Women’s perception and experience of loneliness in marriage

Introduction

Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation or lack of companionship. Loneliness typically includes anxious feelings about a lack of connectedness or communality with other beings, both in the present and extending into the future. As such, loneliness can be felt even when surrounded by other people. It is widely prevalent throughout the society among people in marriages, relationships, families and successful careers (Peplau and Perlman, 2008).

Marriage offers no protection from the dangers of loneliness, in a study conducted it was discovered that roughly 20% of the general population suffers from chronic loneliness at any given time, and in one recent study of older adults, 62.5% of people who reported being lonely were married and living with their partner. Women’s perception of loneliness in marriage distorts how they see their husbands and makes them devalue their relationships with their marriage mate. They perceived their husbands as less caring, less interested, and less committed than they actually are, and they judge their relationships with their husbands to be weaker and less satisfying than they may really be.

In an effort to protect themselves from even further emotional hurt, they become hyper-alert to any signs of rejection from their husbands and become more apt to miss signs of acceptance. As a result—and often without realizing they are doing it—they become overly defensive and come across to their husbands as detached, aloof, or even hostile, which only pushes them further away (Guy, 2013).

Couples no longer talk about mutual interests, world events, or their goals and dreams. Instead their conversations become purely transactional. They settle into routines that foster emotional distance such as one person watching television while the other is on the computer or phone, or going to bed and waking up at very different hours. In a situation such as this, there is no real affection, no real intimacy, and it feels as if there is no longer any love between them. But they stay in the marriage nonetheless, ironically, because they might be afraid that leaving will mean being lonely forever. Yet, staying in a disconnected marriage is far more likely to doom them to chronic loneliness unless something is done about it.

The concept of loneliness in marriage

According to Gary and Blair (2008) loneliness is the feeling we get in our heart and soul when we want to be connected with someone, and someone is not available to connect with. This can certainly occur when we are alone, but it also occurs in marriage when one or both partners are unavailable for connection due to being angry, withdrawn, tired or ill. Juli (2014) observed that behind the façade of busyness and family life, many married women are desperately lonely. Sometimes it may feel that some wives and husbands are destined to merely share space and live as distant room-mates. Loneliness is perhaps the deepest ache our soul can experience. The grief of losing a loved one, the fear of abandonment, and the sting of rejected love all tap into the same bedrock fear. “I am all alone”.

Eddy, Macay and Erin (2005) in trying to draw a line between loneliness and aloneness in marriage stated that loneliness in marriage is not the same as aloneness. The empty feeling within of aloneness in marriage comes from various forms of self-abandonment, such as not attending to our feelings, judging ourselves, turning to various addictions to avoid our painful feelings, or making our marriage mate responsible for our feelings. We will always feel alone and abandoned when we are abandoning ourselves. We will also feel lonely in marriage when we are abandoning ourselves, because when we are not connected with ourselves, we cannot connect with our spouse.

History of loneliness in marriage

Although psychologists have been concerned with loneliness in marriage since the 1950s, it has only recently become the focus of substantial research. It was not until the 1970s research on loneliness in marriage really began to proliferate, largely stimulated by the publication of Robert Weiss’s seminal book in 1973 on emotional and social isolation in marriage. This publication fostered the subsequent development of psychometric scales to measure individual differences in loneliness (Carroll, 2008). As such, research on loneliness in marriage has flourished over the past three decades, stimulating an extensive and wide ranging empirical base.

Given the social and demographic changes in the world which tend to foster social isolation, such as the high divorce rate, the number of people living alone, poverty and poor health, and the inherent interest in loneliness in marriage, it is not surprising that a vast amount of psychological literature has emerged in recent decades (Adams & Balfour, 2008).

