Marriage Doesn't Always Make Life Less Lonely

Things were easy when you were a child...

When you were a child, your parents likely managed your social schedule. They picked your school and what sorts of people you’d be around. They set up playdates for Saturday mornings. They RSVP’ed to birthday parties for you and chauffeured you to and fro.

But we are no longer children, no longer think or act like children, and unfortunately, no longer make friends quite that easily or have such active social lives. For many of us, adulthood meant figuring it out on our own without a clear roadmap. And isn’t everyone at least a little surprised to experience what feels like to be a grown-up as compared to how we imagined it as children?

One area of life that I couldn’t have even expected being so hard was being alone.

I have siblings and had lots of friends when I was younger. I’m the oldest of five children and was often “employed” to help out with my younger siblings or to run errands with my dad. I was hardly ever alone! (And how I longed to be at times…)

But with adulthood came the shock of just how lonely life can be. Coming home to an empty apartment, going to Mass on my own, ordering enough take-out just for one. While you get to decide on your own apartment decor, there’s no one to show it to. Even though your income is enough to eat out occasionally, sometimes friends aren’t free. As an extrovert, this aspect of growing up was especially hard for me. Where were my built-in playmates and social life?

Perhaps I expected this to change when I got married a few years ago.

And in some ways, it did! Marriage meant an instant adventure partner, movie-goer, and Netflix-binging buddy. It’s totally awesome to have someone to eat dinner with every night and crawl into bed next to. I won’t lie and say that that part of marriage isn’t awesome. It is truly good for the soul. After all, man wasn’t meant to be alone—so of course those things feel awesome.

But marriage doesn’t instantly mean that feelings of loneliness just disappear. It’s perfectly possible to feel totally alone, even when with someone else.

Do you remember feeling this way in high school, sitting at the dinner table, and feeling so alone and misunderstood? Have you ever taken public transportation and been sitting among a hundred people but invisible and alone? Have you ever been with a circle of friends and keep getting cut off? Have you been on a date, only to look up and he’s checking his phone?

Marriage, too, has bouts of loneliness, even though you’re technically not “alone” some of the time.

A few months after my husband and I got married, we moved to a new city, where we knew not one soul. He had a job and started right away and the plan was for me to find one...but I didn’t. And man, those days were lonely. He was gone most of the time, and I was home alone during the days for months.

And ours isn’t the only marriage that can feel lonely. I have friends whose spouses travel for work and are gone for weeks at a time—that is lonely. Another’s husband is a resident and works long hours and many weekends—that’s lonely. Or families with a spouse in the military who is gone for months—that must be lonely.

And sometimes, the loneliness in marriage is even more acute than when I was single, because I don’t expect to be lonely. But my husband can’t be everything I need. I think, like many people, I expected that marriage would cure a lot of my problems, including feeling lonely sometimes. But it doesn’t and can’t.

No one can fill the loneliness in your heart except for God.

Only God can do that. And often, I don’t turn to Him as often as I should, asking Him to be with me. I forget about my Guardian Angel, my constant companion, assigned just to me! Or all of the friends I have in saints, and how they watch over and pray for me.

Especially in this season of Lent, I think about how Jesus certainly had times of loneliness too. Maybe He was lonely in the desert for those 40 days, or felt misunderstood at the Wedding of Cana. Perhaps He already felt alone, set apart, at the Transfiguration. And we know with absolute certainty that he felt alone, forsaken, in the Garden of Gethsemane. He surely felt alone on the cross.

But God will never abandon you, or me, or leave us feeling lonely for too long. When Jesus was in the desert, God sent angels to minister to Him. At Cana, he was accompanied by Mary and the apostles. At the Transfiguration, He was surrounded by the presence of the Holy Spirit. In Gethsemane, He bore the loneliness of the whole world so that we might not always carry the heavy burden.

In every state of life, we will experience loneliness. In those moments, unite yourself to Jesus in Gethsemane or on the cross and be with Him. Remember that no human person, even someone as close to you as a spouse, can take away all of your sufferings and loneliness. Only Jesus can do that.