Loneliness in Relationships: When Being With Someone Isn't Enough
Genuine connections are not a luxury; they are a necessity.
It’s easy to blame smartphones. I sit in my cafe sneaking peeks at all the couples, young and old, sprinkled across the room. Inevitably, they have their phones out. Heads bowed. Sipping coffee. Munching on eggs bennie. Occasionally, they glance across to their companion. Maybe laugh and turn their phone screen to show the other something that’s caught their eye in the Insta timeline. Sometimes I see older couples, without phones, but they might as well have them, given that they barely make eye contact, let alone have a conversation.
How is it you can be with your partner, physically present, sharing the same space, breathing the same air, yet you feel apart? Is it really a comfortable silence when you're both scrolling on your phones?
Surely this is one of life’s paradoxes: feeling lonely while being in a relationship? It's the emotional equivalent of being hungry while standing in front of a full fridge. Everything appears to be in order from the outside, but something essential is missing.
We know that solitude is not the same as loneliness, and loneliness is not solely about being alone. It's about feeling disconnected, misunderstood, or emotionally starved. And that can happen just as easily when you're coupled up as when you're single.
According to a 2018 survey by the AARP in the USA, being married but lonely is far from uncommon; a third of married people over the age of 45 reported being lonely:
“Among adults age 45 and older, 1 in 3 are lonely. Overall, more than one-third (35 percent) of U.S. adults age 45 and older are lonely, based on the UCLA loneliness scale. While this number is unchanged from the previous loneliness study conducted in 2010, approximately 5 million more midlife and older adults are lonely due to growth in this age group among the population.”
Loneliness in relationships can sneak up on you. You are not physically alone, of course, you are in constant company. But little by little the deep intimacy starts to fade, initially almost imperceptibly. Some frustration builds. You are supposed to be happy, connected and fulfilled. You are supposed to care about each other. So why does it feel like you're speaking different languages or living parallel lives? Why does it feel like you’ve become housemates, not lovers?
“Connection is why we're here. We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.”
Why We Feel Alone Together
When that fundamental need goes unmet within a relationship, the loneliness can feel particularly brutal because it challenges everything we expect a partnership to provide.
This loneliness manifests differently for each person. For some in the LGBTQIA+ community, it might be having a partner who supports them but doesn't truly understand their lived experience. For others exploring polyamory or kink, it could be feeling isolated when your primary partner doesn't share your enthusiasm for your choices. Cultural differences can create disconnection; it can feel like you are yelling at each other across a tall wall. One of you might have a weight of family expectations that the other doesn’t grasp.
All too often, communication lies at the heart of the disconnection. If you are clashing and disagreeing, the connection is weakened at each outburst. And your loneliness becomes the others.
A national study of heterosexual marriages in the U.S. among people over the age of 57 found:
“....people who consider their marriages aversive tend to feel lonely, but that their loneliness spills over and increases their partner’s loneliness too. This “partner” effect, where loneliness spreads between partners, may be the result of reciprocal negative interactions. When people behave in a critical, unsupportive, or mean fashion toward their spouse, their partner is likely to respond in critical, unsupportive, or mean fashion as well. The more often these negative exchanges occur, the more likely spouses are to distance themselves emotionally from each other. Emotionally distant relationships, in turn, make people feel lonely.”
The stats aren’t great:
“35% of married men and 42% of married women reported that their marriages were purely supportive, with low strain and high support. “
Which means a significant proportion of marriages are not supportive.
Physical presence is not a connection. If one or both of you are emotionally absent, there will be a lack of meaningful interaction, and that will breed loneliness. You might consider yourselves to be the best of friends, but that is not sufficient to offset the emotional gap.
Of course, many factors can drive the disconnect. Raising children, running a business (something I know a great deal about), health challenges, and mismatched emotional needs. All of these require significant emotional maturity and regular, open communication to navigate. When the navigation fails or is nonexistent, one or both of you will pull back, and space will grow between you. Attachment styles also play a role - avoidant types might pull back when stressed, leaving anxiously attached partners feeling chronically unloved.
