How Marriages Break (Part 2: Passive Abandonment)

The Danger of Drift

Not every marriage that ends, ends with a headline or a scandal. Many end quietly, gradually, and almost invisibly. Often through neglect. There’s no screaming, no affair, no legal separation. The vows remain, the rings stay on, and from the outside, the marriage still looks intact. But the covenant has been silently abandoned.

In the workplace and professional circles when an employee performs the bare minimum required for their job, but no more, without actually leaving the company, it’s called the quiet quit. When it comes to marriage, that's what I call passive abandonment: the slow and subtle unraveling of a relationship when one or both spouses stop investing in it.

It’s not dramatic like infidelity or abuse, but it’s just as destructive. The fire doesn’t go out from a storm, it just dies because no one tends the flame.

Passive abandonment happens when spouses stop pursuing one another. When busyness replaces intentionality. When the TV or phone gets more attention than conversation. When “I love you” becomes routine instead of relational.

It’s the kind of decay that creeps in quietly over time until one day you wake up and realize: we’re not close anymore.

Chronic Neglect

Marriage, like any living thing, needs care. A garden left untended doesn’t die overnight (except in a Louisiana summer), but over time weeds choke out what was once healthy and beautiful. Gardening isn’t my strong suit, but even I can attest that neglect kills.

Neglect can take many forms. Sometimes it’s refusing to listen. Sometimes it’s prioritizing work, hobbies, children, or even ministry over your spouse. Sometimes it’s the slow withdrawal of emotional connection. Making less eye contact. Sharing less laughter. Creating fewer shared experiences.

At first, neglect feels small and hardly noticeable. You assume it’s just a busy season. You assume you’ll reconnect later. But small neglects compound… FAST! One missed conversation becomes a week of silence. One busy season becomes a regular lifestyle.

Neglect doesn’t scream; it whispers. But its whisper has devastating power.

The Subtle Signs of Neglect

Here are a few early warning signs of chronic neglect:

·       You talk about logistics more than life.

·       Your spouse’s emotional world feels like a mystery.

·       You stop asking questions because you already assume the answers.

·       You spend more time looking at screens than faces.

·       You feel more like business partners than best friends.

Over time, those subtle signs add up. The marriage becomes functional but you know it’s not flourishing. It feels like a house that’s clean and organized but somehow the atmosphere cold and sterile.

Why Neglect Hurts So Deeply

Neglect communicates something powerful: you’re not my priority anymore.

Even if that’s not what you mean, that’s what your spouse feels. Neglect says, I see other things as more important than you. And that emotional message lands like a bruise, again and again, until intimacy withers.

Hebrews 10:24–25 reminds us to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” Love must be stirred, nurtured, and maintained. It’s not automatic.

If you want to protect your marriage from passive abandonment, it starts by recognizing that love left alone will eventually grow cold. Dr. Mark Crosby often says, “Marriage doesn’t work unless it’s in first place.” Your relationship with your spouse is sacred and should never come second.

Emotional Absence

In a similar but different way, sometimes a spouse is physically present but emotionally absent. The body is there, but the heart and mind have checked out. There is no connection to the person you once loved.

It’s possible to share a bed and still feel utterly alone. To sit across from one another at dinner and have nothing to say. To live under the same roof and yet feel miles apart.

Proverbs 18:14 says, “A crushed spirit who can bear?” Emotional absence crushes the spirit of marriage and it can be devastating. Emotional absence often elicits feelings of confusion, insecurity, and inadequacy.

What Emotional Absence Looks Like

It’s not always malicious. Often it’s unintentional, born out of exhaustion, distraction, or unresolved conflict. But emotional absence communicates distance all the same.

It looks like:

·       Offering quick answers but no empathy.

·       Being present for chores but absent for conversation.

·       Numbing out with entertainment instead of engaging in connection.

·       Shutting down in conflict rather than leaning in.

Marriage was designed for emotional intimacy, for truly knowing and being known. When that is missing, even good marriages begin to feel hollow. The plan for marriage cannot be abandoned without losing the pleasure it is designed to bring.

The Ache of Loneliness

One of the most painful realities in marriage someone can experience is loneliness within marriage. It’s one thing to be lonely when you’re single. It’s another to be lonely while lying beside someone every night.

That kind of loneliness doesn’t come from isolation, it comes from disconnection. It’s the ache of being unseen and unheard by the person who once knew you best.

Emotional absence is dangerous because it quietly starves the marriage of oxygen. Without emotional connection, communication becomes transactional, affection fades, and friendship erodes. It is the death knell of a marriage if left unaddressed.

Reclaiming Emotional Presence

If emotional absence is present in your marriage, take heart, healing is possible. It begins with intentional presence.

• Slow down to listen. Don’t just hear your spouse’s words; care about what’s behind them.

• Show curiosity again. Ask questions about their thoughts, feelings, and dreams.

• Share honestly. Vulnerability begets vulnerability. When one spouse opens up, it invites the other to do the same.

• Pray together. Nothing rebuilds emotional closeness like shared prayer.

Emotional intimacy doesn’t return in one conversation. It grows in small, consistent acts of attention. Over time.

Choosing Self Over Spouse

Philippians 2:4 gives one of the simplest yet hardest commands in marriage: “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”

When selfishness rules, covenant love erodes.

Passive abandonment often doesn’t begin with outright rebellion, but with a slow, self-centered drift. One spouse starts thinking, I deserve more attention. I’ve worked hard. I need my own time. They should be serving me.

