Don't be caught of guard

Despite divorce being so common, many couples are caught off guard when it actually happens to them. They believe that if they just begin to love one another again, everything will turn out fine. This myth, however, lulls them into missing the warning signs that suggest that their marriage is in trouble.  Here are 10 ways to tell if your marriage is over:

1. Sex is consistently boring and a task. A satisfying sex life is vital to health and happiness. A long-term frustration of this basic human need can signal the end of a marriage.

2. There are many problems and only a few solutions. The incapability to negotiate and find workable solutions to common relationship issues turns partners into bitter rivals.

3. Character slaying happens in your marriage. Name-calling, foul language, condescending put-downs, and personal attacks aimed at embarrassing and hurting a spouse are a sure path to divorce.

4. You're angry all the time. Accumulated anger kills love! If you and your spouse don't know how to handle anger and it piles up like a mountain in your relationship, divorce is inevitable.

5. One of you cheats. With a lot of professional help, most marriages survive can when a partner cheats once. Repeated affairs cause so much pain divorce is usually sought after relief.

6. There is selfishness within your marriage. Marriage is a give and take relationship and it's about making your partner's needs a top priority. Self-centered husbands or wives have partners who feel ignored and neglected will eventually want out at all costs.

7. One or both of you always needs to be right. When your partner's always right and you're always wrong, it feels suffocating. When you do not have a voice that's heard and appreciated marriage turns into a dictatorship. Divorce provides you that desirable freedom that you do not receive from your spouse.

8. It's not in the kiss anymore. When you would rather have sex than passionately kiss, your marriage is in deep trouble.

9. The conversations are over. The best way to have a happy marriage is to talk your way through it. This means sharing thoughts and feelings so that you're emotionally in sync. Without this bond, marriage is an empty and lonely place where partners want to leave.

10. There is too little or too much money. When both partners need to work and one earns significantly more than the other, especially if it's the wife, control issues can sabotage the marriage.  However too much extra cash, when partners are not careful, can fuel a party on lifestyle that invites temptations that cause damage to a marriage as well as the lasting values that remind us of what's really important in life.