7 Telltale Signs You're Only Pretending To Be Happy In Your Relationship
Couples who display these behaviors after often pretending to be happier than they really are.
Peopleimages.com - YuriArcurs | Canva Most of us get married to stay married. But life doesn’t always go according to plan. According to research, about 43% of first marriages end in divorce — and many more marriages aren’t particularly happy, even if they do last. If you took an honest survey of married people, chances are you’d find that many of them are only pretending to be happy in their relationships and have thought about getting divorced at some point.
Maybe it was just once, for a couple of hours after a particularly nasty fight, or maybe it’s every morning when they wake up and every night as they’re falling asleep. Even though getting divorced is common, it’s still never an easy decision to make.
When I was wrestling with whether or not to end my marriage, the book I found most helpful was called Too Good to Leave, Too Bad to Stay: A Step-by-Step Guide to Help You Decide Whether to Stay In or Get Out of Your Relationship, by couples therapist Mira Kirshenbaum.
In it, she takes readers through a series of questions and exercises designed to help them find clarity on whether or not they’d be happier if they left their relationship, or stayed and worked on it. The following nine signs of divorce are drawn from Kirshenbaum’s work and backed up by many other relationship experts — as well as common sense. Because relationships do take work; but sometimes there’s nothing worth fixing.
Here are the signs you're only pretending to be happy in your relationship:
1. You can’t remember a time when things were really good between you
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Kirshenbaum asks couples to think back to when things were the absolute best between them. “Looking back, would you now say that things were very good between you then?” When the answer is no, she says couples rarely regret deciding to get a divorce.
Maybe you always felt that something was off between you, but you ignored your instincts. Or maybe you felt pressured into marriage because everyone else was doing it, or you wanted to have kids and the clock was ticking.
If you can’t look back at the good times and feel that they were really and truly good, that might be the only sign you need to know it’s time to go.
2. You don’t feel any physical attraction anymore
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Sure, sometimes you’re in the mood, and sometimes you’re not. And in a long-term relationship, intimacy can easily fall off your radar and end up on the back burner.
A shockingly high number of couples end up in intimacy-starved marriages, for lots of different reasons. According to research, 15-20% of marriages are intimacy-less.
But when you look at your partner, setting aside whether or not you’re exhausted or getting your period or anything else, do you still find them attractive? Is there a spark you feel with them and no one else?
Maybe the way one corner of his mouth turns up when he smiles still drives you wild. Or maybe you can’t stand the thought of him touching you.
A healthy intimate life is integral to a healthy marriage — so if he can’t get your motor revving, it’s time to say goodbye.
3. You've tried couples therapy and it hasn't worked
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So many of my friends have gone from the couple's therapist’s couch to the divorce lawyer’s office, it almost seems like a rite of passage for a couple on their way to a split. But that’s because many couples wait too long to seek out counseling.
Once significant damage has been done to the relationship, and couples have settled into ingrained patterns of relating to each other, it can be very difficult to find a way out.
If your partner won’t even agree to try couples therapy, that’s a bad sign too. You’ve got to at least give it a shot. But if you’ve given it a real try and it’s still not working, it could be time to walk.
4. You’re staying in the relationship out of fear
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Getting divorced is scary, particularly if you have children, or you’ve been together for a long time. The future without your spouse can seem like a big question mark.
Kirshenbaum suggests writing down exactly what feels scary to you — write out your worst-case scenario.
Now write out your best-case scenario; all the good things you hope might happen once you jump ship. Look at each fear and each scenario and ask yourself, is it true? Is it likely?
What else is possible? What’s most likely? Examining your fears in this way will help you look at them in a new light, and move towards overcoming them.
Research published in a 2022 study has shown a strong correlation between anxious attachment styles and a greater tendency to stay in unhappy relationships due to fear of being alone.
Researchers have identified fear of change as a significant predictor of staying in an unhappy marriage, where individuals are more likely to prioritize stability over personal happiness.
5. You’d still want to leave, even if your problems were magically solved
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There are probably a few issues you can point to that make you want to leave your marriage: you don’t feel like he listens to you, she’s a workaholic, he has a terrible temper, she never wants to be intimate — we all have our lists.
Now imagine that every one of your gripes was magically solved by a magic genie. Would you still want to leave?
Being married isn’t for everyone. Sometimes, your reasons are more like excuses. Maybe you just don’t want to be married — or you don’t want to be married to this person anymore. Own it.
You don’t have to have a reason or an excuse. Deciding to get divorced can be extremely empowering. If you want out, then go.
6. You feel hopeless most of the time
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Working on a relationship year after year is exhausting. At some point, if nothing has changed, you may run out of hope that it ever will. This is the time when some people resign themselves to a life of unhappiness and stay stuck in a bad marriage forever.
They’ve not only lost hope for marriage, but they’ve also lost hope for their future happiness as well.
But getting divorced is a hopeful thing: it says that you believe there’s a better life out there for you, and you’re committed to finding it. If you’ve lost hope, you owe it to yourself to leave. You deserve better. You deserve to have hope.
There is a strong link between feeling hopeless in marriage and high levels of marital distress, often leading to depressive symptoms, where a lack of perceived ability to improve the relationship contributes significantly to feelings of hopelessness and further deteriorates marital quality.
According to a 2023 study, this creates a cyclical pattern where marital discord and depression mutually reinforce each other. If hopelessness is significantly impacting mental health, individual therapy can be beneficial to address personal coping mechanisms and perspectives on the relationship.
7. You’d be relieved to find out you had to separate
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Maybe you’re afraid your parents will judge you if you get divorced; maybe you think God will judge you.
If you’ve got some belief system hanging over you, telling you that you’ve got to stay in your marriage, no matter what, just play this little game with yourself: pretend some all-powerful being has permitted you to leave.
Better yet, pretend they’ve told you that you have to leave. How do you feel? If your first reaction is one of immense relief, you’ve got your answer. What you do with it is up to you.
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