Ep. 53: Hard Season or Marriage Crossroads? Here's How To Know

Is your marriage going through a hard season, or are you standing at a real crossroads?

In this episode of The Divorce Decision Podcast, Kari Hoskins helps you tell the difference between a temporary rough patch and a deeper marriage crisis. When you’re unhappy, disconnected, resentful, or emotionally exhausted, it can be hard to know what is actually happening. Is this stress? Is it burnout? Is it parenting, money, grief, or a difficult year? Or has something more serious shifted in the relationship?

Kari explains why this distinction matters so much. If you treat a hard season like a marriage-ending crisis, you may make decisions from fear or exhaustion. But if you treat a true crossroads like “just a rough patch,” you may stay stuck for years, waiting for things to magically get better while resentment continues to grow.

In this episode, you’ll learn the signs of a hard season, the signs of a marriage crossroads, and the difference between a passing divorce fantasy and the deeper shift that happens when divorce becomes something you are seriously considering.

This conversation is for anyone who has been asking, “Should I stay? Should I go? Is this fixable? Or am I avoiding the truth?”

You do not need to have the answer today. But you do need a clearer way to understand the question.

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Transcript

Kari Hoskins (00:00.716)
Hey there everyone. Welcome back to the Divorce Decision Podcast. I'm your host, Kari Hoskins. And yes, for those of you that are watching this on YouTube or TikTok or wherever you watch your podcasts, I am in an RV. My husband and I are taking a little summer vacation with some friends, and we are in San Jalo Steak Park, which is just outside of the little town of Hurricane, Utah. It's

Gorgeous. It's also 17 right now, crazy hot. But we've got our puppy and our Jeep. We're having so much fun, and I still wanted to record this podcast for you. So that is where I am at. All right. today, you guys, I want to talk to you about a question that I actually get asked quite frequently from people who are unhappy in their marriage. And maybe it's a question.

That you are asking yourself as well. And it's some variation of are we going through a hard season or is our marriage no longer working? If your marriage feels hard right now, that is exactly the right question that you should be asking. And people usually are asking me this question when they've been going through what feels like a hard season.

for a really long time and now they're starting to question their marriage. And I think that it's really important to understand the difference here because most people don't want to feel like they gave up too early. And then on the other hand, when things have been bad for a while and it doesn't seem to be turning around or improving, it begins to just kind of create this snowball effect where the unhappiness gets bigger.

you feel more stuck and it starts to negatively affect all the other parts of your life. and it starts to affect who you become, who who you think your your spouse is, and how you start behaving towards each other and then also towards other people. And so I do think that it is really important to understand the difference. So today what I want to do is I want to help you figure out

Kari Hoskins (02:25.131)
which one you might be in if you are questioning this. And how I'm going to do this is by sharing with you just a few different signs that can help you just kind of identify which situation you are in. Okay? So I want to start with a rough patch or we can call that a hard season. Every long term marriage goes through it. It's part of life, it's part of relationships. But what makes this question

difficult to answer is that a hard season is technically a season, which means that it is temporary. But when you're going through it, you usually don't know how long it's going to last. And if it continues to drag on, like I said before, that's when people start to question their relationship. So here are a couple of signs that have nothing to do with the timeline that should help you kind of figure out where you're at.

The first sign that you are going through a hard season is that it's usually connected to something specific. Maybe one of you has a lot of pressure or stress at work, or maybe you've lost your job. There could be credit card debt and you're feeling tons of money pressure. Maybe there's a health scare or a death in the family, a big move coming up, or one of your kids is going through something really, really hard and challenging right now.

Maybe your parents are getting older and you're overwhelmed trying to help them and everyone else. Maybe hormones. I'm just gonna leave that there. If you know, you know. Hormones. maybe you are just purely exhausted from your life and you're tired all of the time, or super overwhelmed in your life, or maybe you're just flat out bored. Okay. It doesn't really matter what the reason is. The point

Is that you can identify a reason of why things feel so hard right now. And that reason is usually coming from outside of the relationship. Okay. And I think this is important too. There is like some sense that if those circumstances were like to change or get resolved, or if you got the right help, or if you both just started showing up a little bit differently, your relationship could improve.

Kari Hoskins (04:47.123)
Or get back to normal, right? So there is that sense that if this outside pressure was relieved, we would be better. Another sign that you are in a hard season is that you still have some desire to figure it out and get through it, right? So you might be frustrated, you might be angry, or distant, but there isn't a big wall of resentment built up yet. Okay. So your conversations, they're tense.

But they're still possible. you might be arguing more, you might be snippy with each other more, you might say things that you wish you could take back, but you're not completely shut down yet. Okay, you're still trying to figure it out, even if it's messy. Thirdly, if you are having divorce fantasies, they are usually just like flashes through your mind. Quick sentences that just like run through your brain, things like.

My life would be so much easier if I lived alone. Or I just want one weekend where nobody needs anything from me. Those flashes come from or sorry, come in moments of stress. And again, they're temporary. And by the way, if you are having any type of divorce fantasy, we also call it like divorce ideation, that's totally normal. lots of people in healthy marriages have those from time to time.

Okay, because your brain is doing what brains are supposed to do when things get hard. It imagines an escape route. But you're not sitting down thinking through the actual logistics. You're not Googling divorce lawyers on your lunch break. It's a fantasy and it's more like a mental break than a mental plan. The key thing about identifying a rut a rough patch is this.

The problem feels connected to circumstances. So here is my question for you. Can you identify circumstances that you think are creating problems in your marriage right now? And the second question is: are you interested and have a desire to resolve them and get past it? If the answer is yes to those questions, you are very likely.

