8mo ago

is it possible to be married and still feel lonely?

I always considered marriage the epitome of feeling connected: you share a life with a partner and maybe even have children. Society at least acts like it is.

I have a coworker in his 40s, conservative and Christian, married to a woman holding a job, he is also employed and has a good job, all things considered and they have a child.

I don't see this person much but each time he sees me he approaches to basically complain and rant, mostly about democrats and foreigners, getting very emotional to the point of crying.

At first I hated him for spewing so much shit, but now I think I'm starting to pity him: he has a job, is married to a working woman, they have a child, they are homeowners... and he still feels angry and needs to rant to feel good. It's like he's angry at everything.

Which takes me to think, maybe there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide, but I couldn't write a list.

What are some of these connections men need out of a marriage?

54 comments

Your coworker is a twat.

The thing about marriage is that anybody can do it. You don’t have to love somebody to marry them. It isn’t special. There’s no test you have to take together or qualifications you have to meet.
So yeah - he’s angry, and lonely, and he’s also married, but none of those things are related to each other.
Sounds like he needs therapy, but in our society men aren’t encouraged to share emotions if it doesn’t perpetuate an image of strength. So he’s expressing his emotions in a “socially acceptable” way: anger. Which is probably what also got him into these backwards ideas about his political ideology as well.

Marriage is a legal and religious construct. It does not fix a lack of connection.
- Aww, what a cute story. I'm happy for them

He probably watches a lot of right wing/conservative media, and those shows generally aim to get people riled up to be against democrats and foreigners to an unreasonable extent. That and other personal issues messed up his brain. Like others have said, dude needs therapy.

What are some of these connections men need out of a marriage?
Basically the same connections that women need out of a marriage. A peer group, a purpose, and friend groups to share interests with.
Unfortunately many, if not most, people simply don't know how to go about it. They throw themselves into their work and whatever of their time is leftover gets dedicated to family. The interests and friends that they had prior to marriage and kids are left behind and those sacrifices leave them feeling alone and unfulfilled. They also don't understand WHY they feel that way when to the best of their understanding they're doing everything right!
Marriage isn't, except in exceedingly rare instances, a "one stop shop" where your partner somehow magically fulfills your every need. That's straight up Disney Movie bullshit.
People, regardless of gender identity, absolutely REQUIRE relationships outside of their marriage.
- A peer group, a purpose, and friend groups to share interests with.
  Unfortunately many, if not most, people simply don't know how to go about it. They throw themselves into their work and whatever of their time is leftover gets dedicated to family. The interests and friends that they had prior to marriage and kids are left behind and those sacrifices leave them feeling alone and unfulfilled. They also don't understand WHY they feel that way when to the best of their understanding they're doing everything right!
  I really feel this. I am especially struggling with making friends in a new place. I have hobbies, but they are solitary so they don’t help me with my loneliness. And it doesn’t help that work takes up more of my time than I wish it did.

Yes, it's possible to feel lonely while you're married. Because "to feel lonely" might mean a thousand different things: lack of physical affection, lack of emotional bonding, lack of intellectual stimulus, lack of ability to coordinate and do stuff together... and only some of those are fulfilled by a romantic relationship. (A good relationship should fulfil more of them, but you won't get the full package ever.) And often the other person doesn't have time for you, even if they're trying their hardest to be a good mate.
That said, it doesn't seem to me that he feels lonely, but rather that he feels frustrated with something. As people said perhaps therapy would do him good.

It's easy to feel lonely around your wife if you don't think women are people. And if he's a Republican in 2024, that's probably how he thinks. Drink your respect women juice and you'll find marriage much more enjoyable.
- Exactly and OP is giving people like him a out by pitying him and using the phrase "there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide"
  why should one gender's emotional needs be fulfilled by another? that's misogynist by nature
  OP's coworker is an horrible person and deserves evactly what he's getting and much worse
  
  I think what OP should have said is that people have needs, and one single partner can't provide all of those needs

I think you are conflating the vision of success with happiness. These two things hold no relation.

