized that perhaps they could use some coaching themselves.

Those situations are manageable. However, there is a pattern that is much harder to deal with – when one or both spouses actively demonize the other. When they have chosen to believe that their spouse is malicious, uncaring, heartless, unable or unwilling to change, when they put words in their mouths that they never said or assign motives they never had.

I occasionally get spouses who are clearly in coaching simply to prove a point – that their spouse is the devil. They’re clearly trying to use me to convince themselves that they’re fully justified to do whatever it is they want to do because their spouse is so evil that everything else is moral by comparison.

This mindset comes out in every sentence they speak about their spouse, every look they give, even how they sit. I have literally seen these people roll their eyes whenever their spouse talks.

And sometimes you have to wonder – how did they get to this point? These usually aren’t new marriages. These are people who have been married for at least a decade, usually 15 or more years. They’ve been building this dynamic for a long time, and digging out of it usually takes a while. These are the couples who, if they do coaching, are going to be clients for half a year to a year (depending on how close to divorce they are) because this isn’t going to be an overnight thing. We’re going to have to undo sometimes decades of built beliefs.

But sometimes, I get clients who catch it early. They recognize that they are heading down this path and don’t like where it’s leading them. They don’t know how to stop, but they know they don’t like where it’s going. Setting them back on a better path generally goes a lot quicker. I generally only get to spend a month or a quarter with these clients; after that, they don’t need me anymore. Of course, that all depends on how good they are at doing their homework and changing their habits.

So, what if you don’t want to go down that path? What are the warning signs that you’re heading in that direction? Today, we’re going to go through a list of fourteen of them.

Most of these are just warning flags, except for the last one. Just because one pops up from time to time doesn’t mean that your marriage is doomed to head towards contempt, demonization and divorce. Most of us grow up leveraging some of these in our humour and as a defence mechanism. For example, I tend to be sarcastic in my humour. When it’s joking, and everyone is laughing, that’s not a problem, but if I start using it as a method of dismissing my wife’s feelings – that’s a big problem. Name-calling can be done in a loving way; some people give everyone their pet names. But when it’s done in a derisive or diminishing way, that’s a problem.

If you start seeing these behaviours occurring, at times when being vulnerable, like during a disagreement, or a difficult conversation, either by you, your spouse, or likely both, then it’s time to raise the flag and address them.

So, let’s go through them:

1 – Sarcasm and/or Mockery

Now, again, sarcasm and poking light fun at each other can be playful and even intimate. However, there is a point where it becomes belittling and demeaning. This may involve making fun of their thoughts, feelings or actions – anything that makes them feel hurt and diminished.

How do you know if it’s belittling and demeaning? – if either side feels it is. If it’s intentional, then you’ve already hit a point where you’re trying to bring your spouse down because that’s what belittling and demeaning means. However, even if it’s not intentional, if the other spouse feels belittled and demeaned, then they will still feel as though you’re devaluing them as a person, and that will damage the relationship.

So, “I didn’t mean it that way” isn’t a defence, argument or justification for this behaviour. The correct response to being told that your comments make them feel less-than is to apologize, talk through what makes them feel that way (if it’s not clear), and then adjust your behaviour accordingly.

2 – Name-calling and Labeling

Again, pet names and the like aren’t problematic unless they diminish one spouse in a way that’s not appreciated. Sometimes, people like to be called names that make them feel small, safe, cared for and loved.

My brother and his wife call each other “babe,” which to me feels demeaning because I am not a baby.

Christina tried it once and never again – I immediately paused what I was doing, turned my head to look her in the eyes and said “what did you call me?” with an incredulous look. Now she had this look on her face like she just bit into a sandwich with surprise cilantro in it (which she hates), so I don’t think it tasted good on her tongue either, and immediately apologized and said she just thought she’d try it.

But my brother and his wife feel it’s a loving name to give each other. So, for them, that’s no problem. I don’t think Christina would ever try it again.

