- Landis Bejar and Vasia Toxavidi are relationship therapists specializing in pre-wedding therapy.
- They told Business Insider the signs they see in engaged couples that suggest they might not last.
It might seem pessimistic to think about divorce while you're engaged, but plenty of married couples break up. And cracks can appear as early as the wedding planning stage, therapists told Business Insider.
Landis Bejar, a licensed therapist and founder of Aisle Talk, a New York-based therapy practice that specializes in the stresses of wedding planning, said that a wedding is a "microcosm for the rest of your marriage." How you solve issues during planning processes can be a good litmus test for how you deal with issues later on in your marriage, she said.
A strong marriage requires communication with and respect for the other person, and wedding planning can expose when these things are missing, Vasia Toxavidi, a relationship psychotherapist in London, said.
Bejar and Toxavidi shared the red flags they see during wedding planning that suggest that a couple's marriage might end in divorce.
Prioritizing details of the wedding over the marriage that it represents
Bejar said that she gets concerned for the outlook of an upcoming marriage when people get caught up in the details and what a wedding "should" look like, and can't bring themselves back to the reason for the celebration.
"It's OK to get swept up in organizing a wedding," she said, "but it's important to not prioritize the wedding over the marriage."
Toxavidi said that couples should remember that they're getting married because they want to be together for life, and so details such as the extravagance of the wedding party or the number of guests don't matter as much as the commitment they're making on that day.
Not being able to compromise
"Some people dream of their wedding day," Toxavidi said, and have a specific image of what they want it to look like. But, there are two people getting married, so the wedding needs to suit them both and one partner shouldn't feel pushed out of decision making.
Bejar said that "there's got to be some give and take and some compromise. When there's no compromise, that's a red flag for how the rest of the marriage will be."
Spending outside of your means
A couple's attitude towards the wedding budget and how it fits into their long-term finances can be a warning sign that the marriage might not work out, Bejar said.
"If you're going way over your personal budget, you're not in touch with what your specific spending capabilities are, or if you're going into debt taking out wedding loans, that is concerning," she said. "Getting caught up in optics or trying to impress people means you've lost sight of what is important."
You get a wedding for a day and — hopefully — a marriage for a lifetime, she said. But if you prioritize the wedding over the long-term parts of your marriage, like finances and the health of your relationship, that could be a problem.
Only one person is invested in the wedding
Having one partner take the reins in wedding planning can work if both parties are genuinely happy with that set-up. But if one partner feels alone in wedding planning, that can be a red flag, Toxavidi said.
Weddings that are planned by one partner, when the other partner has the capability but chooses not to make the effort, can be a predictor of divorce, because they suggest that one partner is more invested in the marriage.
Prioritizing family over the partner
"Only ever prioritizing your family of origin rather than the partner that you're about to marry is not a good sign," Bejar said.
Again, the wedding is about the joining together of partners, Toxavidi said, and so it's important to "protect the couplehood," and not "bend over backwards" trying to please family members.
Couples shouldn't let other people influence wedding planning too much, because it could lead to a precedent being set where external influences have more power in the relationship than they should in the future, Toxavidi said.