Are You Stuck in a Lonely Marriage?
Lonely marriages have been brought into the spotlight by the COVID-19 lockdown as more and more partners stay together in close quarters, managing home chores, work, and children all at the same time.
Issues swept under the rug, unresolved hurt, and old injuries are resurfacing during this time of having to rely solely on your partner for appreciation, love, care, and more.
Divorce applications and breakups have skyrocketed around the world. A US legal contract creation site announced a 34% increase in sales of its basic divorce agreement, while in the UK, a leading British law firm Stewarts announced a 122% increase in divorce inquiries between July and October of 2020 when compared with the same period in 2019.
Here in Canada, Shulman & Partners LLP experienced a 40% increase in divorce inquiries since the pandemic began. It seems like we have lost our way to repairing or bonding our relationships.
What Does a Lonely Marriage Look Like?
A lonely marriage or relationship can be devastating because most of us get into relationships to feel happy, understood, and cared for. And to have chemistry like no other.
You may be in a lonely marriage if your answer is yes to the following questions:
Do you lie in bed and feel like your partner is no longer interested in you?
Do you feel like your feelings don’t matter to your partner anymore?
Do you feel like you are unlovable?
Do you yearn for a closeness that seems to be slipping away from you?
Are your fears of not being good enough overwhelming you?
Are you are sinking further into disconnection and can’t seem to get out of quicksand soon enough?
Does your relationship feel dead to you?
Do you feel like you and your partner have become complacent?
Are you often feeling like you and your partner are just roommates?
Do you feel like your intimacy and sex are not authentic or exciting anymore?
Do you simply go through the motions of your daily routine without feeling the love you once shared?
Why You Might Feel You Are in a Lonely Marriage
As marriages stand the test of time, they can change and evolve in many ways. Partners may start to feel lonely due to a myriad of reasons unique to the couple.
If you have unresolved issues or old fights that you’ve backed down from without a satisfying resolution, you may feel lonely because your needs are not being heard or respected by your partner.
Sometimes, you hold onto complacent relationships out of fear. Fear of everything blowing up if you demand an answer and response. You accept that you’re not worthy of a happier marriage. You accept that this is the best relationship you can have and that there is no way to repair your lonely relationship.
We hope things will go back to the way it was soon enough. We hope that everything will magically fall into place and communication in our relationships will improve if we just hold on.
Just holding on won’t solve anything. You have a choice. You can do something here.
How to Rebuild a Relationship From a Lonely Marriage
We all need unconditional love, regardless of how much we try to deny it. Love is our prime need for lasting connections and belonging.
But love is not a fairytale. Every marriage and relationship needs work. A lot of hard, painstaking work.
As Dr. Sue Johnson says, love is the creation of a “secure and safe haven.”
Here’s what you can do to create the love that you want.
Repair your personal hurt and trauma — When you have old hurt and trauma festering in you, regardless of whether it’s related to your relationship or not, you may tend to view your relationship through a charred glass of disappointment.
Communicate more effectively without falling into old hurtful patterns — We have different communication styles and ways of interpreting the world. Sometimes, we need to change our communication styles to communicate with our partners effectively. It’s also important to keep hurtful comments from resurfacing and creating more damage to our relationship. Communication for couples is a key skill to master in any relationship.
Create love rituals to keep your love alive, refreshed, and rejuvenated — Love is a living, breathing thing that needs ongoing attention. How are you keeping your love alive? What new experiences are you trying out together?
Our relationships will give us what we put in.
We all need someone who accepts us with all our flaws, no matter how different we are. We want to know that our love can conquer anything that comes our way, including COVID-19.
This is why investing in your relationship is important now.
If you’re looking for more information on couples therapy and want to know how therapy for couples can improve your lonely marriage, address complacency in relationships, and improve relationship communication, feel free to book a free consultation to see how Connecting Families can help.