Zakahi and Duran (2012) stated that early articles on loneliness on loneliness in marriage are almost exclusively based on psychiatric commentary as it relates to clinical dysfunctions and psychopathology. According to their review, theoretical and clinical literature prior to the 1970s focussed heavily on abnormal mental processes and studied loneliness in marriage in conjunction with narcissism, paranoid syndrome, compulsion, psychopathology and alcoholism. Research since this time however has largely focussed on the gathering of quantitative data rather than on clinical observations. Much of the research originating from the late 1970s has been carried out in the United States (Wood, 2006).

Distinguishing loneliness from similar psychological constructs

When people think about the word loneliness, they are often referring to, or associating it with interpersonal isolation. Loneliness tends to highlight the feeling of being alone, either emotionally, socially or geographically. However, without the longing or desire to be with another individual or group of individuals (real or imaginary), aloneness and isolation do not qualify as true loneliness (Hartog, Audy & Cohen, 2010). For instance, when an individual is spending time with a friend, the individual is neither lonely nor alone.

According to Mijuskovic (2009) whenever genuine feelings of friendship are present, then loneliness is muted in consciousness. Because of the complexity of loneliness, its everyday usage is often confused with other terms such as aloneness, isolation, alienation, solitude, lack of social support, and depression. Each of the following sections delineates loneliness in relation to these constructs. As will be evidenced in these discussions, although loneliness shares characteristics with other emotional states and the terminology is often used interchangeably, the loneliness construct exhibits a unique quality.

Aloneness

Aloneness is the objective condition of being by oneself. People’s perception of, and reactions to aloneness can vary considerably, ranging from contentment to loneliness (Burger, 2005). Spending time alone is not invariably associated with loneliness, as people can be very content in their seclusion. Everyday language often refers to aloneness as the feeling of being by oneself, rather than actually being alone. In contrast to loneliness, which refers to an undesirable social reality caused by unfulfilled social and emotional needs, aloneness can indicate a certain degree of choice in wanting to be by oneself, and the ability to control one’s personal space. As such, choosing to be alone is often the preferred choice over social company for many people, and does not imply the pain associated with loneliness.

While aloneness is not synonymous with loneliness, an objective and chronic deficiency in social relationships is a key antecedent that can lead to loneliness. Larson and Graef (2002) conducted research to investigate the subjective experience of being alone. Their study, conducted on a sample of 75 adolescents and 107 adults, indicated that aloneness improved concentration; however it also diminished the individual’s mood. Respondents in the study reported feeling less happy, less cheerful, less sociable, and less excited when they were alone than when they were with others. According to this study being alone during daily life was correlated with increased negative characteristics, such as sadness, irritability, boredom and loneliness. In general, it would be expected that people are more likely to feel lonely when they are by themselves for extended periods of time (Killeen, 2008).

Isolation

Isolation is similar to aloneness, except the circumstances in which one is isolated are not under one’s control. In the literature, isolation usually refers to the restriction of social relationships due to the physical environment, such as being imprisoned or hospitalised. Rather than being perceptually based, isolation refers to the objective condition of having few social ties, a lack of integration into current social networks, the diminution of communication with others and being cut off from intimate ties for an extended period of time (Rook, 2005). As such, isolation is more of an objective condition than it is a subjective experience. However, being alone or isolated is not equivalent to being lonely. Although isolation is one of the strongest predictors of feeling lonely in daily life, isolation is a separate construct from the experience of loneliness (Ernst & Cacioppo, 2008). One can be isolated without feeling lonely, and one can feel lonely without being isolated. As people move into more isolated conditions however, there is typically a concomitant rise in feelings of loneliness. In essence, although the terms isolation and loneliness are used interchangeably both in psychological literature and everyday language, there are differences in their conceptual meaning.

Alienation

Alienation refers to a form of powerless self-estrangement (Hancock, 2006). When people are alienated they feel like they don’t belong to the social world. Alienation is the separation from social institutions and feeling powerless (Bell, 2005). There is no necessary theoretical or tangible connection between the alienation one experiences and one’s levels of loneliness, and as such the concepts are quite distinct. However, similarly to aloneness and isolation, the experience of unwelcome alienation can lead to an associated increase in feelings of loneliness.

