Common Reasons that Lead to Divorce

About 45% of first marriages in America end in divorce. The numbers increase for second and subsequent marriages. When a couple is married, the last thing on their minds is a divorce. They can see years of bliss ahead of them. However, this is not always the reality as the state keeps experiencing many cases of divorce. We at the San Diego Family Law Attorney understands that divorce is sometimes the best thing to do, and we will walk with you, so the process does not add more challenges to your situation.

Why Couples Divorce

Under the no-fault system for divorce in California, the couple does not have to cite any reason to get divorced. However, marriages don’t just end. Couples have the reasons they no longer wish to pursue their marriages further, leading to divorce or permanent separation.

According to Your Divorce Questions, marriages need to be built on the foundation of commitment so that they can stand a chance against challenges. Commitment is what makes couples willing to give more than they take from their partners. However, even with the highest level of commitment, some marriages often end in divorce. Below are common reasons that lead to divorce.

1. Infidelity

Infidelity leads to 20-40% of the divorces in America. The number of couples engaged in infidelity is about 60% for men and 40% for women. Infidelity per se does not lead to divorce. Most couples work through their negative emotions and save their marriages. However, some may lose the trust they had in their partners and may be unable to move past the feelings of betrayal.

Infidelity also contributes to low self-esteem for the partner who is cheated on. It shakes the core of his or her personal belief and sense of worth in their partner’s eyes. It can breed resentment and bitterness, making it hard to sustain the marriage.

2. Finances

Money changes people and does not spare marriages. Differences in spending habits, financial goals, debts, dishonesty about debts, and differences in income can create struggles within a marriage.

Couples have to deal with decisions about money every day. With bills to pay, childcare, household expenses, savings, and vacations, there’s a lot of room for disagreement. When a couple criticizes each other’s financial goals or choices, the attacks will feel personal. Couples take financial matters as a part of themselves. 

When financial roles between a couple are not clearly defined or are undefined, then the couple is likely to fall into a disagreement. A couple should, therefore, determine the financial role of each partner before the marriage, or in the early stages.

Another area couples argue about is payment and uptake of debts. When one partner fails to involve the other in decisions about taking debts, it is likely to cause a rift. Some marriages also break when one partner fails to inform the other about debts they have accumulated before the marriage.

3. Poor Communication

Communication is the glue that holds a couple together. The ability to express your feelings and desires to your partner prevents a buildup of unsolved issues and resentment. Communication enables you and your partner to share issues that are bothering you, bond, and be supportive of each other.

Communication breakdown in a relationship can occur when you criticize each other too much, dismiss your partner’s concerns and failure to complement and motivate your partner. The common indicator that your marriage lacks communication is the feeling that you are living with a stranger. In some cases, your sex life declines; you no longer try to please each other.

It is not normal for a couple to lose communication over time. Maintaining communication in a marriage involves always listening to your partner, minimizing on the criticism and learning your partner’s non-verbal communication.

When communication is lacking in a marriage, you are more tempted to fill the gap by cheating or engaging in addictive hobbies, which in the end, break up the marriage.

4. Lack of Trust

Trust issues can stem from actions in marriage, childhood, or those developed from your current behavior. Trust issues in a marriage develop over time. The little breaches of trust over an extended period corrode the ability by the other partner to trust or believe their partner.

First, mistrust develops through doubt. Your partner begins to question your trustworthiness or your ability to keep promises. Your partner begins to feel that there exists deception in your actions or words. When doubt festers, it develops into suspicion. Here, the doubt is much greater, your partner has a feeling and belief that something is wrong, but they lack the proof to back up that suspicion.

Anxiety and fear are the next stages in marriages that are slowly losing trust. Your partner becomes anxious around you, which develops into fear. Your partner is no longer free to express his or her vulnerability to you because of past experiences. 

At this point, your partner withdraws from you and immerses him or herself into activities. You may start complaining that you never see your partner as often, he or she is ignoring you, or they have become workaholics.

