Ron Edmondson advises married couples on how to protect their marriage from five major influences that often cause marriage failure.

I believe preparation is the best prevention for marriage failure. If a couple knows the natural struggles most marriages experience, they are less likely to throw in the towel when they encounter these problems and will hopefully be more willing to get help. I decided to take that a step further and share, from my experience, a list of the leading causes of marriage failure. You will see a similar theme here. What keeps us from having great marriages is also often what leads to marriage failure.

The leading causes of marriage failure (in my experience) are:

Boredom – Couples stop dreaming, learning, and exploring. Often the busyness of life distracts them from simply having fun together.

Communication – Not understanding the difference in men and women and the different ways each communicate causes huge wedges in a marriage relationship.

Money – The pursuit for more often drives couples to stress out over money, or the lack thereof. (This is also a major cause of arguments.)

Other people – Whether it is friends, in-laws or even children, couples often allow other people to come between them.

Tragedy – It is difficult for the best marriages to recover from a tragedy, but especially marriages that are already experiencing difficulties.

There are certainly other reasons marriages fail; but when the trail of the marriage that is breaking apart is traced, it will many times lead back to one of these major causes.

If you sense your marriage is in jeopardy or if one of these issues is currently bringing stress into your marriage, do not wait until one spouse is ready to quit to do something about it. Get help now. Protect your marriage.