Over time, that inward focus replaces the “we” with “me.” The marriage stops functioning as a partnership and becomes a competition for whose needs matter more. When your language shifts to singular, pay attention. My house. My life. My bed. Pay attention to the red flag and shift the framework. Corporate language builds connection.

The Subtle Face of Selfishness

Selfishness in marriage doesn’t always look like arrogance or dominance. It often looks like subtle entitlement.

It sounds like:

·       “I shouldn’t have to change.”

·       “I’ve done enough already.”

·       “The way I do it is the right way.”

·       “My needs aren’t being met.”

Of course, healthy marriages involve mutual care and communication of needs. But when personal satisfaction becomes the highest goal, covenant love loses its footing.

Covenant means sacrifice. It means mutual submission (Ephesians 5:21). It means seeing your spouse’s needs as sacred, not secondary. It’s not 50/50. It’s each spouse giving 100% and seeking to love the other well.

When “Self” Takes Over

I once met a couple in counseling who hadn’t had a major fight in years, but they weren’t connected. Over time, both had quietly begun living separate emotional lives. They each began to build small kingdoms of personal comfort with their separate hobbies, routines, friend groups, all without realizing they were building walls around themselves, and keeping the other out.

Their problem wasn’t hostility; it was indifference. Neither was intentionally cruel. They were just no longer giving their best energy to one another. Their marriage wasn’t in first place.

That’s the subtle tragedy of self-centered living: it doesn’t destroy with one blow. It slowly drains vitality until love feels like obligation.

The Call Back to Service

Jesus modeled covenant love in John 13 when He washed His disciples’ feet. He didn’t feel like serving; He chose to serve.

When we return to service through small daily acts of care, gratitude, and humility, we push back against passive abandonment. You can’t drift and serve at the same time. Service reorients your heart from self toward the other. It reminds you that love is not about comfort but commitment.

Why Is Passive Abandonment So Dangerous?

Passive abandonment is dangerous precisely because it often goes unnoticed until it’s too late.

Couples rarely wake up one morning and say, “We’ve grown apart.” Instead, it happens through a thousand small choices to disengage, to stay silent, to scroll instead of speak, to tolerate emotional distance rather than fight for connection. It is the slow drift.

By the time they realize how far they’ve drifted, the emotional current has already carried them downstream and there is very little left.

The “Roommate Marriage”

Many couples describe this season by saying, “We’re just roommates now.” They share space but not spirit. They cooperate but don’t connect. They handle logistics but not love. And while they haven’t violated their vows through scandal, they’ve abandoned them in practice.

God never designed marriage to be endured—it was meant to be enjoyed, nurtured, and guarded.

Passive abandonment is the slow erosion that eventually opens the door for active violation. Affairs, addictions, and divorces often begin in seasons of drift. When the emotional bond weakens, the heart starts looking elsewhere for affirmation.

That’s why Scripture urges us to guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:23). Because when connection fades, temptation finds room to grow.

God’s Call to Reengage When Marriages Break

The beauty of God’s design is that even when love grows cold, it can be rekindled. Covenant is not just about staying, it’s about returning. Passive abandonment can be reversed by God’s grace. Renewal doesn’t begin with a grand gesture, but with small, consistent choices to reengage.

1. Choose Presence Over Absence

Presence heals. Choose to be fully where you are.

That may mean putting away your phone during dinner, saying no to a few commitments, or looking your spouse in the eyes and asking, “How are you, really?”

Presence says, You matter more than my distractions.

2. Invest in Small Acts of Love

Grand romantic gestures are great, but it’s the small daily investments that sustain covenant love:

·       A kind text during the day.

·       Holding hands on the couch.

·       Saying “thank you” for ordinary things.

·       Doing something thoughtful with no expectation in return.

These may seem small, but they’re sacred. Small acts of love are the daily maintenance of marriage.

3. Rebuild Spiritual Intimacy

Spiritual connection is the deepest glue of marriage. Pray together. Read Scripture together. Worship together.

When a couple reconnects spiritually, emotional and physical intimacy often follow. The heart softens when it encounters the presence of God.

Ecclesiastes 4:12 reminds us: “A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” That third strand—God Himself—is what gives a covenant marriage strength to endure.

4. Speak Life, Not Criticism

Passive abandonment thrives in an atmosphere of silence or sarcasm. But marriages come alive when words of affirmation return.

Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” Speak life. Encourage your spouse. Express appreciation. Compliment their character, not just their performance.

A word of kindness can thaw years of coldness.

A Word of Hope

If you realize your marriage has drifted, don’t lose heart. Drift can be reversed. Neglect can be redeemed. God is in the business of breathing life into dry bones. Ezekiel 37 reminds us that what looks lifeless can live again when the breath of God enters it.

Invite God back into your marriage. Ask Him to renew your love, rekindle your pursuit, and restore what’s been neglected.

You don’t need to have a perfect marriage to have a powerful one. You just need a posture of humility and a willingness to begin again.

One conversation, one prayer, one small act of kindness at a time.

Don’t Drift

When most marriages break, they don’t explode, they drift.

They drift through neglect, through busyness, through complacency, through unspoken disappointment. But covenant love was never meant to drift. It was meant to be anchored. Guard against neglect. Fight selfishness. Choose to reengage every day.

Covenant doesn’t demand perfection, it does require participation. It calls you to keep showing up. So don’t wait for feelings to return before you act in love. Act in love first, and feelings often follow.

Reignite pursuit. Rebuild connection. Remember the God who never drifts from you.

And when you do, you’ll find that the same grace that sustains your faith can also restore your marriage.