Should You Get A Divorce When Your Marriage Isn’t Working

by: Leslie Cane: Once, I heard from a woman who told me that her marriage “just didn’t work” for her anymore. She explained:

“My marriage used to make me happy and made me a better person. But now it just makes me angry and bitter. I don’t like the person I become when I’m around my husband. I’m petty, sarcastic, and miserable. We used to share the same goals, but now we want completely different things. I almost feel as though I’ve outgrown him. What are you supposed to do when your marriage just doesn’t work for you anymore? I never thought I’d consider divorce, but here I am.”

As we continued talking, it became clear that her marriage began to shift after she received a big promotion at work. She was suddenly in circles she described as “upwardly mobile,” and she loved the ambition and energy of that world. Her husband, however, didn’t embrace this lifestyle – and instead of seeing his hesitation as caution, she interpreted it as rejection.

She insisted she didn’t care, but I had my doubts. If she were truly indifferent, she wouldn’t have reached out and asked for my perspective. In my experience, when someone is genuinely at peace with ending a marriage, they don’t need reassurance. They already know what they want. This wife was still searching for answers.

So here’s what I shared with her—and what I’d share with anyone asking the same painful question.

If Your Marriage “Isn’t Working,” Have You Worked on It?: One of my first questions was: What steps have you taken to address your concerns?

Her answer was telling. She admitted she hadn’t done anything. She assumed her efforts would be wasted. In her mind, she and her husband had simply become incompatible, so why bother?

But here’s the problem: she was never going to know if her marriage could improve without giving it a chance. She hadn’t asked, hadn’t tried, and hadn’t invited her husband into the conversation. She was working entirely off her assumptions.

And assumptions can be very dangerous in marriage. If the roles were reversed, would she want her husband to decide she wasn’t worth the effort, without ever giving her a say? Probably not.

Making Your Marriage Work For You, Instead of Against You: As we dug deeper, I began to see her real fear: she worried her marriage would hold her back. She was afraid her coworkers wouldn’t respect her if they didn’t approve of her husband.

That’s when I gently reminded her – her marriage isn’t about her coworkers. It’s about her and her husband. No one else has a vote.

Interestingly, her husband wasn’t standing in her way. He wasn’t asking her to step back in her career. He simply wasn’t immersing himself in her new lifestyle. My guess? He felt she was pulling away, and he was withdrawing to protect himself. Meanwhile, she read his withdrawal as rejection. Both were misinterpreting the other’s actions, and neither was truly speaking about it.

This happens more than you’d think. Both partners act on assumptions, but never test them. Until you address the issues directly, you’ll never know what’s really true.

Does Your Spouse Need to Fulfill Every Part of You?: Another thing I asked her: Is your marriage really dependent on your husband adopting your career identity as his own?

Plenty of marriages thrive when spouses lead very different professional lives. He doesn’t need to be part of every networking event to be proud of her accomplishments. Support can take many forms—and it doesn’t always look like total involvement.

Sometimes, people get stuck thinking their marriage has to satisfy every part of their identity. And when it doesn’t, they project their dissatisfaction onto the relationship itself. They convince themselves that divorce is the solution.

But divorce doesn’t always erase the underlying problem. If you’re unhappy because of personal dissatisfaction, a divorce only changes your marital status. It doesn’t guarantee fulfillment.

The Bigger Picture: Here’s what I told this wife: Don’t move toward divorce until you’ve taken an honest look at what’s really driving your unhappiness. Ask yourself:

• Am I projecting outside frustrations onto my marriage?

• Have I truly communicated my needs to my spouse?

• Have I given my spouse the chance to respond?

Many times, couples who thought they’d “outgrown” one another discover that they simply misunderstood one another. They still want the same core things—happiness, love, and a sense of purpose—but their ways of reaching those goals differ.

And that’s normal. Few marriages are perfectly aligned in every area. The key is learning how to respect those differences instead of letting them divide you.

Takeaways: So, should you get a divorce if your marriage “isn’t working”? My opinion is: not before you’ve done everything in your power to separate projection from reality and to try to reconnect.

I’ve seen countless marriages transform once couples stopped assuming and started communicating. And I know from personal experience how easy it is to misread the signs.

At one point, I almost lost my own marriage because I made assumptions, ignored the obvious, and convinced myself things couldn’t improve. Thankfully, I realized my mistake in time to change course. If you’d like to read my personal story about how I saved my own marriage, you can find it here: http://isavedmymarriage.com/.