Loneliness while in a serious relationship is real, here’s how to deal with it

By Mpho Motsie-Mabuda

Loneliness in a marriage is hard. When you said ‘I Do’, feeling lonely was something that never
crossed your mind.

When you get married you plan to share your life with someone until you both leave this earth.

There is always this unspoken expectation that things will work themselves out in the end.

Loneliness starts to creep in once couples start taking each other for granted and connecting to your partner gets hard.

People usually stop dating once they get married and you find that you both start trying and eventually get awkward around each other seeing only umama kaBoy or ubaba kaGirl.

This is when the interaction becomes negative and one person starts avoiding the other and would rather spend time apart than together.

Fighting then becomes a daily occurrence. But what causes loneliness? :

Busy Life – Many times adulting gets the best of us and schedules keep us from prioritizing our partners.

Spending too much time apart and allowing phones to take the centre stage breaks the connection that lovers are supposed to share.

Constant fights and disrespect – When both parties don’t respect each other (respect goes both ways) by always shouting at each other, you are pushing each other further apart. This creates emotional distance.

Not paying attention to each other – Nothing feels better than knowing that there will always be a person to tell you that they got you and that everything will be okay.

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And lend their shoulder for you to cry on. We all go through hard times and the attention from a spouse makes you feel seen. When that is not there, a person can feel lonely and alone.

No intimacy or sex – When we lose that physical intimacy, we lose emotional connection with our partners. This goes with feelings of sadness and loneliness.

This is why it is important to constantly work on both to have the other. To stop loneliness from ever knocking on your door is to identify how and when that feeling started.

Communicate in a healthy way. That is one of the most important, easily the most important skill any relationship requires to survive.

Having those quality times together without outside disturbances is very important and allows you both to open up and communicate, creating a strong bond.

Be very mindful to not play the blame game, just express how you are feeling and where you are coming from.

Take action and get back the sense of friendships, partnership. and intimacy in your relationship.