by Dr. Phil McGraw
Is your marriage at risk of falling apart? Take Dr. Phil’s “Marriage Inventory Quiz” — these are 6 signs that you or your spouse could be landing your marriage in a ditch.
1. You control or abuse your spouse.
Controlling people often participate in emotional extortion, like saying, “Agree with me, or else …” Sometimes it’s more productive and healthier if you agree to disagree. Or, does your spouse attempt to control you, possibly with money? Call you demeaning names? Why would you accept that from anyone, and why would someone who truly loves you treat you that way? If there is an imbalance of power that causes you to lose yourself, you may be in a toxic relationship.
2. You or your spouse define your relationship with jealousy and insecurity.
Do you often check up on your spouse? Do you attempt to read his text messages because you’re just not sure what goes on behind your back? Jealousy is a poorly disguised need for power and control — and that’s a red flag. You have more power in your love, respect, personality and magnetism than you do when you try to be controlling.
Have you and your spouse both been completely honest about your finances prior to the marriage and since becoming a union? People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing. What are you hiding and why? And what else are you willing to lie about? Lying about money does not bode well for the underlying trust that a marriage needs at its core.
4. You or your spouse involve your parents or in-laws inappropriately.
If you go running to your parents or your in-laws with your marital problems, you’re not respecting the sanctity and boundaries of your relationship. You’re an adult now; deal with the person you married, not the people who raised either of you.
5. You and your spouse fail to be a united parenting front.
If your kids are successful at dividing and conquering you and your spouse, then they are further driving a wedge between the two of you. Not to mention that if you fight in front of the children, it literally changes who they are. You’re scarring them for life and they don’t deserve that. Be mature enough to stop the screaming and put their needs ahead of your own.
6. You ignore your spouse’s intimacy and sexual needs.
A couple’s relationship in the bedroom is a direct reflection of the rest of their relationship. Intimacy is essentially vulnerability. It’s when you let your guard down, you let somebody in close and you share things in a physical way. If you spend all day fighting, you’re going to have a hard time making intimacy a priority — which it ought to be.
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