Seven Warning Signs You May Need Marriage Counseling
1. Contempt. Sarcasm, eye-rolling, mockery, and name-calling communicate disgust toward your partner. The Gottman Institute considers contempt the single strongest predictor of divorce, because it conveys superiority rather than frustration with a specific problem. Couples who live with it often describe feeling disrespected even when no argument is happening.
2. Chronic criticism. Everyone complains occasionally. Criticism is different because it attacks character (“you never think about anyone but yourself”) instead of addressing a behavior. Over time, it teaches a partner that nothing they do is good enough.
3. Defensiveness. When every concern is met with a counterattack or an excuse, issues never get resolved. Defensiveness feels protective in the moment, but it tells your partner that their experience does not matter.
4. Stonewalling. One partner shuts down, leaves the room, or goes silent during conflict. Gottman’s research suggests this is often an attempt to calm down from emotional flooding, but the other partner experiences it as abandonment, which usually intensifies the pursuit and deepens the cycle.
5. Ignored bids for connection. Gottman’s longitudinal research on newlyweds found that couples who remained married turned toward each other’s everyday bids for attention about 86 percent of the time, compared with about 33 percent among couples who later divorced. A marriage rarely erodes through one dramatic betrayal. More often it erodes through hundreds of missed moments.
6. A rewritten history. When couples describe their early years with bitterness, or struggle to recall anything positive, it signals what researchers call negative sentiment override, in which even neutral comments are interpreted as hostile.
7. Parallel lives. Many couples assume that loud conflict is the most dangerous sign, yet emotional distance often does more damage. When you stop sharing worries, humor, affection, or physical intimacy, the relationship can feel more like a logistical partnership than a marriage. This is where marriage counseling can help. A trained marriage therapist can slow these patterns down so each of you feels heard and the cycle begins to loosen.
Three Signs Your Marriage Can Still Be Saved
Recognizing several of these patterns can be discouraging, but the same research offers real reasons for hope.
First, repair attempts still happen. A joke that breaks the tension, a hand on the shoulder, or an apology offered mid-argument all count. Gottman’s work found that the success of repair attempts, more than the absence of conflict, distinguishes stable marriages from unstable ones.
Second, you can still remember what drew you together. If you can recall why you chose each other, even with some sadness, that emotional foundation remains available to rebuild on.
Third, at least one of you is still willing to try. Emotionally focused therapy, developed by Dr. Sue Johnson, has been studied extensively, and research reviews report that roughly 70 to 75 percent of couples move from distress to recovery, with about 90 percent showing significant improvement. Willingness matters more than perfect conditions.
How Marriage Counseling in Austin Can Help
Couples often wait far too long to seek help. The Gottman Institute has reported that the average couple waits roughly six years after problems begin before reaching out, and patterns that have hardened over that time take longer to unwind. You do not need to be certain about the future of your marriage to start marriage counseling. Many couples in Austin come to me unsure, and part of the work is gaining clarity about what is happening between you and what is possible.
If you recognize your relationship in this article, schedule a free consultation with me. I offer couples therapy, marriage therapy and intimacy therapy designed to help you rebuild communication, trust, and connection.
Book a free 20 min consultation: https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=35802945&appointmentType=78433102
Love Reimagined Therapy: https://www.lovereimaginedtherapy.com/
Written by Amy Palmer, M.Ed., LPC, CST
Amy Palmer is a marriage counselor and a relationship and sex therapist in Austin, Texas, serving clients statewide through in person and virtual therapy. She specializes in relationship therapy, intimacy concerns, desire differences, divorce recovery, LGBTQ+ affirming care, and non-monogamous relationships