Marriage can be a lonely place if you are with a person who can not be intentional about being with you. The sad reality faced by a lot of women is men who abandon the needs of their wives and go about doing whatever pleases them. However, they are sure to come back to a warm home , cooked meal, children well taken care of, and their wives still carry out their responsibility fully. What an irony?

Among the places where loneliness should not be found is in the institution called marriage. There are a number of instances in marriages where one party in particular feels lonely whilst the other party thinks everything is alright. There are very few marriages where we have both partners feeling lonely at the same time..Trust me , it’s not a good place to be. The Bible in Genesis 2: 18 , highlights that “it is not good for man to be alone” which is the basis for marriage unfortunately, this space of being with your companion has become one of the most lonely places for some couples.

Before we delve deeper into this challenge, there is the need to find out a couple of things. How did we get here? lets break this down..

1. Emotional neglect‘: This manifests itself is such a way that one partner consistently feels ignored , does not feel seen , heard and valued by the other partner leading to emotional disconnection.
2. Lack of quality time: Spending time together is really one way to bond in marriage, share ideas, thoughts and experiences. This becomes almost impossible when couples have extreme differences in interests, values and schedules where conscious efforts are not instituted to assign time for bonding as couples.
3. Conflict: unresolved conflicts that linger on for days and in extreme cases months have a way of drifting couples apart, pushing each one into their own safe space of being by themselves.
4. No sexual intimacy: The impact of sex in marriage is highly underrated. Sex is an emotional and biological process that strengthens connection and wellbeing of marriage through the release of hormones like oxytocin and dopamine which creates attachment. The lack of sexual intimacy can drive couples apart.

Now let’s look at how to address loneliness in marriage: Staying married involves a high level of intentionality to make the marriage work . Among some of the most interesting way to get the spark back.

1. Partners should be emotionally available to each other: Little acts such as listening, touching ,reassuring, showing , looking at each other,paying attention to small changes in patterns, asking questions as easy as how was your day?, how are you feeling, how are your friends and families. Little acts of attention makes it easy for partners to lean on each other to a woman, this is security, to a man its peace. The lack thereof means the marriage is not working.
2. Spend Quality Time: Couples need to find or make time to connect with each other on daily basis. Intentionally spending time together to do things that each other love. This involves a lot of sacrifice. i mean watching sports with the husband even when you don’t like sports, watching movies with the wife when you don’t like romantic movies. However, this process is more enjoyable when couples have lots of interests in common. Walking together, eating together, sitting together.
3. Resolve Conflict:Conflicts are inevitable in relationships but our ability to resolve these conflicts so they don’t go out of proportion and affect the relationship. Unresolved conflicts over time can lead to hatred,resentment which might eventually end the relationship/ marriage.
4. No sexual intimacy:Couples must make sexual intimacy a priority to maintain their marriage. have time to enjoy each other in all sexual and non-sexual ways to bond. It’s so hard to still hold on to grudges after a good lovemaking, it aides in quickening forgiveness and loving your partner.

The institution of marriage is sacred and beautiful. We marry our spouses because we love them and want their companionship. Let us offer our partners that safety space for them. No one in a marriage needs to feel alone. It defeats the purpose of marriage.