And again, it doesn’t matter if your intent is to belittle them or if they feel belittled by the name, the behaviour should stop.

Likewise, labelling someone in some ways can do the same thing. For example, Christina has ADHD, and I often label that as a way to show her that I have grace for the things she cannot control, but if she felt like I was using the label of ADHD in order to demean or make her feel “less than,” that would be a problem.

Labels like “lazy,” “selfish,” “stupid,” and more are more clearly designed to put the other person down and lower their standing as a person in the dynamic. Now, that said, I have seen a couple of jokes about one spouse being lazy and them being 100% on board with the ribbing because that spouse was a paraplegic, and it obviously wasn’t laziness. Again – how both spouses feel about it matters.

Also, it doesn’t matter if you agree or disagree with the assessment. If you call your spouse selfish and they agree that they are, but it makes them feel of lower value – that’s still not okay, and neither is it productive because people who accept that they are lazy likely will struggle to gather up the willpower to be more productive in life. For example, people with ADHD, in particular, have a tendency to believe they are lazy, stupid or crazy, and so are much more likely to accept a label along those lines rather than recognize that it’s an executive function disorder, not a character flaw.

3 – Eye-Rolling and Disdainful Body Language

This is one that often gets a pass because it’s not verbalized, but eye rolling and showing contempt through body language communicate the same things – that you’re dismissing what they’re saying and so beneath you that it’s not worth even responding to verbally.

It’s something that comes up in our Becoming More Sexually Engaged course as well when we talk about handling their husbands’ initiating sex, and a lot of the wives come to the realization that eye-rolling and similar body language sends a very clear message – that his desire to connect is so unimportant to her that it gets the same treatment as a lame joke.

Now, whether it’s the husband or the wife, eye-rolling, dismissive hand gestures, swatting someone away like they’re a fly all send the same message – they signal disrespect and dismissal.

Other gestures, like scrunching your nose and looking disgusted, convey, well, disgust or contempt for whatever they say or offer. Sneering or smirking can similarly convey contempt for someone’s idea, request or complaint.

If your spouse comes to you and says they feel lonely and want to talk, and you sneer at them or smirk and continue on with what you’re doing, you send a clear message that you think their request for connection is stupid and not worth dealing with seriously.

4 – Dismissiveness

Dismissiveness sends the same message. When we ignore our spouse’s opinions, feelings or concerns, we send the message that the things that make them unique, their thoughts and emotions, aren’t worth considering.

This may be done through hand gestures, telling someone to calm down, interrupting your spouse, talking over them, ignoring them, failing to respond and more.

Basically anything that takes their input and just shoves it to the side as if it wasn’t important to deal with.

5 – Blaming and Shaming

Another one I unfortunately see a lot in coaching is blaming. Most spouses recognize that neither spouse is perfect, that they both have things to learn, new behaviours to adopt, and that they’re going to tackle this together.

Often, each thinks they’re slightly better than the other, but that’s pretty normal in a relationship – it’s human nature to believe that. In fact, we have a lot of names that describe this phenomenon. The self-serving bias, actor-observer asymmetry, visibility of effort, effort-attribution gap, empathy gap. These all show bits and pieces of why this happens if you’re interested in researching it more, but the basic cause is that we see our own struggles, actions, intents, feelings, and more far better than we do our spouses.

However, as I said earlier, sometimes this effect is so strong that one spouse believes the other is the problem. Period. They seek out coaching, wanting me to tell their spouse that they are the problem and that they need to be better. They blame their spouse for all the problems, taking no responsibility themselves.

This, of course, sends the message that they believe they are the superior spouse and the other is then the inferior one.

Making your spouse feel this way isn’t loving and, as usual, isn’t productive. Because who wants to try harder for a spouse that makes you feel terrible?

