When You Realize You’re Lost in Your Marriage

Having a sense of direction has never been one of my strengths. I’ve learned to compensate by paying attention to landmarks, the position of the sun, and other clues to help orient myself. But there was a moment when I was about seventeen that really drove this lesson home.

I had gone with a friend to pick up my car after a repair in an unfamiliar part of town. She dropped me off, and we both headed back toward our homes. Somewhere after a stoplight, I lost her. I turned east when I should have gone west.

Now, for context, this was around 1987. No cell phones. No navigation systems. I didn’t even have a digital clock in the car, so once the sun set, I had no real sense of time either.

I drove for a long while in the wrong direction, convinced I would eventually figure it out. I was absolutely the kind of person who did not pull over to ask for directions. I just kept going, telling myself it would make sense soon.

It took nearly an hour before I finally gave in and stopped at a gas station to ask to use the phone so I could call home.

The hardest part wasn’t being lost. It was hearing that I was an hour away from where I thought I was.

That moment landed hard. Not just because I was far from home, but because I realized how long I had ignored the quiet voice in my head saying, “I don’t think this is right.” I kept doing something that was taking me farther and farther off course, hoping clarity would eventually appear on its own.

Nobody likes being lost.

And the most important thing to do when you realize you’re lost is to figure out where you actually are.

This is exactly what it’s like when someone comes to the realization that their marriage isn’t where they want it to be. It feels disorienting. Unsettling. Sometimes even shocking. And one of the most important first steps toward getting back on track is getting honest about how far off course things have gone, how long it’s been happening, and where the wrong turns started.

This can be difficult because many people are attached to the very behaviors that led them off course in the first place.

When we feel threatened, misunderstood, or overwhelmed, we reach for coping strategies that once helped us survive. Arguing. Defending. Criticizing. People-pleasing. Walking on eggshells. Avoiding. Shutting down. You could probably add a few of your own to that list.

These behaviors are familiar, and familiarity can feel safer than change. But they are also exactly what pulls a marriage farther away from connection.

Every disagreement presents a choice. You can respond in a way that moves the relationship toward repair and understanding, or in a way that protects you in the moment but costs you connection over time. Each ineffective response is like another wrong turn. Each moment without repair is like continuing to drive in the wrong direction.

When this becomes a pattern, it’s easy to see how a marriage can end up feeling distant and disconnected, with both partners wondering how things got so far from where they started.

Often, people end up divorcing over something that looks small on the surface. Someone came home late without calling or apologizing. Again.

But when that moment is part of a long-standing pattern, it isn’t small at all. It’s more like a death by a thousand cuts. Each unrepaired moment slowly drains the relationship of trust, safety, and goodwill until one more cut feels unbearable.

Getting lost in a marriage doesn’t happen all at once. It happens gradually, one unexamined choice at a time.

And the way back doesn’t start with blame or panic. It starts with orientation. With honesty. With a willingness to stop, look around, and say, “This isn’t where I want us to be. Let’s figure out how we got here.”

That moment of clarity is not failure.

It’s the beginning of finding your way home.