Feeling Lonely In a Marriage? How to Deter Miscommunication and Connect in Your Marriage
Apr 19, 2024Episode 69
Doug & Leslie Davis
Feeling lonely in a marriage? Have you and your spouse ever found yourselves surrounded by a life full of blessings yet shadowed by an inexplicable sense of solitude? That's the silent shadow we, Doug and Leslie Davis, confront this week as we candidly open up about our own journey through the nuanced challenges of marital loneliness. Amid the hustle of daily life, parenting, and the sometimes insidious creep of miscommunication, we share a deeply personal story that reveals the transformative effect of loneliness. This episode promises strategies for breathing life back into the quiet spaces of your partnership, transforming potential disconnects into gateways for a stronger, more intentional bond.
We submerge into the depths of intimacy, exploring its various dimensions as powerful allies against the creeping sense of isolation. Through our conversation, we dissect the layers of emotional, physical, and spiritual closeness, offering you practical tools to kindle the warmth in your relationship's hearth. As we acknowledge the deceits that can divide, we guide you through the art of resolving conflicts with grace and unified problem-solving, ensuring that you and your partner emerge fortified against loneliness. So, snuggle up with your loved one, and join us for an episode that's not just about overcoming marital loneliness but about nurturing a vision-driven marriage that thrives on connection and heartfelt communication.
Things we mention:
Episode 11, 12, and a mention of our conversation with Rick & Nancy Kay Grace.
Feeling lonely in a marriage? Have you and your spouse ever found yourselves surrounded by a life full of blessings yet shadowed by an inexplicable sense of solitude? That's the silent shadow we, Doug and Leslie Davis, confront this week as we candidly open up about our own journey through the nuanced challenges of marital loneliness. Amid the hustle of daily life, parenting, and the sometimes insidious creep of miscommunication, we share a deeply personal story that reveals the transformative effect of loneliness. This episode promises strategies for breathing life back into the quiet spaces of your partnership, transforming potential disconnects into gateways for a stronger, more intentional bond.
We submerge into the depths of intimacy, exploring its various dimensions as powerful allies against the creeping sense of isolation. Through our conversation, we dissect the layers of emotional, physical, and spiritual closeness, offering you practical tools to kindle the warmth in your relationship's hearth. As we acknowledge the deceits that can divide, we guide you through the art of resolving conflicts with grace and unified problem-solving, ensuring that you and your partner emerge fortified against loneliness. So, snuggle up with your loved one, and join us for an episode that's not just about overcoming marital loneliness but about nurturing a vision-driven marriage that thrives on connection and heartfelt communication.
Things we mention:
Episode 11, 12, and a mention of our conversation with Rick & Nancy Kay Grace.
Welcome to the Vision Driven Marriage podcast. If you're struggling in your marriage, or maybe you're wondering if it's even salvageable, before you give up or before you let things get too hard, let us come alongside you and help you solidify your marriage. We offer biblical encouragement and insight to help you strengthen your marriage. We offer biblical encouragement and insight to help you strengthen your marriage. Welcome to the Vision Driven Marriage podcast. We're Doug and Leslie Davis.
Speaker 2:
And today we're talking about feeling lonely in marriage. We're learning how to deter miscommunication and make a connection in your marriage.
Speaker 1:
Now we have been through various stages of communication miscommunication. There've been times no communication, no communication. There've been times where, because of the stage we were in in our life and some choices that we learned to do better eventually, where it would have been really easy for us to have felt very, very lonely.
Speaker 2:
Yes, I would say that there were times early on in our marriage where I can say I felt lonely and I don't. It wasn't on purpose and no, it wasn't anything you were doing on purpose. It's just kind of how life was, you know. But because we had some solid beliefs in place, you know those times, we knew those times were going to be limited, but that's one of the things that works against communication and connection is a busy schedule and I know that's something we really dealt with when the kids were little.