Kari Hoskins (07:11.361)
going through a rough patch or a hard time. And if that is the case, I do suggest that you get some help working through this part because if you don't get help now while you're in this rough patch, it could create bigger problems down the road for you. So I would definitely suggest that. Okay, now let's look at the other side. Let's talk about a marriage that has actually gone sideways.

One where you're questioning whether or not you want to stay married. Okay, I'm gonna call this a crossroads. And I call it a crossroads because it's not it's just not a decision that's easy for very many people to make and you really feel conflicted, right? So a crossroads feels different, and I want you to be able to recognize it so that you can make decisions about what type of help you might want.

or need. So the first thing that I notice when someone is truly at a crossroads is grief. It's feelings more than frustration, more than irritation. It's more than things are really hard right now and my spouse is driving me crazy. It's grief. Grief. There is a very deep, deep sadness about what the marriage has become. There's a sadness

Because things aren't turning out the way that you had imagined. Like all those years ago, when you got married, you did not imagine being where you are now, right? And some people describe it like grieving a person that is still right there sitting right next to them. That is the crossroads feeling. So a rough patch will often feel like stress, stress and frustration, and a crossroads.

feels more like a loss. The second marker or sign that your marriage has taken a bad turn is that you're holding on to things that have happened in the past that were never fully resolved or fixed. And here's the key it has changed the way that you see your husband or your wife. And it usually really is around the things that showed up early in the relationship.

Kari Hoskins (09:34.924)
That was never resolved. So maybe it was a moment when they didn't have your back. Maybe it's a pattern of dismissing your feelings or a pattern of disrespect. Maybe it's something that has happened that was minimized or shoved under the rug and never talked about at all. In a rough patch, those old wounds might still get brought up. Okay, they might still hurt, but they haven't completely changed.

The way that you see your spouse. At a crossroads, they have. And those unhealed wounds, I'm going to call them, have really started to shape and influence the lens that you see your spouse through now. Okay. So now you're not just reacting to what happened today. You're reacting to today plus five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years of moments.

That never really got repaired. And that changes your dynamic. Because at that point, the problem is no longer just the issue itself. It's what that issue has become to mean about yourself, I'm sorry, about your spouse, about yourself, about your marriage, and about whether or not you think things can actually be different. And it affects if you even want to try.

The third indication that your marriage has taken a bad turn is that your tolerance level is very, very low. Okay. So when you are at a crossroads, your tolerance for your spouse doing like normal people gets very, very, very low. Even like everything they do is either annoying or it's evidence, or maybe it's both.

Right? So they load the dishwasher the wrong way, even though you've asked them to do it a different way a million times. And not only are you annoyed, but now it's evidence that they don't listen to you and it's evidence that they don't care. You've asked them to text you something and they forget to text you back. Again, now you're annoyed and you're irritated, but it's evidence that you don't matter. Okay. They make a joke at dinner and it hits you wrong.

Kari Hoskins (11:56.93)
Because you are so far apart emotionally that even warm humor feels loaded. So it's not just that they're bugging you and irritating you and annoying you, it's that your brain is starting to build a case against them. And that constant cataloging, that scanning for what they're doing wrong is usually a sign that resentment has been building up for a long time and that your goodwill has evaporated.

The fourth indication is what happens when you try to talk. In a rough patch, conversations might be tense, but they still happen. At a crossroads, the important conversations usually have a very predictable pattern. They start, they escalate, someone gets defensive, someone criticizes, maybe contempt shows up. That biting, dismissive, disrespectful energy that goes way beyond anger.

And then one of you shuts down. Maybe somebody leaves a room, or maybe they stay in the room, but they emotionally leave. Okay. They emotionally disappear. And then nobody brings it back up because honestly, what the hell is the point? Nothing changes anyway, right? Does that loop sound familiar to you? Are you living in that loop? That is not just a communication problem, you guys. That is a sign that something underneath the surface of your relationship has been unaddressed.

For a very long time. And the last sign that you are at a crossroads is that how you are thinking about divorce. So in the rough patch, those divorce fantasies, like I said before, are quick. They're just like flashes of sentences running through your mind. At a crossroads, they become more specific. You're not just imagining relief, you're imagining logistics. Maybe you're researching logistics.

Who would stay in the house? Who would tell the kids? What would the money look like? You're wondering if you'd be lonely or if you'd feel free. You're wondering if you would feel regretful or if life on the other side might be better. Okay. So there is a big difference between a divorce fantasy and divorce research. One, your brain is like venting. The other one, your brain is preparing. And if you've crossed from one to the other,

Kari Hoskins (14:24.897)
That definitely deserves your attention. So here is what I want you to remember. A hard season is usually connected to circumstances. A truly tough a troubled marriage is usually connected to a much deeper shift. In a hard season, you may feel tired, frustrated, disconnected, or overwhelmed, but there is still some part of you.

That believes you're going to get through it and that wants to get through it. At a crossroads, something deeper has changed, has shifted. The unresolved problems and hurts have started to shape how you see your spouse, how you see yourself, how you see the marriage, and how you imagine your future. And those two circumstances require different responses. And the more honest you are about where you actually are.

The better chance you have at making a decision that feels right and that you can happily live with. So look, if today's episode definitely like stirred something up inside of you and really got you thinking, and you're sitting here wondering, well, shoot, I still don't know if I'm in a rough patch or if our marriage is in serious trouble. I invite you to take my free should we get a divorce quiz. It takes just a couple of minutes, you guys.

It is designed to help you get a more clear picture of where you actually are. Okay, you can find that at kahoskins.com and I will also put it in the show notes. Okay, my friends, I hope that you found this helpful. Please, if you could just take a moment and share this and also leave me a review, maybe even a comment, that would be awesome. Okay, that is what I have for you today. I am Kari Hoskins. This is the Divorce Decision Podcast, and I'll see you next time.