6 – Withholding Affection or Attention

Relationships, particularly Christian ones, should be built on unconditional love. Now, I’ve had a lot of people argue with me over this, saying that you can’t love them unconditionally – that if they unapologetically cheated on you or abused you, then, of course, you would leave. But leaving doesn’t mean you stop loving. Even leaving due to situations like that should be about love. There should be a recognition that you love them too much to let them continue in this behaviour and that staying and enabling it isn’t loving.

That’s a long and nuanced discussion, but the point is that affection and attention, which are necessary to show love, should not need to be earned. This is how you train a dog, not a spouse, and when you treat a spouse like that, what you are doing is sending the message that you see them as less than human, not worthy of unconditional love.

Now, some people struggle with this behaviour because they learn to shut down when in conflict. They stop talking, and they detach from the source of the pain, even if that is their spouse. Those situations become difficult because while their intent is not to withhold attention or affection intentionally, from the other side, it feels that way.

Like all the other behaviours above, just because it isn’t built on malicious intent does not mean it can’t damage the relationship and work needs to be done to stop this behaviour.

7 – Negative Comparisons

I have a coaching client I’m currently working with. They’re an amazing couple and I love our sessions. The wife often is curious about what is “normal” in Christian marriages, and every time she asks a question along those lines, her husband will say something like “who cares what they do, ours is the only marriage that matters”, and I love that mindset. I wish more spouses would take that stance.

Now, understanding what’s “normal” does have its place; that’s why I run surveys. They can help you feel like you’re not weird, and they can be helpful in pointing out potential opportunities for growth. They can also be a source of inspiration when we find patterns that repeat themselves across a great many marriages – even if it’s not the majority.

But what they should not be used for is a way to manipulate, coerce, or devalue your spouse. If you come to me and say, “I showed my spouse your survey and told them they’re a bad partner because they’re way below what’s normal,” then you are very quickly going to be corrected and educated on why that was an incredibly poor decision and how you’ve likely shot yourself in the foot and set your marriage growth back by quite a bit.

Comparing your spouse to others, be it a survey, an ex, a friend (or their spouse), fictional characters (which is one reason why both porn and erotica are dangerous), or anything else, shows a devaluation of them. You’re literally trying to show them that someone else is better than them, and so they are obviously worse than the person.

Growing up, I heard this a lot from my mother. I constantly heard, “Why can you be more like [insert one of three siblings here]?” And you know what, it’s one of the things that caused a strain in our relationship from a very early start. Doing this to your spouse will have similar results.

8 – Hostile Humour

Hostile humour is one of the things that I’ve struggled with a lot. I grew up as a very angry teenager. I hated the world and was fairly convinced that it hated me. I believe that hostile humour became part of my defence mechanism. As I came out of that depression, my humour softened a bit, but I still use humour as a way to deal with discomfort and conflict, and sometimes, that humour ends up being a little more cutting than I mean to be.

I’ve told Christina on more occasions than I can count, “I’m not laughing at you. I’m laughing with you, but you’re not participating”, which, looking back, I’m more than a little embarrassed about, because as I said before – intent is not a deciding factor on whether the behaviour should be stopped or not, and I ignored that for far too many years.

So, learn from my mistakes and don’t do this. It will make your spouse feel devalued and unappreciated. Even worse if you do it in front of others or make jokes to others about them.

9 – Chronic Criticism

Chronic criticism is another way of making your spouse feel less than. Nagging is an extremely common complaint men have about their wives and again, this is one that generally gets a pass, because, as many women tell it, if he wasn’t so lazy (see name calling and labeling above), she wouldn’t have to nag him.

So, it gets doubled up on often, and society allows this from women because, well, men are generally portrayed in society as lazy and inept, and so calling that out is considered socially acceptable. It’s along the same lines as relegating a group of people as sub-human and then saying, “Well, if they weren’t so [stupid/evil/insert dehumanizing adjective here], then we wouldn’t have to treat them that way.”