Speaker 1:
And some of you may be in that stage where your kids are little right now and maybe you're working you're working a lot of hours and you're taking care of the kids and you're both really tired. And because you're tired, you're doing the things you know you need to do and because you know that you have the blessing of being the one person that understands me the most, as my spouse, we accidentally, accidentally, take advantage of that truth. My spouse is the one person who will cut me some grace. Give me the things that I need and not expect as much as the rest of the world expects from me my kids when they're little. They need me, my job needs me. World expects from me my kids when they're little. They need me. My job needs me. I have to pay the bills. But the unfortunate reality is, if you don't actively work to spend time together, even in the midst of that busyness, the truth that your spouse understands you better than anybody else can lead to you not doing things together and it can be a very lonely place.
Speaker 2:
Yes, a very, very lonely place, and one of the things that can kind of bolster that loneliness is miscommunication, when you are trying to communicate with each other, and I think that one of the things that we want to convey in today's podcast is that those miscommunication times, they are an opportunity to say, okay, let's, let's unpack why we're miscommunicating and learn how to connect through that. Um, I know one of the well, and this just happened to us recently Um, but I had asked you what was wrong and basically you know Basically what are you feeling and your general answer to that is nothing or you don't have any feelings.
Speaker 1:
Right, or at least can't really acknowledge what's going on Because, again, the way I'm wired, being able to see a circumstance and trying to just fix it, preempts necessarily feeling anything about it.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, but you shared a concern with me that was actually expressed as kind of a fear, and I mean not like a fear, fear, but a concern and I was genuinely touched by that sharing of that emotion.
Speaker 1:
You know, we I feel like we made a connection at that point Right, and so you know, one of the things we want to encourage you to do is to be able to develop more and more and more of that connection, to be able to see that there's ways for you to connect that you may be doing, but not as frequently as you'd like, or there's ways for you to connect that you hadn't even considered before, because loneliness is usually because of that lack of connection. And again, it doesn't matter what stage of life you're in. There's always an opportunity for you to be really intentional about the way you do connect with your spouse, because it's easy for us to feel alone.
Speaker 2:
Alone. Yeah, one of the stealthiest lies of Satan is that you are alone, and so when we hear that that thought runs through our head like I'm alone in this relationship, then our mind is triggered to start looking for evidence that that is true. And one of the ways that we combat that lie is to begin to see the evidence and to begin to make evidence that it's not true. You know, working to make a connection in an area that like doing things together we had just had this conversation. Tell our listeners about some of the ways that you can increase doing things together.
Speaker 1:
Well, one of the things that we would encourage you to do is just embrace the concept of togetherness Once you realize. You know we've been lonely, and what Leslie was sharing with you earlier, when I was really, really spending ridiculous hours working and coaching, was the same time that we had four small children and she was spending an amazing amount of time taking care of the kids, and so I was exhausted, she was exhausted, and we weren't as intentional as we could have been, nor as we are now about taking advantage of the time we did have together.
Speaker 1:
And again, certain stages give you different amounts of time that you have the ability to be together. Being intentional about it can make a difference. For example, if there's things that you know your spouse does that they enjoy very much, instead of being somewhere else with nothing particular to do, you can be with them or you can do that thing with them. One of the things I just read about earlier today was a husband and wife who found the joy of spending time together while they washed the car, where before it was just one of them that would do that.
Speaker 1:
But just spending the time together, being able to spend time together even if you're doing separate things, can be a blessing as well. You know that there's a lot of times where you have to take care of your emails and you have to take care of responding to your kids, and you know being able to sit out on the front porch, on the porch swing, together while you do that might not seem like much, because you're still doing the individual things you need to do to let people who've contacted you know the answers to their questions. But choosing to be together, intentionally being together, then carries over into saying well, what are the things that we both love, and intentionally making time to do those things as well.
Speaker 2:
Intentionally making time to do those things as well. Yeah, and there's the inevitable things that we don't love, that we could do together also, like chores.
