People Who Get Divorced Often Miss 7 Red Flags That Seem Harmless At First, Says Divorce Coach
Shahin Khalaji | UnsplashDivorce recovery coach Leah Marie Mazur focuses her social media content on self-love and boundary setting as a way toward self-fulfillment. In a recent post, she described the varied answers she received after asking members of her support group to identify concerning signs in their relationships they didn’t notice until after their marriages had ended.
The red flags were there the whole time, but you couldn't quite name them, or maybe you did name them but talked yourself out of it, or you saw them clearly and loved them anyway. Former therapist Crystal Jackson explains this phenomenon: "We might claim not to have seen the red flags when the truth is that we willingly ignored them." It's important to remember that this is not a reason to shame yourself for the relationship that didn't work out, but a reason to pay closer attention to the instincts that try to tell us something before we have the words for it.
People who end up divorcing often miss these subtle red flags that seem harmless at first:
1. Manipulative crying and always playing the victim
Both actions are examples of weaponizing vulnerability. They create an emotional imbalance of power in which one person is consistently assigned blame for challenges in the relationship, which creates an insecure partnership.
Research on manipulation tactics shows that playing the victim works specifically because it flips the script on who needs support, which slowly trains you to feel responsible for how your partner feels, even when they're the one who hurt you.
2. Having an unhealthy relationship with their immediate family
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Another problematic part of one person’s marriage that they didn’t notice until after their divorce was that their ex had “an extremely close family that looks innocent, but that’s actually codependent and enabling and very unhealthy.”
Enmeshment often gets mistaken for closeness at the start of a relationship, especially if your own family was more distant. A partner who's enmeshed with their family will often choose their parents over you when those two loyalties come into conflict, clinical social worker Sharon Martin explained.
3. Being inauthentic with friends and family
How someone acts around friends and family is a strong indicator of who they truly are, yet one person described a red flag they experienced, in that their partner “put on a show for their friends and family, and they’re a totally different person around you.”
“Someone who bashes their friends or family but never tells them that to their face,” came another complaint, a red flag that exemplified poor or indirect communication skills.
4. Showing little compassion or care
“They don’t think birthdays or holidays are important,” one person said. “Always walking ahead of you, not next to you,” another person shared.
Small gestures matter more in long-term relationships than most people realize. Research from the Gottman Institute on "bids for connection" found that couples who regularly ignore their partner's small requests for attention and care are more likely to divorce, which means walking ahead of you on the sidewalk really is telling you something.
5. Misrepresenting who they are as people
“Someone who declares themselves as a patriot when their actions never align with their words,” said one divorcee. “Someone who claims to love traveling but doesn’t own a passport, or someone who claims to love dogs but doesn’t have a dog,” were other examples of that particular kind of red flag.
A study found that when people see their partner as authentic, they report higher trust and commitment in the relationship. When someone's self-image doesn't match their actual life, it pecks away at the foundation that a marriage needs to last.
6. Having a misalignment of values
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Some examples included becoming involved with someone who held onto the importance of work over other parts of their lives, didn’t prioritize their family, or didn’t have friends.
Mismatches in values rarely look dramatic in the beginning, but they build up over time in ways that chemistry can't cover. Research on long-term relationship satisfaction has found that shared values predict stability far better than shared interests do, which is why the partner who doesn't prioritize family or friendships usually doesn't learn to over the course of a marriage.
7. Choosing defensiveness and denial to avoid blame
A major red flag came in the form of behavior that allowed people’s exes to deny taking responsibility for any of their own actions, especially when those actions were harmful.
For example, “someone who disparages all their exes, by calling them crazy, and never holds themselves accountable for the dissolution of their relationships,” or having to comfort them when you’re the one who’s upset by something they’ve done.
The comments section was full of people sharing their own red flags and finding solidarity in doing so. One woman shared, “You are literally describing my ex-husband. I didn’t know everything was so common.”
You should never feel bad for missing signs of trouble in a relationship. While it would be easy for people to blame themselves for not noticing red flags right away, hindsight is always clearer than our current vision.
Sometimes, we convince ourselves that everything’s okay when it isn’t. Yet blaming ourselves for not seeing things that were wrong overlooks a basic aspect of being human: We’re all seeking connection, and sometimes, that essential need overrides our other instincts. It's what we do with the knowledge once we have it that matters most.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers relationships, pop culture analysis, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.