Solitude

According to Gotesky (2005) solitude is “that state or condition of living or working alone without the pain of loneliness or isolation being an intrinsic component of that state or condition”. Solitude is often a refreshing experience, more so than mere aloneness, and has a more optimistic, incubative effect. In contrast to loneliness, solitude indicates the freedom to be alone. Many people appreciate solitude and find delight and self-fulfilment in it, whereas appreciation and delight are not often used to describe loneliness. The experience of solitude is perceptually based, in that solitude for one person might mean loneliness for another, which captures the common-sense notion that one person’s version of pleasure is another person’s version of pain.

Lack of social support

In contrasting social support with loneliness Rook (2005) purported that unlike a lack of social support, loneliness is characterised by negative emotions such as sadness, anxiety, boredom, self-deprecation, and feelings of marginality. Social support comes from any social experiences, whether positive or negative, that support physical and psychological wellbeing. As such, a lack of social support is part of the

Developmental process of loneliness rather than being synonymous with it (Murphy, 2012).

In a very general way, loneliness and social support are separate in their construct definitions. Loneliness refers to the subjective experience of deficits in interpersonal relationships, whereas social support refers to the availability of social resources (Perlman & Peplau, 2008). However, social support is often inaccurately referred to as the direct opposite of loneliness. From an experiential perspective social support is not always received positively. Receiving help from others does not always produce positive feelings of being socially supported. Although it is beyond the scope of this research to discuss the psychology of help-giving behaviours, helping tends to be perceived as supportive only if the helper conveys an attitude of caring toward the recipient, rather than helping out of obligation or indifference (Caplan, 2005). Similar to the phenomenology of loneliness, social support is only recognised as contributing to psychological wellbeing when the recipient of the social support perceives the help to be useful. However in many cases, social support whether perceived positively or not, contributes to wellbeing even if it is grudgingly offered, such as transportation to a job interview for example.

Researchers investigating social support dispute whether support should be viewed as an objective or subjective construct. Rook (2005) for example, has identified four major classes of social support: emotional support (esteem, affect, trust, concern, listening), informational (advice, suggesting, directives, information), instrumental (money, labour, time), and appraisal support (affirmation, feedback, social comparison). Clearly, some of the constructs defined by House (2001) penetrate into various aspects of loneliness. For instance, measures of social support ask questions relating to how concerned a member in one’s social network is about one’s welfare. Self report loneliness measures tend to include similar lines of questioning. It would appear therefore that both constructs are tapping into a common underlying phenomenon, such as the importance of the social environment to one’s social and emotional wellbeing (Rook, 2005). However, it is generally agreed that social supports refer primarily to quantifiable and reliable offers of social assistance and support, whereas loneliness is more experiential, referring to the perception one has of their social deficiencies.

Depression

Loneliness, again while similar, can be differentiated from depression. According Caplan (2005) there is a need to rid oneself of the distress of loneliness by integrating into new relationships, or regaining an abandoned relationship. With depression, there is a drive to surrender to it. As such, the lonely are “driven to find others, and if they find the right others, they change and are no longer lonely”. Even though there are strong correlations between loneliness and depression, there is some evidence to suggest that loneliness is more than simply negative emotional arousal.

Onuoha (2007) for instance, compared university students who were lonely and depressed, lonely but not depressed, or neither lonely nor depressed. The research suggests that respondents who were lonely without being depressed tended to be distressed specifically about the interpersonal and social aspects of their lives, whereas those students who were both lonely and depressed tended to be distressed over a wider range of personal issues. Conceptually therefore, loneliness is a more specific experience of dissatisfaction than depression.

Given the above discussion, there is little disagreement that loneliness is a subjective state that can be distinguished from both objective and other related psychological constructs.