One of the partners then finds him or herself giving more than they are receiving from the relationship. In severe cases, your spouse picks up bad habits such as drinking, gambling, and overeating.

5. Abuse

Abuse in a marriage can be emotional, physical, verbal, and economical. Physical abuse is the most common and involves causing injury to your spouse. It includes the intentional application of force, which results in pain, bodily injury, or impairment.

Physical abuse develops through four stages, which include threats of physical violence, actual violence, and apologies for the violent action. The fourth stage involves repetition, making it a concurrent and almost never-ending cycle.

Emotional abuse includes actions that are meant to manipulate or control another person. The abusive spouse tries to frighten or isolate you by repeating acts that demean your person and lower your self-esteem and self-worth. Some of the actions in emotional or psychological abuse includes humiliation, negation, criticism, threats, spying, direct orders, accusations, jealousy, emotional neglect, and isolation. Your spouse may treat you like a child, or disrespect you even in public.

Verbal abuse can be harder to pinpoint in a marriage. Living with a person can bring out the worst in a person, leading them to say mean things they don’t mean. However, when your spouse is repeating derogatory remarks, then he or she is verbally abusing you. The common forms of verbal abuse include name-calling, condescension, manipulation, threats, blaming, and withholding (stonewalling).

Most married women are financially abused. According to an online source, financial abuse contributes to about 99% of all domestic violence cases. When your spouse uses money as leverage in a relationship, he or she is using it to control and influence you, which takes a lot of choices from your hands.

In most situations, the partner with more money is more likely to abuse the other. However, even with equal incomes, one spouse can abuse you by criticizing your spending habits. This happens even when you are spending the money set aside for your personal use after budgeting for recurring household expenses.

In marriage, one or many forms of abuse can exist. The receiving partner is more likely to lose their self-esteem and self-worth. In most cases, they may need outside help to relieve themselves of the burden the marriage brings by opting for a divorce.

6. Lack of Intimacy

Marriages are built on intimacy. It brings closeness to your relationship. When the flame of passion wanes or dies, divorce is almost certainly next on-line.

Intimacy can be emotional, spiritual, physical, intellectual, and experiential. Intimacy in a marriage creates a sense of connectedness, awareness, and closeness to your partner. It keeps you going through the hard times.

When you and your spouse are intimate, you can share pleasant and unpleasant feelings and reveal your vulnerability to each other. You develop a close relationship where you can share your ideas and thoughts about the things you care for.

Physical intimacy implies the ability for you and your spouse to show acts of affection such as hugging. Experiential intimacy means sharing important experiences in your life with your spouse.

Spiritually intimate couples have common core values and beliefs and understand their differences. They can live harmoniously without these differences, causing a rift in their marriage. When a couple is intimate, even their sex life improves and becomes more satisfactory for them.

A marriage that lacks in intimacy is lacking in the glue that should hold you and your spouse together. Disconnectedness and feelings of loneliness in your marriage may eventually lead to divorce.

7. Lack of Emotional Support

Emotional support is the ability to show empathy, compassion, and concern for your spouse genuinely. Your spouse has a desire for a real and authentic relationship based on openness and emotional support. Showing emotional support involves:

• Being a good listener. Listening to your spouse is the only way you can open up communication channels in your marriage. Be attentive to what they are telling you, ask for clarification, and acknowledge their feelings, fears, and vulnerabilities. Listen patiently without indulging in distractions such as phones or video games. Let your wife or husband know that you care about them and their problems. Read into their body language to learn their style of communication. Your marriage will benefit from paying a little more attention to your spouse.
• Respecting you’re the feelings of your spouse. Your spouse is a separate individual from you, and they may have insecurities or emotional problems that are different from yours. You should appreciate such differences and respect them.

Failing to offer emotional support to your spouse can stem from a fear of being hurt, which leads you to close in your feelings and avoiding those of your partner. However, building walls around yourself can make you lonely, not to mention, break up your marriage.