Anyone who has done any sort of management training knows that if you only share criticisms with an employee, very soon you will not have to worry about that employee because they will quit – quite possibly with some disastrous exit. Anything that feels like a criticism needs to be carefully sandwiched between compliments or otherwise mitigated in order to be productive.

This is no less true of our spouse because while an employee has a paycheque that will make them tolerate a lot, our spouse doesn’t. The accepted psychology on this is that it takes about seven praises to cancel out the damage of criticism – even if it’s true or constructive (there is some debate about whether such a thing exists as constructive criticism). That’s 7:1 just to break even. In order to build a relationship, that ratio needs to be much higher.

Those who engage in chronic criticism often have that ratio inverted or worse. Many affairs start with a single compliment when one hasn’t been heard in a long time. One of the most common reasons people give for being tempted into adultery is “They made me feel special.” This is quite the contrast to a spouse who makes you feel inferior due to chronic criticism.

10 – Feeling superior or making your spouse feel inferior

In the same way, acting as if you are superior to your spouse is, of course, going to convey the message that you believe they are inferior.

A few years ago, the company I work for got bought. We had a software developer who believed he was superior to everyone else. The words “I am smarter than Elon Musk” came out of his mouth in all seriousness – note, this was when the world still thought Elon was brilliant. I have never heard this man compliment anyone. At company parties, he spent his time complaining about how dumb his kids were. His approach to customer feedback was “they don’t know what they want,” and his approach to planning was, “I should just be allowed to build whatever I think should be built, marketing will market it, sales will sell it, and support will support it.”

And sadly, our prior owner not only allowed this behaviour, but enabled it, even exacerbated it. He was the highest-paid employee by at least a factor of 2. His work was not to be criticized, scrutinized, evaluated in any way, or even seen by most people.

He had a single meeting with our new owners in which, reportedly, he said, “I’m smarter than all of you, so just get out of my way and let me do my work, and everything will be fine.” The next day, we were told to prepare for his exit. It took us 6 months to gather everything we needed to do an exit due to the business practices that protected him and his work, but they didn’t care what the cost was or the impact on the business – they just wanted him gone.

When we finally got access to the work he was doing – it was appalling and we ended up having to shift towards a rebuild from scratch rather than an upgrade we had planned because nothing was salvageable.

I keep tabs on him from time to time, and he still hasn’t found another job. Honestly, I don’t think he could pass an interview without massive attitude adjustment.

The point is that feeling superior and trying to make everyone else feel inferior is going to destroy your relationships. No one wants to be around someone like that. It’s not a problem to be intelligent, skilled, or anything else along those lines, but lording it over other people, whether it’s true or not, is a stupid thing to do.

11 – Refusing to Acknowledge Positives

Along the same lines, if you refuse to acknowledge other people’s positive qualities, traits, actions, and behaviours, it makes them feel unseen and unappreciated.

We all end up training each other, for good or for bad, and the best way to get someone to behave better is to praise the behaviour you want to see in them, or even behaviours that lean in the direction of what you’d like to see.

When I give out my homework to spouses to share an appreciation for their spouse, and they can’t find anything in a week, I ask them about the things they’ve done. Invariably, the spouse has done positive things, such as being kind, loving, and helpful. But they aren’t willing to acknowledge it. Our society has become very focused on calling people’s behaviour the “bare minimum” and not giving out any praise for such behaviour. You know what that gets you? A spouse that is not even doing the bare minimum and certainly not rising above it.

If your response when your spouse does something is “well, I’m not praising that, it’s what they’re supposed to do”, then I’m willing to bet in your future you’ll be complaining about them not doing that anymore.

And it’s no wonder. Not getting praise means what you did was not appreciated, and, as humans, we like for our work to be noticed and appreciated. Often, that’s more important than a paycheque and work. I know plenty of people who have taken pay cuts to move to another job to do the same work because the new place made them feel like a hero for doing it. Likewise, the best way to keep a good employee is to make them feel like their work is valued, and the best way to keep or make a good spouse is to make them feel appreciated and valued.