Speaker 1:
Chores and being able to dry dishes while your spouse washes the dishes or cooking together, putting away laundry.
Speaker 1:
Putting away laundry, doing all those wonderful things that none of us particularly love. But we do love being able to be together and the concept of loneliness is important because it's going to make you have very strong feelings when you feel alone, and sometimes you know you've spent a considerable amount of time where you are alone. There's other times where you feel like you're alone, even though the amount of time that you've been by yourself was relatively small. But acknowledging those feelings and being able to communicate those feelings will be big if you want to embrace being able to do more together.
Speaker 2:
And I think the acknowledgement goes, you know, hand in hand with also acknowledging those feelings in your spouse. One of the hardest things that I've seen in the counseling office is when a spouse is feeling some way about a certain situation and it is totally invalidated by their spouse and that just undermines the relationship, that just increases the loneliness that's feeling. And, you know, sometimes people don't have an understanding of what that really looks like. I saw a really good reel the other day. It's. I don't know if you follow Jimmy on relationships or not, but if you don't, you should, because he's hysterical and he nails it. He nails it right on the head. But one of his reels talked about invalidating feelings of your spouse.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to link the link in the bio and just go watch it, because, jimmy, we're giving you a shout out here, and so when you start to understand the way you feel and you may not understand Leslie had mentioned earlier there's times where she asks me what I'm feeling and, to be quite honest with you, I don't know, and sometimes that's a good thing, but sometimes it's really difficult because again we do things differently.
Speaker 1:
I'm so blessed that Leslie gets to not only feel a certain way about the things we're doing, but she's able to acknowledge the way that other people feel as a result. It's such a blessing to me, because often I don't understand how something would make someone feel or at least not very effectively and so you may be a little bit like me, where you're not exactly sure how you feel. You just know that you feel like you're alone. It's okay to just say I don't know other than I just feel like I'm all by myself right now. Now, as a spouse, I will go ahead and warn you, though don't immediately assume that well, if I felt all alone, it would be for this reason, and then attribute that motivation to your spouse.
Speaker 1:
It may not be true.
Speaker 2:
That's how we get projection and projecting, and that's not healthy.
Speaker 1:
It's not healthy, but being able to say I just feel lonely right now and being able to say well, why, and to explain why it could be something that is able to be changed really quickly. It could be something that's because of the season of life you're in. Regardless of what it is, you can be intentional about making sure that your spouse knows I want you to know that you have me, you're not alone, and so I'm going to be there for you during those times when you feel lonely. Now it doesn't mean that from 6 pm to 10 pm, when you're scheduled to do something that you've committed to, that that's when you're going to change the behavior because you're committed to that. But what it says is I know that you feel alone because from six to 10 for the last month I've been gone, but I'm going to make sure that the time we're together, you realize that you're with me, I'm with you.
Speaker 2:
I'm going to be intentional about the time I have together, because that's going to be stronger than the time that we have apart, right, and I think that's a really good, a really good example of being intentional about the ways that you connect. One of the other things that really kind of undermines that connection is miscommunication. When you are trying to connect and we mentioned one of the things projection that undermines communication so it allows us to have a miscommunication because there's an assumption that's been presented about why you do something or why you didn't do something. And you know, in the big picture, this month we've been talking about longevity and so talking about loneliness in marriage.
Speaker 2:
Now, when, when you learn how to combat loneliness in your relationship, that's going to help you play the long game like it is going to help solidify your marriage so that there's not a time, you know, 14 years down the road, or 15 years, or 25 years or whatever, when the connection is gone completely and one of you are saying I don't love you anymore, I want a divorce.
