How Do I Know if My Spouse Really Wants a Divorce, or Is Just Angry?
Many people ask, “How do I know if my spouse really wants a divorce?” If this is you, you’re probably wondering if it’s real this time—or just anger talking. How you respond may make the difference between staying married and actually divorcing.
Understanding why marriages fail or thrive
Unless you were previously married, you probably did not consider that you would ever face the prospect of divorce when you were getting married. Making a marriage work for a lifetime has to do with mainly two things.
The first is how similar you and your spouse are on a number of key features such as personality, interests, attitudes toward money, religiosity, children, and sex.
The second predictor of long term marriage success is how much couples continue to prioritize and enjoy their time together. Couples who don’t let anything else interfere with that have the best chance of a lifetime partnership.
If you or you and your spouse did not do this, this article will help you know how serious your spouse is about divorce and help you to prevent divorce from happening.
Why unmet needs and resentment lead to divorce
The fact is that many people were not as well matched as they thought before they were married. And, many people don’t prioritize their time together. If you are in that group, you are normal, but normal isn’t always a good thing.
For marriages to work, both husband and wife need to do what most people don’t. And that is to love each other the way God has told us to. When only one person does that, it is only a matter of time before unhappiness and resentment drive that person to take action to make things better.
Depending on that person’s skills with communicating in loving, yet firm ways, their attempts to improve the marriage may work well, work temporarily, or not work at all.
When a spouse threatens divorce, it is an attempt to make the relationship better.
Prior failure is not an indication you can’t succeed
Whether threats to divorce or something else, it is when there is only temporary repair or no repair at all that the risk of divorce steadily increases. If you are the resentful one, or your attempts to make things haven’t worked, I recommend you get help right away to learn how to get more love from your spouse.
Just because you didn’t use an effective method to improve things, doesn’t mean that you can’t learn some.
If your spouse is the resentful one, then you need to learn how to make lasting changes in order to not only avoid divorce, but to truly enjoy your marriage with your spouse. Isn’t that why you got married in the first place?
As a reconciliation coach, my chief goal is to help my clients to restore an enjoyable loving bond. Divorce is a symptom of a failed relationship. We need to focus on the relationship, and not the symptom, in order to create lasting change.
When your spouse mentions divorce for the first time
When your spouse first mentions divorce, I think it is a good thing. It certainly won’t seem like one at the time. Many of us need a wake up call so that we don’t take our spouse for granted. So that we realize that our marriage may very well end if we do not make our spouse feel loved and maintain our marriage.
By the way, the same is true for your relationships with your friends, your kids, and other family members. Many people hearing this can relate to that.
Why temporary fixes don’t save a marriage
Many people upon first hearing “divorce” from their spouse, make some good changes in their behavior toward their spouse–they help their spouse to like them more. However, because they treat their spouse’s complaints as problems to be solved rather than as a relationship to be maintained, they stop putting in the effort once their spouse seems satisfied.
This has puzzled me for a long time because it seems that many people care more about fixing problems than actually having as good of a relationship as they can with their spouse. I love my relationship with my wife. I can’t imagine not spending time with her everyday, going out on dates, and enjoying our sexual relationship. None of that is a job that I do to keep my wife from divorcing me. I actually like it.
Make a permanent adjustment to your priorities
But, many people seem to not feel their marital relationship is important and so don’t prioritize it. The problem with temporary fixes is just that–they are temporary. When your temporary fixes wear off, your spouse will still have the same needs and desires as before, but less and less hope that you are going to meet them on a regular basis.
Do you have any idea how hurtful it is for a spouse to have to threaten in order to get the love and care that they should be getting anyhow? Threats are not a good behavior, but it is the only way many people know when they have been deprioritized and put on the back burner for a long time.
So, threats of divorce are meant to create a more lasting change in the relationship. If that wakes you up to the real possibility of losing your spouse–great! If you just see it as another instance you need to fix things, then you are on the path to divorce.
What threats of divorce really mean
If your spouse has threatened divorce and you are not working on making permanent changes in your relationship you are likely to divorce. You still have a little time to work on making things better–your spouse wouldn’t threaten otherwise.
People only threaten when they want to get something. When they give up, they don’t threaten anymore.
If your changes are not good ones, or not lasting ones, you will eventually get to the place where your spouse says that he or she wants a divorce. This is getting much closer to the end, but is not the end. Repeats of previous fixes won’t be enough at this point. You will need to be able to empathize with your spouse and work over a much longer period of time to earn your spouse’s trust again. Without trust, you will hit an emotional barrier that you can’t get past.
Even if you do all of the right things, you still have to do them long enough to develop trust. Until then, your spouse will rightfully have no reason to believe that your changes will last.
When your spouse starts taking real steps toward divorce
Most of my clients come to me when their spouse is wanting to divorce. If you are in this situation, what you cannot and must not do is to try to fight for your marriage. Fighting does not help. We have to love for our marriage, not fight for it and we must do that within our spouse’s comfort zone.
Never think of fighting as a good thing. It will lead you to have conflict behaviors which will not help.
My podcast on the seven steps you need to take to reconcile will show you a loving path that you need to follow. Follow it, step-by-step, and slow enough that you don’t get resistance.
