This is a big question.

Are you lonely in your marriage?

That is not a fun place to be, but there is good news – growing your intimacy can expel loneliness from your marriage and stop it from creeping back in.

There is a bit of a chain reaction when it comes to loneliness in marriage. It’s clear from the research that we’ll look at in a bit that loneliness can arise from a lack of intimacy. Loneliness and intimacy are affected in turn by the quality of communication and emotion skills in the marriage. If we can build up these two skill sets, then your marriage will see more intimacy. If there is more intimacy, obviously we’re going to help stave off those feelings of loneliness.

The Problem of Loneliness in Marriage

Loneliness is not as uncommon as you might think. Ironically, if you’re out there feeling lonely, you have company! Caleb and I have even had times of this in our own relationship despite having a marriage that we enjoy very much.

Research reveals that individuals in intimate relationships often feel lonely because the level of intimacy in the relationship is not meeting their desires or expectations.[i] That is why we’ll look at intimacy as well as loneliness in this post.

So, how many people are experiencing loneliness in their marriage?

A study from 2009 found that between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 experienced moderate to strong emotional or social loneliness.[ii] That’s sad. That is a high number. Given that loneliness appears to affect the quality of our intimate relationships,[iii] we have a vicious cycle going on. Loneliness affects relationship quality which makes us lonely which affects our relationship quality which makes us lonely...

What Causes Loneliness in Marriage?

Many factors can contribute to loneliness in marriage, but two major ones we look at today are communication and emotional skillfulness. A lack of these two things will significantly contribute to loneliness.

Researchers, in 2009, looked at married couples and compared the extent of their loneliness to the functioning and quality of their marriages. They found that stronger emotional and social loneliness was found in those who did not receive emotional support from a spouse and who did not have frequent conversations with their spouse.[iv]

A second article found that married folk who were lonely displayed fewer positive behaviours than non-lonely individuals. Lonely marriages displayed:

Fewer positive attempts to make interactions pleasant

Less openness, including fewer direct conversations, less advice, and less listening to one another.

Fewer assurances

Fewer social networks and relied less on friends and family

Fewer shared tasks such as performing routine chores together.

All this research just shows why it is particularly helpful to focus in on these two areas of communication and emotion skills. And more good news – learning skills is something that anyone can do. It’s something you can add to your marriage and something new that you can bring to your relationship to strengthen it and help move yourselves away from loneliness and toward intimacy.

Let’s talk about building intimacy first by learning emotion skills and second by learning communication skills.

Building Intimacy Through Emotion Skills

A group of three researchers wanted to specifically test the theory that emotional skillfulness affects the intimacy process in relationships. In other words, they wanted to see how being good at handling emotions impacted marital satisfaction. They found that:

There was a link between the ability to identify/communicate emotions and marital adjustment. (Marital adjustment in this context means how well the spouses are connecting)

Intimate safety was a mediating factor on the impact of these skills on the marriage. You can have all the skills in the world, but if your marriage atmosphere is caustic or cynical, then being able and willing to be emotionally vulnerable is going to be...