Episode 34: Is My Partner Unhappy? Warning Signs.

In this episode of Lucky in Love, I'm breaking down the sneaky, often-missed signs your partner is unhappy in your relationship—even if you feel fine. 

I  explain how mismatched expectations, unresolved resentment, and outside stress can quietly widen the gap between you, showing up as pulling away from rituals, more solo time, short answers, less affection, and a fading sex life. 

You’ll learn what to watch for and how to start a calm, honest conversation before you end up blindsided by a breakup or divorce.

Want some info on working with me? Visit my website: https://www.karihoskinscoaching.com

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Website: https://www.karihoskinscoaching.com

Transcript

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Kari Hoskins (00:01.1)
Welcome to the Lucky and Love Podcast, my friends. My name is Kari Hoskins. I'm a communication coach for couples who are struggling. And today I wanted to share with you some signs that might indicate that your partner or your spouse is unhappy in your relationship. Before I get started, I would like to ask if you could just help a girl out. Hit the subscribe button, the like button.

leave me a comment, leave me a review or rating, like whatever, just leave me something because it will really help me get the word out. I am one woman just trying to make a little bit of a difference in the world and help people. So that would help me help other people. Okay, so let's go ahead and jump into today's episode. I sincerely think that one of the most dangerous assumptions any of us can make

is assuming that your significant other is happy in your relationship because you're happy in your relationship. I was actually just talking to a friend of mine about this a couple of days ago. She had been married for over 20 years and about year 12-ish, I wanna say, she started to feel unhappy and unsatisfied and unfulfilled in her marriage. And so she sat down and she had

conversation with her husband. And over the next few years, there were multiple conversations with tears and a little bit of drama in there. Some changes were made, but the changes didn't really stick. And year after year, these conversations continued until her daughter, her youngest daughter actually, went off to college. And my friend decided she wanted something different for her life. And so she filed for divorce. Her husband

was just completely blindsided. And my friend was shocked that he was shocked. She's like, what? Like, how did you not see this coming? We had so many conversations about this. But you guys, the truth is one person being content in the relationship, while the other one is not content, and I would even go as far as saying is miserable, is such a common happening.

Kari Hoskins (02:25.896)
And unfortunately, even sometimes when you do have these conversations, the significant other just doesn't really take it seriously or doesn't get it. Okay. Once I started working with couples, I really started to see how prevalent this is, how two people can live in the same house, be in the same relationship, and have just two completely different experiences.

So what I wanna do for you today is I just want to unpack a little bit of this with you. I would like to briefly share why I think that you should pay attention to this, why I think this is important. I'm also going to talk just a little bit about how it happens because understanding like how and why is, I just think a really good thing for all of us to just kind of equip ourselves with. And then I will be giving you some warning signs.

that could indicate that your partner or your spouse is actually unhappy in your relationship. But in a nutshell, this assumption is dangerous because the happy partner is just kind of out there living their life, they're doing their thing, and they're not really picking up on the fact that their significant other is struggling in the relationship, or they're not giving it enough weight. Okay, so maybe they recognize it.

They just don't really grasp how big it actually is. Either they're not paying attention or they see the signs and they just kind of brush them off. And sometimes people will think, well, if this really was that big of a deal, they would sit down and they would talk to me about it. That's not always the case. In fact, a lot of times it takes somebody a while to work up the courage to tell you that they're unhappy in the relationship.

Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, by the time that first or second conversation happens, they might already kind of have like one toe out the door. I won't say one foot out the door, but maybe one toe is out the door. Okay. And this is what creates that blindside divorce or that blindside breakup scenario. And it happens because the longer that discontent goes on, the longer that unhappiness goes undress, unaddressed.

Kari Hoskins (04:49.345)
the wider that gap between the two of you becomes. And that's when you start to see a whole bunch of resentment. That's when you see all of these emotional walls just being built up all over the place. And that's really hard to get through and come back from. So how does this happen? To be perfectly honest with you, when I started like this part of the podcast, there are so many reasons why

One person could be unhappy in the relationship and someone is not. So I just thought I'd boil it down in the simplest terms. You have different expectations and you have different desires for the relationship, okay? So one of you is over here thinking, hey, we don't fight very much. We've got a roof over our head. The bills are paid. The kids are fine. We've got friends. We're good. What's the problem? Meanwhile,

Your significant other is craving more. They want more emotional connection. They want more affection. They want more intimacy. They want more growth as a couple. Maybe they want more appreciation or recognition. They miss spontaneity and excitement and they're craving more of that. Or maybe they want less of something, less arguing, less moodiness, less anger, less criticism, less tension.

They're tired of walking around on eggshells, right? Less defensiveness, okay? And all of this builds on each other and it all layers up and is cumulative to the point where they become very unsatisfied, very unhappy, and they feel disconnected from you, okay? And too often than not, that disconnected partner or spouse has been feeling this way just for a long time and they either haven't voiced it clearly

Or like I just said, they have voiced it and the attempts to talk about it and make changes were just kind of like not taken very seriously or brushed off. Okay. So I do want to pause for just one second and say, if your partner or your spouse has already shared with you that they're unhappy, I would encourage you to go back and listen to last week's episode. It's episode 33. And I walk you through the first few steps. I walk you through what you should do.