How loneliness operates in marriage

Caroll (2008) stated that although we might believe marriage can insulate us from the ravages of loneliness, that is not the case. Loneliness is determined by the subjective quality of our relationships not their objective quantity, nor just by whether we happen to be living with a spouse. Loneliness in marriage often happens slowly, as the disconnection we feel from our spouse gradually increases over years.

At some point, discussions about mutual interests, world events, and goals and dreams cease entirely and conversations become purely transactional—“We need milk,” “Your mother called,” or “Did you remember to pay the cable bill?”—or focused exclusively on parenting. We also fall into daily routines that foster emotional distance—one person watches television in the evening while the other is on the computer, or one goes to bed at 9 pm and wakes at 5 am while the other goes to bed at midnight and wakes at 8 am. In short, we lose the love and the affection but stay in the marriage; ironically, often out of a fear of being lonely, although by doing so, we potentially doom ourselves to the very loneliness we were trying to avoid.

Contributory factors to loneliness in marriage

Gary and Blair (2008) observed that anything you do or your partner does that disconnects you from yourself and/or your partner may create loneliness. Loneliness goes away when we connect with each other from our hearts. Disconnection occurs anytime one partner closes his or her heart to protect or control. According to Gary and Blair (2008), the causes of loneliness in are as follows:

• When you heart is closed because you are protecting yourself from hurt with your anger or withdrawal. You cannot connect when you are closed and protected.
• When your partner is closed and angry, or withdrawn and uncommunicative. You will feel lonely if your partner deliberately shuts you out with work, TV, food, alcohol, hobbies, the Internet and so on.
• When you are trying to have control over your partner’s feelings by giving yourself up. Being inauthentic in order to control how your partner feels about you does not lead to authentic connection.
• When one or both of you are closed to learning when a conflict arises. The unwillingness to have open communication about important issues creates walls between you.
• If you or your partner use your sexual relationship as a form of control.
• If you or your partner stays up in your mind rather than being together with open hearts. Intellectualization can be interesting at times, but after a while it can feel flat and lonely.
• If your partner judges you regarding your thoughts, feelings, looks or actions. Judgment creates disconnection, and disconnection can be very lonely.
• When you or your partner cannot connect due to being overly tired, frazzled and overwhelmed, or ill.
• Crave for materialism, lack of communication and spending more time in the working place and less time at home.

Effect of loneliness in marriage

Companionship according to Guy (2013) is a lot like food every marriage needs to survive. Psychologists find that human beings have fundamental need for inclusion in group life and for close relationships that is why humans are referred to as social animals. According to him, marriages function best when this social need is met. It is easier to stay motivated, to meet the varied challenges of life. John Milton, a philosopher quoted that “loneliness is the first thing which God’s eye named, not good”. In God’s first words about human condition, “I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). It is important to note that God did not tell Adam to find fulfillment in his work or in the pursuit of his own pleasures, but in the relationship with another person who would be a helper. In view, God could have gone at length in Genesis describing the many negative emotional, behavioral, cognitive, medical and spiritual difficulties caused by loneliness (Richard, 2009).

In fact, evidence has been growing that when the need for social relationships is not met in marriage, couples fall apart mentally and even physically. There are effects on the brain and on the body. Some effects work subtly, through the exposure of multiple body systems to excess amounts of stress hormones. Yet the effects are distinct enough to be measured over time, so that unmet social needs take a serious toll on health, eroding our arteries, creating high blood pressure, and even undermining learning and memory. Thus, a woman in a place of marital loneliness is facing a fork in the road.

Bell (2005) stated that loneliness in marriage apart from the effect on the couple extend its grips on the children. It leads to all kinds of problems which include failure to be socially connected to peers, feeling of lost of love and affection from their parents and it is also one of the main reasons for poor academic performance and most school dropouts. It sets in motion a course on which children spin their way to outcast status and develop delinquency and other forms of antisocial behavior. Bell (2005) also added that loneliness in marriage is a major precipitant of depression and alcoholism. And it increasingly appears to be the cause of a range of medical problems, some of which take decades to show up. He concluded his studies by reporting that loneliness in marriage works in some surprising ways to compromise health.

