Unhappy Marriage and the Downward Spiral on Your Health

I remember lying awake at 3 am mentally conducting the same marital courtroom argument that I had lived through endless nights before. Should I stay? Should I leave? Am I overreacting? What about the kids? What about money? What if I regret it? I can clearly remember all of those conflicting thoughts running through my head as I battled with the decision. Meanwhile, my body was having an entirely different conversation. I was exhausted. I had constant headaches. I woke up every night at 3 am to the same spiraling thoughts. And during the day and night, my shoulders were permanently tense. My doctor kept asking about my stress level.

Maybe you’ve become so accustomed to feeling bad that bad has started to feel like your new normal.

We are remarkably good at analyzing our lives while completely ignoring the woman who is living inside of our own lives.

We are aware we’re in an unhappy marriage, but we often don’t take the time to realize what this is doing to our health.

The Body Often Knows Before We Do

Women are really good at overthinking things. We can make a new sport out of spending enormous amounts of time trying to think our way out of an unhappy marriage. We analyze. We research. We pray. We make the pros and cons list. We talk to our girlfriends. We imagine both futures.

Meanwhile, our nervous system is responding to the environment we’re actually living in.

Your body isn’t necessarily telling you to “get divorced.” It’s simply telling you that something is “off.” It’s your job to figure out what is causing your body to feel this way. It’s telling you that something isn’t working for you and you need to pay attention. It’s a red flag that you shouldn’t ignore.

The Hidden Signs Your Unhappy Marriage May Be Taking a Toll

Not every symptom means an unhappy marriage is the cause, but persistent symptoms deserve some further scrutiny. Here are some symptoms worth your attention:

• insomnia or disrupted sleep
• constant fatigue
• headaches
• digestive issues
• muscle tension
• changes in appetite
• anxiety or feeling constantly “on”
• difficulty concentrating
• irritability
• loss of interest in sex or intimacy
• withdrawing socially
• neglecting exercise or self-care
• worsening of existing health conditions

Ask yourself, when was the last time you went to the doctor and actually told the truth about how stressed out you are? That’s the real question. “What’s wrong with me?” is a very different question than “What is happening in my life?” You want to make sure you’re answering the right one. We have a tendency to say we’re okay when we’re really not.

We are the women who hold everything together, even when our whole world is falling apart. We don’t want everyone to know our innermost struggles, because we want to make everything okay for everyone else – our family, our children.

An Unhappy Marriage Can Become a Chronic Stressor

And this isn’t just a feeling. Research backs up the connection between relationship stress and physical health. A 2014 meta-analysis by Robles and colleagues, published in Psychological Bulletin, reviewed 126 studies involving more than 72,000 people and found consistent associations between higher marital quality and better physical health. The research looked at cardiovascular measures as well as other clinical health outcomes, and researchers have identified physiological pathways involving cardiovascular reactivity and stress-related biological systems.

If you’d like to dig into the research, you can read the full study, Marital Quality and Health: A Meta-Analytic Review.  So, if your blood pressure is creeping up, maybe don’t blame the entire thing on that bag of potato chips you demolished last night. (Although…I’m not saying the chips helped.) Your body responds to more than what you eat. Ongoing stress matters, too.

That doesn’t mean your marriage is causing every spike in your blood pressure, every headache, every ache, or every sleepless night. Health is nuanced and complex, and everybody is different. But it does mean your relationship environment belongs somewhere in the bigger picture. Chronic stress isn’t something your body simply forgets because you’ve decided not to think about it. Sometimes, your mind learns to live with what your body is still trying to process.

The Most Dangerous Place Can Be the Land of “I Don’t Know”

Should I stay or should I go? And I’m not talking about the song by The Clash. This phrase can unfortunately become your new anthem for years, if you’re not careful. You may be singing “Stuck in the Middle with You” for eons if you don’t make a decision. Indecisiveness is not where you want to live forever. For the woman who has spent 6 months or 6 years deciding, you are constantly re-deciding which path to take, and you’re completely drained.

Every argument starts the process. Every good weekend makes you question yourself. Every horrible night makes you google divorce attorneys, because you’re thinking about divorce. Sometimes it’s not the decision that exhausts us; it’s living inside of the question mark, and your life isn’t meant to be a punctuation mark.

Maybe You’re Not Fighting Anymore—Maybe You’ve Already Checked Out

Sometimes an unhappy marriage looks incredibly peaceful from the outside, while you’re sleeping in separate bedrooms, with separate schedules, no intimacy, no affection, no curiosity about each other’s lives, and minimal conversation. These can all be signs of a silent divorce in a woman, and your partner may have no idea how you’re feeling. A toxic marriage is a potentially more serious category, and not every unhappy marriage is toxic. Keep in mind that not every disconnected marriage looks the same.

Your Body Isn’t Asking You to Make Every Decision Today

Here’s the good news. You don’t have to decide whether you want a divorce today. You can start by getting more information.

Ask:

• What is happening in my body?
• What has changed?
• What am I tolerating?
• What have I normalized?
• What would need to change for this marriage to become healthier?
• Is my spouse willing to work on it?
• What would my life actually look like if I left?

When we have agency over our lives and educate ourselves, we can look at our marriage through a clear lens. This gives us access to the information we need to know, but not necessarily a recommendation to leave. We become more self-aware of ourselves and our situation.

You Don’t Have to Figure Out Your Entire Life Alone

Here are some steps you can take. Tell your doctor the truth, and don’t just say, “I’m tired.” Explain that you are under enormous emotional stress and that you’re not sleeping, if that’s the case. Be sure to talk to a therapist if you need to talk to someone about your marriage who can help you understand your emotional patterns and help you make healthy decisions. Consider marital therapy if it’s a safe solution and both of you are willing to talk to someone. Get educated about your options financially, legally, emotionally, and practically.

Annie’s Group is a safe place to go to get that education and also benefit from the support of other women who understand what you’re going through. You can get educated, hear other women’s experiences, ask questions, understand options, feel less isolated, and especially, vet a plan. Remember, getting support doesn’t mean you’ve decided to leave your marriage. It simply means that your life deserves your attention.

Conclusion

So, when you’re lying in bed awake at 2 a.m., ask yourself:  What is my body trying to tell me? You don’t have to have the answer tonight. You don’t have to file for divorce tomorrow. You don’t have to make a split-second decision to blow up your life with a little emotional Kryptonite. Let’s leave that to Superman. You don’t have to be Superwoman, either—figuring out your entire future in a single day while somehow holding your family, your marriage, your finances, and your emotions together.

Taking your time doesn’t mean abandoning yourself. 

It doesn’t mean becoming invisible in your own house or continuing to convince yourself that everything is fine when your body has been telling you otherwise. Remember, health isn’t merely the absence of disease. It’s also being able to sleep. To breathe deeply. To laugh. To feel like yourself again. To lay your head on the pillow at night without spending another three hours arguing with yourself about what you should do next.

Ultimately, only you can decide what your next step is, so start by listening. Maybe your body isn’t asking you to blow up your life. Maybe it’s simply asking you to stop disappearing from it. Perhaps the healthiest thing you can do tonight is give yourself permission to listen long enough to hear what comes next—and to believe that your life is worth finding the answer.

NOTES

This article was written by Lori Ann Feeley, who helps midlife women turn their God-given story into income & Full-Life Freedom.™️ She is a Freelance Writer, Ghostwriter, Singer/Songwriter/Musician, Certified Christian Life Coach, & AI Business Coach. Connect with Lori Ann at loriann@loriannmusic.com.

 

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*We support same-sex marriages. For the sake of simplicity in this article, however, we refer to your spouse as your “husband” or a “he.”