Speaker 1:
You know which nobody wants to hear, that you know but one of the other things is you communicate is to realize that we're talking and we've talked a lot about being intimate with your spouse. There's different ways that we desire that we need to be intimate with our spouse. We want to be emotionally intimate, we want to be physically intimate, we want to be spiritually intimate. And when you say I feel lonely, don't allow the opportunity to go by without elaborating where you feel like the intimacy could be stronger, Because loneliness is saying I don't feel like I'm as intimate with you right now in some area and don't miss the opportunity.
Speaker 1:
It's an opportunity for you to say you know, maybe it is emotionally right now I feel like the hard things that I'm going through. Um, I just need you to be able to be the sounding board for me. I don't need you to say anything, I just need to be able to tell you and you to come over and say I'm glad that I know how you feel now. Thank you for sharing that with me. That kind of intimacy is something that's so very important and it can make you feel like you're all alone. If you don't have it, which fosters that loneliness. Now, you know it may be physical, it may be emotional, but don't miss the opportunity to share. Not just that I'm feeling lonely, but here's why or here's where I'm feeling lonely.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and don't forget, satan is a master at lying and he'll tell you that when you feel lonely, you know you feel lonely. So when we feel lonely, let's say in in the emotional intimacy department and we hear that you know I feel lonely, like you are alone, that's the lie. You are alone. That may generalize into all these different other areas of intimacy. That may not be true, you know, and that's exactly what Satan wants is to divide your relationship in every way possible. So if you'd like to know more about the different areas of intimacy, jump back to episode 12 and episode 13. And that was how to strengthen your marriage by increasing your intimacies. And it's a two-part series. So jump back and listen to both of those, that's episode 12 and episode 13.
Speaker 1:
And Leslie mentioned that Satan would love to tear up and just destroy your marriage and divide you. But if you'll notice, when we look in Scripture, what he always does is he shares a little piece of truth and then twists it, because when he was tempting Jesus, well, if you're the son of God, throw yourself from, but he would start with a little piece of. If you're the son of God, throw yourself from, you know, but he would start with a little piece of truth. You know you're the son of God. He does the same thing in your marriage.
Speaker 1:
What he'll tell you is well, you deserve to be loved more than this. Now here's the funny thing you do deserve to be treated with the greatest love you could ever imagine. God's plan for you is to be able to love each other better every day than you did the previous days. But in that lie, what Satan will try to tell you when you're lonely is well, you're not getting what you need, so you should look somewhere else for it. Now, the problem with all of that is that it can exacerbate unresolved conflicts and make those conflicts seem bigger, because I'm not getting what I need from you and we've still got this problem, and it can really drive a wedge that otherwise should be something that would be easily resolved through communication.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, unresolved conflicts can really really undermine a relationship fast. One of the ways to make sure that conflicts stay resolved or get resolved is to be able to press into those head on with grace and humility, understanding that in those situations you guys are on the same team. When you press into those conflicts, there isn't a need to be right or wrong or to prove that you're right and the other person is wrong. Being on the same team means moving forward together. In whatever conflict. It's not us against each other, it's us against the conflict, and I think that that's an important mind shift when you're looking at coming into conflicts, because when conflicts are unresolved, that contains all of your communication for however long that it is unresolved.
Speaker 1:
It absolutely can. And you know, when you don't communicate, then you withdraw from one another. It just adds to the loneliness which is a real problem. And you know something that I love that you just shared, something that's so very important, is that we're on the same team.
Speaker 1:
And I think what we don't fully process when we have these unresolved conflicts, if all we do is focus on where things broke in the first place, if we never get past that part, that's important, that needs to be addressed so it doesn't happen again. But if we focus instead on here's how we can do it differently and better, we're still acknowledging what had happened, but we're not staying, we're not being stuck in what happened when, if all we do is look back at the problem, instead of saying this existed, let's talk about it. But now, how can we do it better as a focus forward? Now, not only does miscommunication about things like that lead to loneliness, but I want you to look at the same concept here. If you focus just on the fact that I've been so lonely, then you can start to believe things that would cure your loneliness, that aren't really the best for you and aren't God's plan for you.
