For those who have a partner/ bf or gf/ spouse etc., why are you lonely?

[epsom]

i agree sadface

 

[Asterli]

I think I expect too much of people and I am impatient. I do love someone dearly but I don't know if she loves me a 100% back. I can be pretty down about that sometimes but on the otherside I feel I have to fight on.

I can acknowledge the feeling that you have to cherish the one you love but maybe, sometimes, you long for something else but it's hard to describe what that is.

 

[cheaptrickfan]

distance. but when we're together everything just seems to go so well and it's just a great feeling..but then again we're apart most of the time.. and this time probably even up to a year if not more it sucks i'm telling you.

Yes, this. This is where I am at the moment - the person I care about is nowhere near me, and though we connect in the ways we can whenever we can, there is no escaping the fact that right now I am as alone as alone can be in my house with just a cranky tabby for company.

Sometimes being alone is not a chore, it is a welcome time alone for me to recover from the craziness; other times, it is not aloneness, but loneliness.

i feel like this is probably the most lonely type of lonely.

being around people, and feeling lonely around them.

Yes. Ironically, I can be alone and lonely in a crowd. I think it depends on the level of connectedness we feel with others. At the deepest level, I just don't feel as though I have a real connection with many people. I do have surface connections with a lot of people, and those connections may go down a few layers and seem like authentic friendships, but it really only goes so far.

On the surface, it seems to an outsider as though I have a lot of friends, but I have learned that there is nothing like tough times to show you who your real friends are. Those superficial acquaintances and friends of convenience will desert you when it seems expedient, and ironically, those are the very times you may find that you need a real friend most of all.

It's surprising, too. Some of the people I'd have bet were my stalwart friends were the first to pull stakes and run the **** away from me when my life imploded. It doesn't say much about the innate goodness of people, let me tell you. :/

So yeah, it's a rainy Sunday morning, I'm half-watching infomercials and rambling about loneliness. Something's got to change.

 

[Nina]

I'm married with kids and mostly lived my life constantly around folks. I even consider myself a "people person" But then life takes a turn and you find you're completely lost...

My hubs is a workaholic, when he isn't buried in work he's a manic martial arts enthusiest. He both trains and teaches...I am also interested in it but nowhere near the extent he is. He has a very serious and austere nature. It's mostly due to his Japanese upbringing. Active kids, career, family and friends in NYC...I never noticed how removed he could be...

We moved 400 miles away from a nice circle of my friends and now they're all involved with their own dramas and all the issues they are facing are serious and very valid. I still talk to them daily but it's me who comforts and supports them. They don't have room on their plates for my issues. I understand that and continue to love and listen to them but it isn't fulfilling MY emotional needs to share MY issues.

My kids are both in college right now and so at 42, empty-nest syndrom has hit me full throttle. The folks in my local are very pretentious and closed to strangers. I LOVE strangers the more funky and eccentric the better.

I was a teacher for years, surrounded with a constantly changing sea of faces, now I am a working artist and though I can get lost in my work for hours, I still miss the people to exchange with.

I also lost both parents and my only sibling a few years back, that took more of my heart away.

Too many BIG life changes can throw you right into a pit of dispair, confusion and that lost and alone feeling...
Lonliness can happen anywhere the soul feels lost and alone. Sometimes crowds are the loneliest place of all.

Coming here, meeting and getting to know so many folks has opened me up to a whole new and very gratifing way of making friends. It made a HUGE difference in my life.

 

[JamaisVu]

I'm married, and it does help alleviate total loneliness. However, neither of us have friends. He is strongly asocial and would be happy living in a remote cabin in the woods and never seeing people again. I'm not quite as asocial, although I'm not much better sometimes. I'd like friends, it's just that I never find anyone who really seems compatible. I don't know what my niche is. I'm not in college, not religious, and I don't have kids, so that cuts out alot of the ways people find friends (school, church, parenting activities). Having just one friend for years, who isn't inclined to go out much, gets lonely. All my socialization is online and it gets to the point where sometimes I live as a recluse, hardly ever leaving my apartment. I also relocate every year or two for various reasons. So while I'm not technically alone, I'd like some social interaction and genuine friends.

 

[Chow]

I love my wife and am not lonely in that respect. I find that I am missing friends. I think that friends are important since if there is a problem with you other half then you need friends too talk to about the problem. I also think that friendship is a different kind of love than for a significant other or to that of your family. I guess I'm lonely because I have trouble making friend face to face.

Chow

 

[ThinkPositive]

I don't have close friends or family nearby, and I think relationships are healthier when you have other people to talk to other than each other. That said, I was doing reasonably well since I've surrounded myself with acquaintances and I've got lots of hobbies/activities to keep me busy.

But, I started feeling really bad a few months after I quit my job. I still think it was a good decision, but once I got over that "Woohoo! Free time~!" feeling I had at first, I started to feel really, really lonely. Not that I don't like time to myself, but I'm also a people person, and even with a boyfriend, I was just spending way more time than I'd like all alone.