• Perhaps most astonishing, in a survey he conducted, doctors themselves confided that they provide better or more complete medical care to patients who have supportive families and are not socially isolated.
• It increases the risk of suicide for couples and even their children
• It leads to a higher level of perceived stress even when exposed to the same stressors as non-lonely couples, and even when they are relaxing.
• Lonely couples are not as positive as other couple, hence the marriage do not buffer them from stress as it normally do.
• Loneliness in marriage raises levels of circulating stress hormones and levels of blood pressure. It undermines regulation of the circulatory system so that the heart muscle works harder and the blood vessels are subject to damage by blood flow turbulence.
• Loneliness in marriage destroys the quality and efficiency of sleep, so that it is less restorative, both physically and psychologically. They wake up more at night and spend less time in bed actually sleeping than do the non-lonely.

How to combat loneliness in marriage

Lonely marriages are hard to change because over time, loneliness leads to your ‘relationship muscles’ atrophying (since you are no longer using them in meaningful ways). To improve the quality of your relationship, you therefore have to strengthen these ‘muscles’. Doing so according to Murphy (2012) will require practice and patience but it will make a significant difference in the quality of your marital bond and it can deepen your connections with other significant people in your life as well if the following steps are strictly adhered to.

1. Take the initiative. If you are lonely, chances are your partner is lonely as well. But they too are probably trapped in a cycle of emotional disconnection, and they too probably feel helpless about how to break it. Try to initiate conversations that are not about transactional details. Ask them for their views about something they care about and make sure to demonstrate you’re listening by trying to see things from their perspective and ‘get’ what fascinates them about it.
2. Do not expect your partner to reciprocate right away. Habits are hard to change and disconnection takes time to repair. But know that by continuing to make gestures of goodwill, you will eventually invite one in return. Make sure to reinforce such gestures from your spouse when they make them.
3. Remind yourself and your spouse of shared experiences. Watch your wedding video or your children’s wedding video. Look over old family and vacation pictures, or go over old correspondences. Doing such things will remind you both of happier times when you were more connected.
4. Suggest simple and innocent activities that require little effort (as they will elicit fewer objections) such as a walk around the block or in the park, cooking a meal together, having a video call with old friends, your kids or grandchildren, or writing a letter together to a family member.
5. Take the time to consider your partner’s perspective. The longer you are married the more you will tend to assume you know what the other person is thinking and the more likely you are to be wrong. To understand your spouse’s perspective, take a few minutes to imagine their world and their point of view. Gaining a greater understanding of your partner’s thoughts and feelings will allow you to express more sympathy and understanding toward them which in turn, will begin to restore your mutual bond.

According to Richard (2009), there is no doubt that chronic loneliness is a tough nut to crack. But there are ways to combat loneliness and beat the loneliness syndrome. He further stressed that the following are some easy and straight-forward ideas on how you can improve your relationships and combat loneliness

