Married, but Lonely
Editor’s Note: This article addresses struggles and tensions that can arise, even in otherwise "healthy" marriages. Its encouragements are best read with discernment and consideration of your unique situation. If abuse (physical, emotional, or sexual) or other illegal or illicit behavior is occurring in your marriage, please tell someone and reach out for counsel and/or professional intervention. For resources and information related to struggles in marriage and crisis situations, please check out our Suffering & Loss Resources and Moms in Crisis pages.
Sometimes I feel lonely.
There, I said it. Honestly, it’s a little embarrassing to admit. It takes me back to the uncomfortable feelings I had in junior high and high school (okay—college, too) when I didn’t have anyone to sit with in the cafeteria.
Of course, for those of us who are married, admitting that we feel lonely can be especially uncomfortable. We want to believe that if we’re married to a good man and have a good marriage, then we shouldn’t ever feel lonely. But is that true? Are feelings or seasons of loneliness a sign that something is wrong in our marriage, or evidence that our spouse is somehow failing us?
I don’t think so.
What Do You Expect?
In exploring the loneliness we feel, perhaps the first thing we must do is evaluate our expectations for what we think our lives should be like. We tend to think that we should be happy, satisfied, and fulfilled, and that something must be wrong—or somebody must be doing something wrong—if we feel bored, dissatisfied, discontent, or lonely. And in a sense that is true; something has gone terribly wrong in the world. There was a time when everything was right, when the relationship between the first man and woman was perfectly intimate. But when Adam and Eve sinned, their relationship went from one flesh to fractured. And ever since then, every life and marriage has been touched by the impact of sin.
It is good for us to understand and process this reality because doing so has the power to save us from the unrealistic expectation that our life and marriage is going to be immune from this. We want to believe that if we just have the right attitude and do the right things (and if our spouse has the right attitude and does the right things), then a life of ongoing comfort, uninterrupted satisfaction, and unfettered intimacy is attainable and maintainable. But embracing the reality that loneliness and relational discord is inherent to life in this world and marriage in this world helps us to adjust our expectations.
What Do You Expect of Your Husband?
We also need to check the expectations we have of our husbands. One reason we get married in the first place is so that we won’t be alone. Our hope and anticipation is that his affection and companionship will protect us from loneliness, or at least minimize it. So when feelings of disappointment and dissatisfaction begin to bubble up, we most naturally want to point a finger of blame toward the person who was supposed to save us from these uncomfortable feelings. We tend to think that if our husbands were more attentive to our emotional needs; more interested in our issues; more willing to talk about our topics; more available to us physically, emotionally, and relationally, then we wouldn’t be lonely. If our husbands were less interested in sports, less engaged with screens, less consumed with work, then we wouldn’t feel so lonely. But is that really true? Certainly it is difficult when our husbands are disconnected and distant. And certainly we want our marriages to grow in intimacy and enjoyment of each other, but sometimes we expect our husbands to supply a level of satisfaction in our lives that they were never meant to provide.
In John 4 we read the story of the woman in Samaria who went to the well in the middle of the day. At the well that day Jesus told her that he could provide her with living water that would quench the inner thirst all her past relationships had been unable to satisfy. This woman’s life had been one long series of disappointing relationships—five wedding days followed by five divorces. Maybe her five husbands had all been bad men who simply used her and then abandoned her. Or maybe one or more of them had been good men who just couldn’t provide her with the fulfillment she expected from them. Perhaps her demands became unbearable to them. No husband can be expected to quench his wife’s thirst for living water. No human relationship can bear the weight of our expectations of complete satisfaction, perfect harmony, and intimacy that only our ultimate and eternal bridegroom can provide.
Loneliness: A Problem to Be Solved?
We tend to see our loneliness as a problem that needs to be solved. But perhaps God is allowing us to experience it for a purpose. Perhaps God intends to use it to woo us to himself. We sometimes think that connection with people—especially that one particular person we’re connected to for life—is what we need most. Somehow we see connection with God as something wholly separate from connection with others, something relegated to the religious realm, or something optional for when we’re in the mood or in a crisis.
But we are kidding ourselves if we think that a finite human being can meet all of our needs for connection. No matter how close our husbands are to us, no matter how kind and consistent they are, their efforts will never be enough. We will always have a need to be intimately connected to our Creator, the lover of our souls, the only one who will ever know us completely and love us perfectly and unendingly. And perhaps loneliness is something God intends to use to get us thinking and moving in his direction. In our loneliness we can hear the whisper of God himself, calling us to himself.