Then my boyfriend left for 2 months for work, so you can imagine how that compounded things. That's when I joined here, when I thought I was going to go crazy. He's coming home this week, and I'm hoping that'll help! I actually had to stop looking for jobs because it was getting me down so much, but hopefully with his support I can start seriously looking for a full-time job again...

 

[Broken_Doll]

I am currently dating somebody, I don't know if it will lead to a relationship...

Because I'm scared of letting people get too close.
Because I don't think he'd understand if I told him.
I don't really know

 

[eris]

Since I met my husband I do feel much less lonely. Why do I still feel lonely ? mostly because I feel misunderstood by most people, and I physically stay away from them. I dont know many people in this town so that means everyone. I would hate going to a BBQ with people showing pictures of their kids listening to beyonce while waiving the american flag. Maybe I expect too much. Maybe I dont expect enough. What is missing in my life ? Almost everything...

 

[septicemia]

I have parents who love me and who I love back, but they have broken my trust far too much and I dont feel all that comfortable with them. I have friends that I have had for almost 2 decades who love me and who I love back, but I very rarely get to see them anymore (due to living so far away). I want a mate, someone who makes me feel safe, and who I can really trust loves me and is there for me.

I have a sister who loves me so much and I love her so much back. We are a lot a like and I feel the least lonely when I am hanging out with her.

 

[QuietGuy]

In my opinion, this thread poses an extremely important question, so thank you Luna for asking it.

Many years ago, if someone had said to me that they're in a relationship but still felt lonely, I would've thought they were absolutely crazy. "Lonely?! WTF?! Hello, you have a partner!! You know, someone who loves you and wants to be with you! Someone who cuddles up close to you in bed at night, and tells you how much they love you! How can you possibly feel lonely??"

But my beliefs about relationships then were very naive. I genuinely thought that a relationship would instantly solve all my emotional problems. But (obviously) there's an awful lot more to life than your relationship with your partner. As many of the posts in this thread illustrate, you can still feel lonely because:

* Your relationship is long-distance.
* Someone close to you has died or is absent in some other way.
* Complete lack of any friends apart from your partner.
* Social anxiety / difficulty in making conversation with anyone except your partner.
* And of course, your relationship itself may not be going great.


Here are some comments in this thread that I found particularly interesting:

Having someone is one thing, but if you have a special place in your heart for someone you can't be with, that emptiness is always there.

I tend to feel more alone in relationships than outside of them. One reason is because I obsess about myself less when I'm not in a relationship. I usually tend to put my wit and personality "on display" (for lack of better term) and then when the person I'm with sees one little flaw, I obsess more about myself and how to fix that flaw than on working with the person I'm with on it. Secondly, I find that I usually have more fun and enjoy life more when I don't spend a lot of time with one person. I like to sit and watch people so when I spend a lot of time with one person alone, I get bored of them and I start thinking about what I think my life should be like, which is what leads me to feeling lonely and bored.

It's not the lack of someone, it's the predictability of myself and of other people combined with a lack of self confidence and hope that makes me lonely.

So even with a spouse physically present, when there is no real emotional or physical connection things can get lonely.

I have never felt more alone that I have with a man sleeping next to me.

So while I'm not technically alone, I'd like some social interaction and genuine friends.

Since I met my husband I do feel much less lonely. Why do I still feel lonely ? mostly because I feel misunderstood by most people, and I physically stay away from them.

I remember when I first discovered that many people who are married feel lonely. This came as a real shock to me. I couldn't possibly imagine marriage feeling lonely. But just Google "married lonely" and you'll get over 6 million results. Wow.

So these days, when I find myself thinking: "If only I had a girlfriend, all this horrible pain of loneliness would disappear", I remind myself that things usually aren't quite as simple as that...

 

[A new life]

I know a guy who's been married to the same woman for 50+ years. And in all that time she never once told him "I love you"
And the sex isn't passionate or frequent either.
WOW that sure sounds lonely to me.

 

[AFrozenSoul]

Did I reply to this thread? Meh whatever, I am pretty sure I did not.

I think it is because most people want to say they have a mate, no matter how much of a lie it is. Single people are outcasted from society. Many of us are not confident in our ability to find a mate. So we cling to the first one we can get.

Then again, love is one of many things a person needs to be happy and satisfied with life. For some finding a mate comes easy, however, finding a purpose is much more challenge, and vice versa.

 

[A new life]

"Single people are outcasted from society."

Truer words were never spoken

 

[AFrozenSoul]

@A new life: Another funny fact, a lot of people in relationships are jealous of the freedom single people have. Yet none are willing to become single.

 

[Stephanie]

I'm married, and it does help alleviate total loneliness. However, neither of us have friends...I'd like friends, it's just that I never find anyone who really seems compatible. I don't know what my niche is. I'm not in college, not religious, and I don't have kids, so that cuts out alot of the ways people find friends (school, church, parenting activities). Having just one friend for years, who isn't inclined to go out much, gets lonely. All my socialization is online and it gets to the point where sometimes I live as a recluse, hardly ever leaving my apartment. I also relocate every year or two for various reasons. So while I'm not technically alone, I'd like some social interaction and genuine friends.

Except for the bit about your husband, I feel like I could've written the rest of your post. I'm going through the exact same thing.