One of the most important components of a successful marriage is friendship. However, couple time can quickly fall to the bottom of the list of priorities due to the stress and strains of daily life, which include work, kids, money, domestic duties, and media overload. At that point, a couple may begin to drift apart and experience loneliness. Matrimonial loneliness is a distinct suffering. There’s a reason marriage is referred to as “tying the knot.” For better or worse, richer or poorer, we are bound together. until our deaths part. Marriage, according to God’s own description, is about closeness and oneness: a man and his wife “become one flesh.” However, being married does not guarantee that we will never feel alone. Additionally, companionship and connection are not ensured by cohabitation. People frequently equate abandonment with physical neglect. Losing a physical connection because of a disease, divorce, or death can also be perceived as an emotional abandonment. However, emotional desertion is independent of closeness; it can occur when we are unable to connect, when our emotional needs aren’t being satisfied in our relationship, or even while the other person is lying next to us. Ironically, because your spouse is physically present but not emotionally, loneliness of this kind can sometimes feel much more excruciating in a married relationship. Although you share a home, you don’t live together. The ensuing estrangement and loneliness can be too much to bear.
