Marriage Counselor, Therapist, and Life Coach in Voorhees Township NJ, Marlton NJ, and Cherry Hill NJ (856) 352-5428 Contact New Jersey Therapy and Life Coaching (NJTLC.com)
Lonely in My Marriage. It Doesn’t Seem Possible
Feeling lonely in a relationship isn’t unique. Over time, your marriage and relationship can “drift” as you both change and grow. Suddenly, you wake up and realize that the marriage you’re in is not the one you dreamed of. What happened to us? There are really 2 questions to ask: how is it possible for me to feel so alone in my relationship, and do I want to stay in this relationship?
Emotional Connection
Underneath it all is a problem with emotional connection and sometimes respect between partners. You can see your spouse every day and feel like you aren’t being seen. You may feel that your partner doesn’t really care about you or the health of the relationship. Does your partner understand, or even know, what is going on inside of you, or what your life is like? Being taken for granted causes great loneliness, and it can be hard to fix.
Most marriages don’t suddenly break, although infidelity can cause it to do so. Yesterday I met with a woman who described her guilt at having divorced her husband because he had an affair. “If I went back,” she said, “I could put the family back together.” But she no longer wanted to be sexual with her husband, and said she wanted a full marriage, not just a roommate. She felt totally alone. The affair was years in the past, and she’d been “sticking it out” for her children. It was time to go.
I also hear couples talk about how everything changed soon after they had children. Romance, emotional and sexual, waned, and life became about whose driving whom to what after-school activity. Patterns set in, and life can become dull. “When’s the last time you were on a date with your wife?” I was asked by a client last night. Yeesh. I immediately planned a vacation for us to go to Florida. It is so easy to take your partner for granted. But most often, grand gestures like this aren’t what your partner is looking for. It’s the everyday connection that counts.
One partner can try to reach out to the other, but without success, until finally the reaching stops because there is just no point anymore. Loneliness is the result. The relationship can drift for years. Some people stay in the marriage, and some people divorce. It can be fixed in marriage counseling, and our hope is that you come to us before reaching out to your partner has stopped completely.
Self-protection can begin to form. You may feel it necessary, but it does trap you in loneliness. But if arguments keep coming up or passive-aggressive behavior, it makes sense that you’d start holding back and protecting yourself. People don’t usually shut down randomly. They adapt. But the more you protect yourself by sharing less, the more isolated you become. It turns into a loop: I tried → they didn’t respond → I stop trying → and you and your partner grow further apart.
It is important to look at whether you are communicating clearly with your partner about what you need. I recently worked with a couple in which she didn’t feel he really cared unless his actions came naturally. That she shouldn’t have to communicate them. This is a mistake. You can start your own passive-aggressive pathway. All of this leads to loneliness. Reflect on and recognize what you are doing that contributes to the problem. Indirect communication almost always gets missed or misinterpreted. So the loneliness deepens, not because your partner doesn’t care, but because they don’t understand what you want.
Be concrete about what you want. What does connection actually look like for you? “More effort” doesn’t mean anything. Specifics do. We suggest setting aside a few nights a week to be without your phones and other technology. You may want to share something personal each day instead of just going through the “robotics” of each day’s logistics. We recommend setting aside at least 30 minutes once a week to sit together and talk about feelings. And needs. And what changes will make things better? Start with 10 minutes, then work your way up to 30.
Connection isn’t one-sided. You might not be the only one in your relationship who feels alone. If one of you begins opening up and the other responds by fixing, dismissing, or tuning out, nothing will change. One of the most effective changes you can make is to reflect and be mindful of what you say to your partner before reacting to situations between you. Try letting your partner feel understood before trying to fix them. Most people aren’t actually looking for solutions—they’re looking to feel seen and heard.
Make sure you look at your relationship fully. Life can fill in whatever space you aren’t mindful of. Work, kids, stress, social media—they will take over if you let them. Make intentional space for your connection. Clients often say that small, intentional, loving gestures mean much more than the grand ones. Consistently taking time to talk, an intentional time set aside to connect, can rebuild things over time.
But sometimes, despite your best efforts, things don’t change. When that happens, it’s not necessarily a sign that your connection is broken beyond repair—it can be a sign that you’re too close to the pattern to see it clearly. We, of course, recommend coming in for marriage counseling when this happens. Don’t wait to come for help until it’s too late.
Feeling lonely in a relationship hurts, but it’s not meaningless. It’s usually pointing to something important—a need for connection that’s been lost. When you take that signal seriously rather than ignoring it or working around it, it can become the starting point for a different kind of relationship. One that feels less like coexistence and more like a real connection.