Kari Hoskins (07:15.851)
when they tell you this information, okay? All right, one last scenario that I forgot to mention that I think is pretty important. Something that most people don't consider is that sometimes external problems are what is impacting the internal problems in the relationship, okay, and the overall happiness. So sometimes the unhappiness isn't entirely about the relationship. It's about like,

their own personal dissatisfaction with other areas of their life. Maybe they're very unhappy in their career or they're really struggling to manage a lot of stress. Maybe they're having an identity crisis and they're struggling with that aspect of them. Maybe they're having hormonal issues or physical problems like physical medical problems or mental health issues. Whatever it is, what can happen

is the marriage or the relationship kind of becomes like the container for all of that unhappiness. And it shows up as I'm not happy with us, right? So being aware of some of the reasons why this happens, I think is so important. But what is just as important is to recognize some of the warning signs so that you can maybe get ahead of it or at least address it. So,

I think it's important to point out that the more unhappy your partner is, the more of these signs you're going to see. Okay? So I kind of broke down the signs into three main categories. You're going to see behavioral changes. You're going to see changes in the way that they talk and interact with you. And you're going to see changes in your intimate life, right? So I just thought I'd give you some examples. So some examples of some behavioral changes.

You're going to notice that they are initiating plans last year. Excuse me. They're probably going to want more solo time. They want to get out of the house. They want to like go do more things with their friends or go do things by themselves. You're going to notice that watching Netflix or a movie is like replacing conversation more regularly. They are probably going to start pulling away

Kari Hoskins (09:40.75)
from those things that you two used to do together. So for example, let's say you used to have a fun ritual of Saturday mornings, you walk down to your favorite neighborhood coffee shop together and you sit there for, I don't know, 30 minutes and chit chat. Now all of a sudden they're like, you know, I've got a lot of emails. really, I just, we just need to skip it this week. And they're like, you know, maybe we should just get that coffee to go. Or maybe we should sleep in. And one week rolls into the next, which rolls into the next. And pretty soon,

You're no longer doing your Saturday morning walks together. You're likely also going to notice things like irritability or annoyance or irritation over small things that used to not matter so much to them. You will also probably notice that the way that they talk and interact with you changes. Their body language is going to change when they're around you. It's probably going to feel tense. They might be more closed off. Closed off meaning

like crossing their arms over their chest, not like open, open gestures. There's probably a lack of eye contact or very little eye contact. You might notice that they check out like mid conversation with you. You're also going to notice that they might give you short answers to questions, like very curt, cold, yes, no types of answers. They want to elaborate. And this is one that I think

most people completely miss, there's going to be fewer questions about you. There becomes a disinterest in you. They're no longer asking you, how was your day? How are things going? How are you feeling about that big project or that meeting coming up at work? Right? They're no longer as interested in how you are thinking about things and how you're feeling. Right? And you're probably also going to notice a little bit of topic dodging.

Meaning they don't want to talk about things of substance. They don't want to talk about the future or they really don't want to get into the relationship problems and things like that. And there's likely going to be more criticism and maybe even some like quiet contempt. Quiet contempt are nonverbal behaviors like eye rolling and tone of voice, like very sarcastic, maybe a little bit of dark humor is thrown in there, right? So,

Kari Hoskins (12:06.227)
Those are some of the behavioral and communication types of changes you're probably going to notice. When those escalate, you're also probably going to notice that there is less affection, less fun flirtiness. There's probably no sex or very little sex. Like your sex life has probably changed because they just don't have interest in that anymore. Okay. So if you recognize any of these signs, I don't want you to freak out.

but I do want you to take it seriously. You need to bring it up. Now, like I said, kind of earlier, one or two signs, this does not mean that they have like completely, you know, an entire foot out the door. Maybe it's just a little toe, right? But when you see that one or two of these signs are present, you do need to address it and initiate that conversation. So I always suggest that you kind of try to do this at least the first time

in a little bit more casual, neutral way. I would say something like, hey, can I run something past you? I've noticed that, you know, we haven't really been taking our Saturday morning walks anymore. Is everything good? Are we good? Or I've noticed that you don't really seem very interested in the conversations that we're having. How are you feeling about us? Is something going on? Right? So you just want to very neutrally state what you're observing and see what they have to say. Now,

This freaks people out because you're afraid of what they're going to tell you. My friends, if you are at all interested in maintaining a healthy, loving, happy relationship, you need to address this and bring it to the surface. You need to talk about it and acknowledge it and not minimize it. Again,

I told you in episode 33, I give you some very concrete steps and things to do if you happen to hear, yes, they are not happy. All right? So the bottom line is that a marriage or relationship can look fine and feel fine and good to one person and feel awful to the other person. And if those differences are not caught early and talked about and addressed, and if small changes do not start,

Kari Hoskins (14:28.759)
that unhappy partner eventually is going to stop dropping hints. They are going to start making other plans, all right? And that's when the so-called happy partner gets the wind knocked out of them. I hope that this episode gave you some insight and some clarity around this topic. And please, if you have any family members, friends, coworkers who you suspect might be facing this,

please share the episode with them. I just think it is so important that we continue to help each other get the word out to help more people. And last but not least, I am still accepting new clients. I'm still booking individuals and couples alike. So if this is something that you've been curious about or interested in, you can check out my website, kahoskins.com, and you can get on my calendar there for a free, very casual,

30 minute consultation. All right, my friends, that is what I have for you today. I'll talk to you next week.