We know that loneliness isn’t just a bad feeling; it’s not good for your health. Chronically lonely people report higher levels of depression and anxiety, even when they're in relationships. This relationship with loneliness likely creates a cycle; at each turn of the wheel, both of you become increasingly lonely, and the connection that brought you together gradually erodes, dragging both of you down.
I was recently diagnosed with osteo arthritis in one shoulder. Bone spurs have grown as the cartilage between my shoulder bones has eroded due to what my doctor terms ‘too much use’, by which he means old age! There’s no quick cure, no drug regimen. I live with a constant ache in the shoulder, which turns into significant pain if I catch the arm in an awkward angle. The only fix is surgery, without which I am committed to a life sentence of gradually increasing pain.
Finding Your Way Back to Connection
Luckily, relationship connection is not my shoulder because there are legitimate and proven ways to rebuild the connection bridge between you and your partner without waiting a year for keyhole surgery.
It starts with understanding that combat is not the answer. Instead, curiosity about the issues and how your other half sees your relationship. Asking questions like ‘What do you think might help us feel closer?’. Diplomacy is the go, not war. Bravery is required; you need to share, maybe something you feel is too risky to raise, with the person closest to you, but without which the dialogue will be shortchanged.
Small steps are the path forward. Here are some thoughts that I have experimented with that absolutely deliver a stronger connection with people close to you:
Ask open-ended questions, ‘How was your day?’, ‘What was something cool that happened at work?’.
Hugs! Lots of long, quality hugs. I could bang on about how they release bonding hormones, but who cares? Long, deep hugs are the best.
Say something positive regularly, thank your partner for the small things, ‘thanks for making me a coffee’.
Deliberately do things together. Go out for breakfast. Buy some concert tickets. Go for regular walks. Create shared rituals.
When It's Time to Choose Yourself
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the loneliness persists. Again, bravery is required. There's genuine courage in recognising when a relationship isn't meeting your fundamental needs and choosing yourself over a connection that isn’t fully fulfilling.
This doesn’t mean storming out of the house. Dramatic exits rarely go well. Trust me - I’ve tried. I once threw a telephone across the office after an argument with my partner. It was an uncontrolled childish emotional outburst that achieved nothing other than a broken phone handset.
Instead, you could redefine your relationship and explore how to expand your constellation of emotional connections, rather than expecting one person to meet every need. Your romantic relationship, which has lost its spark, might transition into a caring friendship. If you are open to a polyamorous relationship model, you might seek out another partner who fills the missing pieces.
Sometimes the bravest thing is admitting that being with someone isn't enough if that togetherness doesn't include really seeing each other. And sometimes the most loving thing - for yourself and others - is pursuing connections that honour who you actually are rather than who others want you to be.
Alternatively, being alone—not lonely—might be the solution. Breaking up is always hard to do. Learning to be content alone provides a more robust basis for speaking up about your needs and how they may not be met in your current situation. You must be courageous and speak your truth, because it may be scary, but this is often the path to resolving a connection—or the ending of one.
Authentic connection requires vulnerability, honest communication, and the courage to be genuinely seen. Surface-level chat, no matter how frequent, can't substitute for deeper understanding. Sitting across a cafe table, each deep in your phones, is not intimacy. Humans are wired for connection; we intrinsically need to build genuinely nourishing relationships, rather than settling for ones that leave us feeling empty.
Self-awareness and self-acceptance are essential for cultivating healthy relationships. Genuine connections are not a luxury; they are a necessity. I’m not especially spiritual, but I recognise that deep down I have a soul, a core part of me, that must be nourished, otherwise all I am doing is treading water emotionally.
True connection isn't about never feeling lonely. It's about feeling understood, valued, and genuinely seen, whether you find that in relationships or solitude, it's worth pursuing with courage and the wisdom that comes from knowing your own worth.