1. Avoid feeling sorry for yourself: It is inevitable that everyone will get lonely once in a while. So we will all eventually fall into the self-pity trap, but once we become aware of what we are doing we can stop! Instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, it is wise to be proactive and do something positive such as listening to classical music, start up a conversation either through the telephone or physically with a neighbor.
2. Be a friend to yourself: If you have no one to come to your rescue spend a little time with yourself enjoying nature such as a stroll through the neighborhood, walking park and getting in touch with others. If you want to combat loneliness and stop feeling those lonesome blues, go to a city, state or national park and spend some time in a beautiful natural area. Walk your dog and watch how he gets such tremendous enjoyment from such a simple activity as walking (and sniffing).
3. Recruit music into your life to combat loneliness. Listen to some music, especially emotionally uplifting kind of music, write a song. Put your feelings into the lyrics and melody. Express yourself in any artistic way and you will feel better.
4. Read a hilarious book. A book can be such a good friend. And touch the soul.
5. Make contact with another person or touch someone’s life: This can be achieved by calling someone from the past, perhaps a good friend from high school who you may have forgotten. Look up a lost acquaintance. You never know what a great discussion you might have.
6. Watch your thoughts. When you find yourself in a mood that depicts the sad, sad self-talk dance, change everything up. Think more logical, uplifting, and empowering thoughts like these: “OK, the day is off to a bad start, but I will fix that . . . I know of some ways I can bring the sunshine out”. Research shows that happiness affirmations can help you to stop feeling lonely and lead a happier life. Your positive, light-filled thoughts will affirm and deepen your happiness.
7. Spend time in prayer, relaxation and meditation: Find a piece of the solitude rock and just sit in the silence, listening to the music that flows within, and get in touch with the cosmic universe. Build your relationship with your Higher Power. It squashes stress, past  worries and problems, and centre deeply in the sublime traverses within.

References

Adams, G. & Balfour, D. (2008). Unmasking the evil of loneliness. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Bell, R. (2005). Conversational involvement and loneliness. Communication Monographs, 52, 218-235.

Burger, J. (2005). Individual differences in preference for solitude. Journal of Research in Personality, 29, 85-108.

Caplan, R. (2005). Job demands and worker health: Research report. University of Michigan: Institute for Social Research.

Carrol, M. (2008) Gary, U. & Blair, H. (2008) Are You Lonely in Your Relationship? London: Creek Publishers.

Eddy, T., Macay, B. & Erin, Y. (2005). Loneliness in the Midst of the Crowds. Dublin: Willgate Annam & Co

Ernst, J., & Cacioppo, J. (2008). Lonely hearts: Psychological perspectives on loneliness. Applied & Preventative Psychology, 8, 1-22.

Gary, U. & Blair, H. (2008) Are You Lonely in Your Relationship? Dublin: Eden & Co.

Gotesky, R. (2005). Aloneness, loneliness, isolation, solitude. In J. Edie (ed.), An invitation to phenomenology. Chicago, IL: Quadrangle Books.

Guy, W. (2013). Together but Still Lonely. New York: Appleton Press.

Hancock, B. (2006). Loneliness: Symptoms and social concerns. New York: University Press of America.

Hartog, J., Audy, J., & Cohen, Y. (2010). The anatomy of loneliness. New York: International Universities Press.

House, J. (2001). Work stress and social support. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Juli, S. (2014). When You’re Married and Lonely. New York: Today’s Christian Women.

Killeen, C. (2008). Loneliness: An epidemic in modern society. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 28, 762-770.

Larson, R. & Graef, R. (2002). Time alone in daily experience: Loneliness or renewal? New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Mijuskovic, B. (2009). Loneliness in philosophy, psychology, and literature. Assen: Van Gorcum.

Murphy, P. (2012). Loneliness, stress and wellbeing: A helper’s guide. New York: Tavistock/Routledge.

Onuoha, K. (2007). 5 Tips for Improving a Lonely Marriage. Londan: Creek Books.

Peplau, L & Perlman, D. (2008). Loneliness: A sourcebook of  Executive Contract Research Report 61. Suffolk: HSE Books.

Richard, H. (20090. Learn how to combact loneliness, solve relationship problems and lead a happier life. Retrieved from http://www.happyrelationship.com/combat_loneliness.html on 9th December, 2014.

Rook, K. (2005). Encyclopaedia of psychology, Vol. 5 (pp. 73-76). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wood, L. A. (2006) Loneliness. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd.

Zakahi, W. & Duran, R. (2012). All the lonely married people: The relationship among loneliness, communicative competence, and communication anxiety. Communication Quarterly, 30, 203-209.