What to do if you are alone together

Maria and Vlad have been together for about ten years. Common life, two children, a dog. Sometimes family dinners on weekdays or breakfasts on weekends, trips to visit. It would seem that “everything is like everyone else”, but Maria has been living with a “hole in her soul” for several years, which was formed from a lack of communication with her husband, from a lack of understanding why they are still together (except perhaps because of children and habit, home comfort and common property).

Once they were so good, interesting together. They could talk when it was long after midnight. Called during the day to ask how things were going. Or texting just to say nice things to each other.

Then a daughter was born. Maria went into raising a child, and Vlad worked hard to provide a good income for the family. Two and a half years later, a son was born, worries increased, and everything revolved mainly around children, finances and domestic issues. Maria was tired with the children, and Vlad was at work. Each wanted the other to understand how tired he was. And they tried to talk about it to each other in the form of complaints. Nobody wanted to hear the other. And the couple began to move away.

HOW LONELY TOGETHER APPEARS

Many couples experience this. This happens when people cease to be interested in each other, do not have the opportunity to be heard, feel significant and generally visible to each other, fall into a chronic situation of misunderstanding. Often in couples where it is not customary to speak heart to heart and share what is experienced inside, alienation occurs. So it turns out that the family exists formally, people just live nearby, but they experience emotional loneliness and do not feel real closeness.

Everyone wants to be heard and understood, but does not want to hear and understand the other

Loneliness together is when people live together, but mentally stop meeting. Each in their own interests, goals and plans. Common topics of conversation disappear, it becomes boring together, partners stop reaching out to each other, indifference may appear. A couple may not have common friends, interests and plans, each “boils in its own juice.” And one of the partners or both feel a certain bitterness of hopelessness, but at the same time they do not dare to break off the relationship. Sometimes this can lead to depression.

WHY DOES LONELY APPEAR TOGETHER?

Valentina is 28, she has been married for two years. Before the wedding, they met for about a year and a half, but did not live together. The relationship was full of romance, pleasant moments, diversity. They were always interested in spending time together, they were strongly attracted to each other. After the wedding, something began to change, a routine appeared. Valentina no longer felt such a spark from her husband as before. He began to pay less attention to her. It turned out that sometimes he wanted to spend time with friends. This offended Valentina, she began to feel lonely.

Emotional deficits and high expectations

One of the reasons for loneliness together can be high expectations that the partner will be the whole “universe”, will always be there, will always be the way you want. Often these expectations come from scarcity, a state of emotional hunger. And then a person will always miss something. In such situations, as a rule, people find it difficult to bear that a partner can have his own affairs, interests, activities. They want to “own” it completely. But this, of course, does not work out, and they feel lonely.

It is important to realize and learn to accept that another person has his own needs, desires, he needs personal space and his own separate life.

It is worth thinking about how much a partner suffering from loneliness has his own separate life, whether he has interests, his own goals in life. What, besides relationships, are his days filled with?

Hope for an Eternal Honeymoon

Another common cause of loneliness can be the illusion that the relationship will always be as passionate, sparkling, and exciting as it was at first. The fact is that relationships have stages of development. And love, which is just characterized by active courtship, burning eyes and passion, passes. It is replaced, if the couple manages to move to the next stage, a deeper and stronger connection comes. At the same time, partners cease to idealize each other and no longer try to show themselves in the best possible way.

The problem of transition to this stage is in the feeling of one of the partners that the love of the second has passed. He yearns for past relationships and feels lonely

Reluctance to open up and hear the other

But still, both of these reasons, which speak of individual difficulties and developmental tasks, are only one side of the issue. The other has absolutely justified causes. And it is connected with the situation when one partner is closed from the other, does not want to listen and hear him, solve problems, understand. When he wants to live only his own life, regardless of a loved one. Relationships come to a standstill. Often in this case, people live together, but become strangers. One or both of the partners may suffer greatly. But at the same time, they do not dare to end the relationship because of children, fear of loneliness, fear of losing status or losing the material stability that they feel in the family … By the way, arranged marriages also often lead to such loneliness.  

Loneliness together can “nap” for a long time. But one day, when, for example, the children grow up and fly out of the family nest, the parents are left alone. And suddenly they discover that in addition to children and family responsibilities, they have long ceased to be connected by something. There were no common themes, interest in each other faded.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU START TO FEEL LONELY TOGETHER

• It’s always good to start with yourself. Analyze what is the reason behind the emerging feeling of loneliness. And it is not useful to shift all the responsibility for what is happening to the partner. It is important to share it and be aware of your part of the “contribution” to the problem. 

• It is very important to openly talk about problems with a partner, while not choosing the form of claims.so as not to push him away. It is useful to talk about your feelings and experiences, urging you to pay attention to what is happening in the relationship now, and unite together against the problem, and not against each other.

• It is worth remembering what united you, pleased, and try to bring it back to life.

• You can see a family therapistif you can not get out of this difficult situation on your own.

Relationships require work – both for each person on themselves, and for both, for the happiness of the couple. Relationships require fuel, they must be maintained, carefully monitored so that they do not fade away, and taken care of. But, unfortunately, they are not always saved. Sometimes relationships die. And then it is important to honestly look at them and make the necessary decisions.