Because who doesn’t want to be awesome?

12 – Escalating Conflicts

Conflict de-escalation is a skill. It’s a skill one must learn if you’re to stay married and be happy. Sadly, most of us start off with the skill of escalating conflicts and have to unlearn it before learning how to de-escalate. Some of us are better at picking fights than converting them into productive conversations.

And there are a lot of easy ways to turn a conflict into a fight. Check out the post How to resolve conflict more effectively for more information on those because I don’t want to write a mini-post inside an already long one. The point is that if all your conflicts turn into fights, then it’s easy to begin to demonize your spouse because they quickly become your enemy, and that is what we tend to do with our enemies. And if you are locked in fights more often than not, eventually, you may actually begin to act maliciously towards each other simply because you’ve been hurt by each other so often. Then, the demonization characteristics may actually prove to be true, though not productive.

Instead, learn to resolve conflicts before they become fights and learn to de-escalate fights back down to conflicts when fights flare up. This sends the message that you want peace and to work together rather than wanting to gear up for battle with the person who should be your ally.

13 – Feeling Disconnected

Sometimes, when we just let life happen to us instead of living life, we can find ourselves disconnecting from each other because while relationships can “just happen,” good marriages do not. They take intentionality. Spouses drift apart, not towards each other. Feeling disconnected is one of the early warning signs that you’re not being intentional in your relationship.

Disconnection turns into detachment which turns into a lack of empathy, a lack of caring, and ultimately the relationship becomes antagonistic.

So, when you start to feel disconnected, plan something to help you feel connected again.

14 – Negative Interpretation of Actions

While feeling disconnected is an early warning sign, negative interpretation of actions is a late warning sign. This is when you’re already well into dangerous territory. When I see this in a marriage, I know they’re in trouble because once you’ve hit this point, most people don’t change without some sort of focused attention, intervention or life-changing event.

If, when your spouse does something that annoys you, you generally tend to jump to the assumption that they did it on purpose – consider this your giant waving red flag that says, “We need help!”

And this is generally one of the last steps of all of the above items. From here, it just begins a cycle of resentment building, feeling contempt, avoiding resolving conflicts or apologizing. If you can’t remember the last time you said “I’m sorry” and meant it – that’s a problem because it means you’ve become more defensive than interested in fixing things. You’ll find positive interactions decreasing until, eventually, you wonder why exactly you’re still married.

You’ll begin to rationalize divorce, telling yourself that God wouldn’t want you to stay in a terrible marriage. You’ll start to label the marriage as toxic and abusive. And all this likely could have been avoided.

14 red flags your marriage is drifting towards divorce, affairs or lifelong unhappiness

Are there some marriages that are truly toxic and abusive? Yes. Could they all be fixed? No. But the vast majority? The vast majority of people and marriages could be happy, and I hope you will use this list to look at your own marriage and your part in it and see, “Am I contributing positively to the marriage, or are there things I could work at to turn this around?”

Because, as I said, it’s almost never one spouse that pushes the marriage in this direction. It’s two people co-creating their experiences, their relationship, and ultimately, what their marriage looks like in the long run.

Now, if you read through this whole list and thought, “uh-oh”, don’t worry, you can still fix this. Basically, stop doing all the things I warned you about. If you’re struggling to change your behaviours, habits and mindset, sign up for coaching. I can help you build a plan, find baby steps, work through the obstacles and setbacks and keep you focused on improving your marriage. You can even sign up for a free call just to talk through it and see if coaching will help. It’s not a sales call – it’s an honest assessment, and I will tell you where it can help and where it can’t.

I’ve never had a client fail to improve their marriage so long as both were willing to work on it, and I have no doubt you can have an amazing marriage as well, so long as you’re willing to put in the work.

I hope this list will shine some light on some areas that could use that work. If you aren’t sure, and are feeling brave – ask your spouse which ones they feel you do. It’s not a question for the faint of heart though.