Speaker 1:
But if you instead focus on this has been true. How can we do it differently and do it better in the future? How can we do this better? Then you're able to focus on the fact that loneliness is very real, but the active plan is togetherness and being intentional about that togetherness. We can do this differently because it's never too late. It is never too late for you to be very, very specific, to be very daily and to be very intentional about I want to spend time with you. I want to do things together with you, about I want to spend time with you. I want to do things together with you, and I guarantee that when you are able to do those things that are a blessing to both of you and do more of them together, it's going to benefit your relationship.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. I'm replaying the conversation that we had with Rick and Nancy K Grace, which was also about the intimacies. That was the interview that kicked off that month, and so that would be episode 11, I believe, and so they had some of the most hysterical stories about the things that they did together just to like intentionally increase their intimacy, and there's like 21 types of intimacy. I don't quote me on the 21, but there's a lot of types of intimacy.
Speaker 1:
Right, and so, as you do those things together, it does allow you the opportunity to be more intimate. It allows you the opportunity, as you're more intimate, to be able to improve your communication, getting rid of the miscommunication. And so you know, it's one of the things where, as you spend more time together, you're going to be blessed by spending more time together, and loneliness will no longer be able to be a shadow that convinces you that it's your constant reality just present about miscommunications is that when you have a miscommunication, I want you to give yourself permission to dissect that miscommunication, knowing that you're on the same team and you're moving forward together, just to say, okay, what happened with you?
Speaker 2:
know where did this conversation break down and what do we need to do to move forward with?
Speaker 1:
it again, and not for the purpose of blame.
Speaker 2:
Right, oh never.
Speaker 1:
For the purpose of being able to figure out how to do it differently.
Speaker 2:
Right, never for the purpose of blame.
Speaker 1:
Because we know that when things go sideways, it would be our flesh's desire to say see, that's where you did it wrong. It's not about that, it's not about that.
Speaker 2:
No, it's about moving forward together and building that intimacy and building that connection, Because when you have that intimacy and you have that connection, you're not going to feel lonely. And it is going to. It's going to increase the long game. It's just going to increase your long game.
Speaker 1:
It will and one of the things we've mentioned before as well, but I wanted to share it with you again. As you start to do things together, it's also going to build so many other healthy habits in your relationship. Not only will it combat loneliness, which is our focus today, but it's going to allow the authenticity to grow even more. It's going to allow the openness and the trustworthiness to grow even more. I think I shared several episodes ago that, even though there's no expectation, I'm not upset if she doesn't go Nearly every place that I go. I just ask Alyssa, hey, you want to go with me? And there's two reasons for that Not only because it's open and transparent, which is what we were talking about that particular episode but looking at it through this context of loneliness, I want her to know that I want to be with her.
Speaker 1:
I'm very intentional about I want to be with you. My feelings aren't hurt if you don't go grocery shopping with me, but I want you to know that it's a lot more fun if you do go with me, because I like being together with you. And so, as you continue to grow and develop the intentionality of embracing togetherness, you're going to find things that you didn't even think were together, activities that you really enjoy. Just because you know I'm going to take a quick ride. Hey, you want to go and hop in the Jeep with me? Let's go. And so we do. And it's not even the thing that we do as much as the time together.
Speaker 1:
And so, as we look at the concept of loneliness, we know that there's going to be times in your relationship where you have a moment where you feel loneliness. There may even be seasons of loneliness, and we know that they can hurt. We know that they can be very difficult. We want to encourage you that, if you are intentional about embracing, doing things together, that, no matter how long the season has been or how deep the feelings connected to loneliness have been, this is something that can be repaired and helped and healed in your marriage and can really draw you closer to one another. And healed in your marriage and can really draw you closer to one another. We're Doug and Leslie Davis.
Speaker 2:
This is the Vision Driven Marriage and we continue to pray that God will solidify your marriage.