8. Unrealistic Expectations

When getting into a marriage, you and your partner have expectations about each other and the marriage. You have a belief about how and when things should happen. When expectations are unrealistic, they become unmet needs resulting in disagreements between you and your partner. You can have unmet expectations over money, spiritual matters, sex, parenting, communication, and how to deal with conflict.

Establishing realistic expectations in your marriage requires communication with your spouse. Sit down together and outline what you expect from each other and how major decisions should be handled. Define your responsibilities so that the major disagreements are catered for. Express your needs to each other, ensuring that you understand what your partner's needs are.

If your expectations remain unmet, then talk to your partner about it. Unmet expectations often breed bitterness and resentment, which will eventually lead to the breakdown of your divorce.

9. Addictions

Addictions are destructive to both the addict and the people in contact with the addict. If you are married to a person addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling, or pornography, then it can strain your marriage and lead to divorce. Addictions have in common the fact that they train the brain to become dependent on these activities or substances, to a point where the addict cannot control him or herself.

Addictions are difficult to deal with as a spouse. You may have to shoulder the economic burden, raise the kids on your own, and get the addict out of any trouble their addiction gets them into.

The most damaging effect of addictions is on the finances of the family. The addict is likely to abandon their responsibilities, relationships, and commitments. Most couples try to get an addicted partner into rehabilitative care to help them correct their addiction. However, if the addict is unwilling to change their character, most marriages end up breaking.

Addictions can also result in other problems such as unfaithfulness, financial mistrust, loss of intimacy and abuse, increasing the possibility of divorce.

10. Rushing Into Marriage

Rushing into a marriage is the worst thing you can do for you and your spouse. Some of the common reasons people rush into marriage include:

• All the people you know are married. Marriage should not and should never be a competition. You need to take your time during the courtship stage to ensure that you know the person well enough to spend the rest of your life with him or her. As much as societal pressure may weigh you down, you need to set your goals and determine whether your readiness for marriage.
• You get a baby. Unplanned pregnancies are likely to throw you and your partner into an emotional roller coaster. However, it should not be the sole reason you get married. Take your time to go through your emotions and decide whether marriage is the best choice for you and the child you are expecting.
• For sex: people in a culture where sex is only allowed after marriage can feel pressured to get married so that you can enjoy sex without breaking the laws of your religion or culture. However, marriage is not built on sex alone, so this should not be a reason to rush into it.
• To share expenses. It makes financial sense to live together and share the expenses you have. However, get to know your partner first before deciding to marry him or her.
• Your biological clock is ticking. Women are likely to get pressured to get married quickly, especially when they hit their thirties. With the threat of menopause looming and all your peers already raising kids, the pressure could lead you into an unhealthy marriage. Take your time to get the best partner, with whom you can create a healthy home for the kids you so desire.
• To keep the relationship: no relationship is worth being pressured into.

Rushing into a marriage denies you the opportunity to know your partner well enough. The love and infatuation at the beginning of a relationship should not mislead you into marrying a person you will divorce within the next three to five years. Take your time.

11. Resentment, Bitterness, and Anger

These emotions are destructive to any relationship. They result from small offenses that are buried inside and are never dealt with. They tend to destroy intimacy, communication, trust, and fidelity in a relationship. They lead to abuse, neglecting your spouse, and the inability to forgive your partner. Bitterness, resentment, and anger block any channels that a couple can use to restore their marriage. Selfishness is a common source of these emotions.

Eventually, the resentment creates one or two people who are poisonous to be around. When a marriage gets to this point, and they are unable to resolve these feelings through communication and emotional support for each other, then divorce is the likely outcome.

Find A Divorce Attorney Near Me

If you are divorcing your partner for any or a combination of the above reasons, contact the San Diego Family Law Attorney for help. We help couples who wish to divorce to get the best outcome for their situation. We also address issues of child custody, visitation rights, and matters related to family law. In addition, we can help you and your spouse to come to an agreeable settlement in property allocation battles. Contact our San Diego family lawyer today at 619-610-7425 for a consultation.