If you don’t do that, then you will get to the point where your spouse is no longer saying that he or she “wants” a divorce. You will get to the point where your spouse is actually divorcing you. He or she will meet with an attorney, papers will be filed, and you will be served a notice that your spouse is suing you for a divorce.
The difference between hating the marriage and wanting divorce
The difference between this stage and the last one where your spouse merely wanted a divorce is that now your spouse is not so upset about your marriage anymore. Many men and women have felt relieved when their spouse was no longer complaining and then were surprised when their spouse seemed to suddenly want separation or divorce.
When a spouse is planning to actually divorce, they have let go of the marriage and are relieved of their struggle. They no longer need to hope for or try to make the marriage work. They are looking forward rather than back. They are more hopeful about their future. They are focused on life after separation/divorce.
Divorce isn’t about the past; it’s about the future
And, they are anticipating freedom, mostly–freedom to make their own decisions, freedom to do what they want without needing to get consent, and freedom just to come home without feeling stressed. Some have already started dating, some are not ready for that, but nearly all will before long.
When your spouse is taking steps to divorcing you, it is not a warning–it is a real event. I also have clients who work with me from this point. As you might imagine, this is the most difficult spot to be in as reconciling goes. It will require empathy, trust building, zero pursuit, and more self-change.
More self-change is required because at this point you are not just enhancing your marriage–you are having to compete with whatever benefits your spouse imagines awaits him or her once the divorce is final (or in many cases as soon as you are separated).
Why your spouse may seem emotionally detached
You married a human and it is human nature for your spouse to want the best that he or she can get. Love and loyalty are both gone when your spouse is divorcing you. Your spouse may still say, “I will always love you,” but when the actions are saying “I want to get away from you permanently,” you have to take those loving words with a grain of salt.
It is not over, and there is still hope, but it is more work and takes longer. Let me say that again. When your spouse is divorcing you it is not over, and there is still hope, but it is more work and takes longer.
The number one factor determining whether your spouse gives you another chance or not is your ability to become more valuable than what he or she can have without you.
How to make your spouse want to stay
If you want to learn something important, then memorize this:
People will only give up something they desire in order to have something else that they desire even more, and would otherwise lose.
This means that even if you increase your value a lot, if your spouse feels the two of you will still be friends, your spouse will still divorce you. My podcast on separation boundaries covers this in more depth, but suffice it to say that if you are willing to divorce and maintain your friendship, your spouse will be incentivized to divorce you. He or she will gain the positive aspects of divorcing while being able to keep the positive aspects of your relationship.
How to tell if your spouse is serious about divorce or just angry
How can you know if your spouse is just angry or really wants to divorce you? The answer is simple–if he or she is taking steps to divorce you, then they really want to divorce you.
But, I am wondering why it really matters. If your spouse isn’t really wanting to divorce you, do you think that means you don’t have work to do? That all you need to do is smooth things over with your spouse? If that is what you think, then you are as wrong as other people who thought so until they were served papers.
What to do when your spouse says they want a divorce
If your spouse is angry and saying that he or she wants divorce, you are only one step away from them taking action on it. You need to increase your value right away. You need to become a more enjoyable spouse who makes your spouse feel loved each and every day. You need to be that person that your spouse is proud of. You need to make your spouse feel glad for having chosen you and having spent years of his or her life with you rather than with someone else.
That is not something you do as a couple. It is something you do from the first contact you have with your spouse in the morning until the last contact you have with your spouse in the evening. It is you being on your spouse’s side. It is you prioritizing your spouse over work, kids, video games, and social media.
Why counseling alone won’t save your marriage
Counseling is not the answer unless there is some great misunderstanding about what the actual problems are. Going to counseling just to have your spouse say that he or she doesn’t love or desire you anymore or listing out problems that you already know is not going to help you. You are the one who has to do the work. You. It’s up to you.
Only work together as a couple when you both want the same thing. Otherwise your work together will move you further apart.
The one question that can save your marriage
This question will help you more than any other:
“What kind of person do you need to be in order to be someone your spouse does not want to lose?”
Again,
“What kind of person do you need to be in order to be someone your spouse does not want to lose?”
Once you figure that out, you need to do it if you want to stay married.
If the person you want to be is not mostly the person your spouse wants you to be, you may as well just go ahead and divorce. Although I am pro family, I am not pro pretending to be a family. And although God hates divorce, He is not pleased when people stay married and are contemptuous of each other.
Get help to become the kind of spouse your partner won’t want to lose
If you do want to be the kind of person your spouse wants you to be, and you need help with that, then sign up for my Re-Connections Coaching Package and I will help you to restore your marriage. I won’t do that by giving you some trick you can use to persuade your spouse not to divorce. I will do that by helping you to become the kind of person your spouse will not want to lose.
This means that I will also help you to have the correct boundaries so your spouse can’t have his or her cake and eat it, too, by divorcing you.
For further study:
Gottman, J. M. (1993). The roles of conflict engagement, escalation, and avoidance in marital interaction: A longitudinal view of five types of couples. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 61(1), 6–15.
