Picking up signs your wife wants to leave you can be tricky. Some behaviors, like a cold shoulder or refusal of physical touch, might be obvious, while others you might be missing entirely.
When the divorced men were asked, “When did you know your spouse didn’t want to be with you anymore, or you didn’t want to be with them?” in an online forum, they shared the heartbreaking ways they realized that their marriage was ending.
Here are their telltale signs your wife wants to leave you or that you should divorce her:
1. Your wife no longer takes care of you
“I was in bed for five days with both flu and pneumonia. (My wife) never came in the room to ask how I was feeling.
“I got out of bed the fifth day and saw my two-year-old child, who immediately wanted me to hold her. I could not for fear of infection, and of course, she started to cry.
“My then-wife scolded me by saying, ‘I wish you were still sick. Life was so much easier without you around.’ That was 10 years ago, but I’ll remember it for the rest of my life,” mused a man whose marriage ended in divorce.
2. She changes her tone with you
“The change in tone when she says (I love you). One day, that tone changed. I remember thinking, ‘She’s leaving me.’ Those three words with the wrong tone,” sadly described one man who later had to call a divorce attorney.
3. The hugs and kisses turn into a handshake
“(My ex-wife) was in the military and started becoming very distant when she got home from her deployments. The hugs and kisses became, I’m not kidding, a handshake. She wasn’t just putting the writing on the wall. She was painting a mural.
“Being non-military when your wife is will have you wondering if she is being faithful while away. (My spouse) wasn’t brave enough to tell me she was leaving me for a high-ranking member of her crew, but she wasn’t as good at keeping secrets as she thought.”
4. She wants to focus on the kids, not your relationship
“(We were) leaving couple’s therapy, and she said, ‘Let’s just drop this whole thing and focus on the kids. We can work on us when they’re in college.’
“My kids were two and three at the time.”
5. Your wife is sad when looking at wedding photos
“I caught her staring at our wedding picture. It wasn’t a happy stare. At that moment, deep inside, I knew we wouldn’t stay together, but I denied it at that very moment. It took us another two years to divorce.”
6. She stops showing interest in things you like
“I knew I wasn’t happy being with the ex-wife. We had seriously grown apart and had less in common than I realized.
“She was less than honest and had shown interest in some things I was interested in. Not surprisingly, these things faded with time.
“My dissatisfaction and unhappiness continued to grow. One day, I was driving to work, and a song came on the radio. I started bawling my eyes out. When I got to work, I called my sister and told her I was absolutely miserable. Her reply? ‘Oh, I know. Mom and I have known for years.'”
7. There’s no consideration for your joint finances anymore
“(I knew she was divorcing me) when I was unemployed and going through cancer treatments, and she blew $30,000 without paying any of our bills.”
8. You both realize that marriage counseling isn’t working
“The first inkling of (divorce) was when (my wife) went away with her mom for a week and left me alone with our toddler. I was so much happier for it. It was a lot easier being a single parent than a married one.
“(We) went to counseling for almost a year. I tried to change, but she didn’t. The last straw was when I found out she was secretly putting our daughter back in diapers after I left for work in the morning. Stupid me couldn’t figure out why the potty training wasn’t working at night,” commented one ex-husband who wasn’t in a healthy relationship with his former wife.
9. She doesn’t say “I love you”
“The slow shift in I love you. Equal saying and responding. Me saying and her responding. Me saying (I love you) and her silence. My silence and her silence,” wrote one divorced man describing the progressive signs your wife wants to leave you based on his failed marriage.
10. She seems more interested in other men
“After years of struggles and thinking she was the best thing ever, (I) found out she had been chatting with dudes online.
“(I) tried to make it work, but one day, I looked at her, and she was no longer beautiful to me. Sounds super pretentious, but it’s the truth. I was no longer in love.”
11. The dreaded lawyer letter
“I was blindsided with a letter and email from her lawyer. I was working from home, and I checked the mail and my email. It hit me hard.
“I wanted to reconcile and fix things. After therapy and finding a coaching program, I realized that I needed to fix myself. I was the (bad person).”
12. You’re happier spending time apart
“She was gone for a work trip. I was in the kitchen when she came home. I saw her through the sliding glass door, walking up.
“My first thought was ‘(Shoot) she’s home.’ That’s when I knew. I realized how relaxed and happy I had been while she was gone.”
13. The wedding cake is in the trash
Couples in the United States traditionally save the top layer of their wedding cake for their first anniversary.
Not for this divorcee, who said he knew his wife wanted to leave him when he “came home and found the frozen wedding cake top with the little bride and groom in the trash can.”
14. The abrupt ending
“I texted (my ex-wife) from work one Monday morning, asking how her day was going and if she was feeling okay, as she was a little distant the night before and not very affectionate.
“She agreed she hadn’t been, then just abruptly ended the relationship right there.
“We spent the next two months living together but alternating who slept on the couch or bedroom before I moved in with a coworker. She swiftly entered into a relationship with this guy she had known for years. I suspect it started well before we split.”
This article was written and syndicated by What the Fab.
Are these the signs that this couple should get a divorce?
After five years of his wife wasting money and refusing to work, this husband finally snapped.
His wife hadn’t worked for five years, claiming her therapist said she “wasn’t ready yet,” while her husband worked 18 hours a day to support the couple.
Was he wrong for telling her to get a job? Decide here.
Should this unappreciated stay-at-home mom divorce her arrogant husband?
Once an Ivy League engineering student, this stay-at-home mom dropped out of college before completing her bachelor’s degree so her husband could complete his master’s degree and have the lucrative finance job and family he dreamed of.
Instead of appreciating her hard work for the household, her husband boasted that he could be a stay-at-home parent just as well.
Does her husband have a point? This is how it happened.
These might be the best or the worst ways to respond to “I love you?”
What happens when someone says, “I love you,” and you don’t want to say it back?
These are people’s best responses to those three little words.
Elise Armitage is an entrepreneur and founder of What The Fab, a travel + lifestyle blog based in California. At the beginning of 2019, Elise left her corporate job at Google to chase her dreams: being an entrepreneur and helping women find fabulous in the everyday. Since then, she’s launched her SEO course Six-Figure SEO, where she teaches bloggers how to create a passive revenue stream from their website using SEO. Featured in publications like Forbes, Elle, HerMoney, and Real Simple, Elise is a firm believer that you can be of both substance and style.