Yes, it's entirely possible to be married and still feel alone.
However, ranting about democrats and foreigners tells me this is not about being married or not. The guy has problems and worries that have nothing to do with marriage.
Still, I can somewhat relate. Living in another country since many years (because reasons), and I don't feel at home. Happily married, with kids, all good. But I'm not home, y'know?
People here don't need me; they all hang out with their childhood friends they've known forever. I'm the new guy, even after all these years. That makes me feel lonely. And it has nothing to do with being married.
- Could be his loneliness leads him to seek out that kind of political thought, cause and effect aren't clearly established here. Isolation and other stressors have been known to drive people toward more reactionary conservative ideas.
  But like others have said it could be his worldview leading to him feeling lonely and isolated, maybe threatened by changes in the world. It's not your responsibility to help him but I occasionally see people become less reactionary when I try to include them more, not directly contradict them but steer him in kind of an anti-corporations and wealth-inequality kind of way (or something like that) when they act like this. He might be trying to bond over a what he perceives as a shared patriotic struggle and become your friend?
  Even if you don't agree 100% it'll probably be a small relief if he knows someone he trusts has concerns about the percieved injustices of the world, and letting him vent probably helps too. Traditional Christian masculinity can be kind of claustrophobic and I could see him talking with OP as trying to broaden his horizons, as paradoxical as that might seem.
  Either way good luck to OP and I hope the coworker's outlook improves.

Anyone can be lonely at any time, even surrounded by people who love them.
I’m happily married, I love my wife very much, she is my favorite person and I would be devastated and lost without her. Still, sometimes I feel lonely.
Sometimes I think about my dad who isn’t with us any longer and I feel lonely. Sometimes I think about work stress and I feel lonely. Sometimes I feel lonely for no damn reason at all.
None of that has anything to do with how much I love my wife, or her ability to “provide”; people are just complicated.

Which takes me to think, maybe there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide, but I couldn't write a list.
This is a ridiculous conclusion. Even taking out the arbitrary gender roles, it's a ridiculous generalization.
- Exactly. Maybe this man isn't connecting with his partner because of his attitude and viewpoints.

I feel sad for his wife. Unless she's hateful too.

Yes, but based on your description that guy has other issues. He should probably see a therapist.

look, this person is probably an asshole regardless, but to answer you: Yes. Maybe more than if you are single. I stated dating a guy that was super rich and good-looking and he was super nice to me, It was like a real life fairy tale.... until we got married and the routine started to show us how lonely we were with each other. We had nothing in comom, he was a bit dumb and shallow and the only subject he was interested was sports. I hate sports and like movies, shows and science. At the end he would say i was too nerd and I would say he was too dumb, but the reality is that he was very nice and so was I, we just were not ment for each other.

watches hate-spewing tv programs like fox news
is consequently angry
surprised pikachu face
Marriage is a piece of paper. You can absolutely get married to someone you still feel alone around. Being not angry requires something a little more than a piece of paper.

Dude can't even ID who he needs to hate properly due too much fake news lol
I dotm get why you think he is lonely though... Sounds like he is trying to "educate" you on shot his shiti teevee told him lol

Please don’t judge what women can provide by this sad, angry man.
To your core topic, of course you can be married and lonely. Being married doesn’t necessarily mean you are spending a lot of quality time together, or genuinely communicating when you do. Married people have jobs, housework, kids to take care of, and whatever time remains after that is often exhausted recovery time when not a lot of social intercourse is happening.
Conservatives often have more of a “battle of the sexes” mentality where men are supposed to be MEN and women are supposed to know their place. First of all this warps everyone since these roles may not suit their native personality. And on top of that, the male role includes a bunch of sexism - be stoic around women, etc. Conservative men try to be stoic overall, but a lot of them are also loudmouths because their values are so black-and-white they have a tendency to really, really think they are right and therefore should tell the world.
This guy is probably stoic around his wife and a loudmouth at work. A healthier person would have a marriage where they can talk about what’s bothering them, and then be professional at work. He’s clearly got emotional problems but then Conservatives also have backwards attitudes about mental health. It’s not something they think about and try to manage. Again: black and white. If you’re not fucking crazy then you don’t have a mental health problem, you just need to suck it up. It’s no failing of this man if he is cracking. He’s been set up to fail.
Absolutely you should pity him. That doesn’t mean you have to listen to his loudmouth politics in the workplace.

Other commenters have done a better job addressing your questions more directly, but I want to piggyback off of this question to point something else out: the atomic family, the suburban dream is extremely isolating and breeds loneliness
When you live in your house, only enter and leave by the garage and your neighbors do the same, you will never interact with your neighbors, and your neighbors will never interact with you.
Driving to the store in your personal vehicle there's no sense of shared identity to start interacting with other people meaningfully. You're just various individuals in the same space
Having kids can be extremely isolating as to go out to do anything you must either have a babysitter (and be able to afford said babysitter) or bring the kids with you. No opportunity for spontaneity, and it quickly gets expensive to just spend grownup time with friends unless you and your partner spend the time seperately. And taking your kids to events means paying more attention to your kids and the event than meeting anyone else. And if you have a special needs child it can be even more isolating as you are no longer sharing experiences with your fellow parents except for those who also have special needs kids.
We need to do things to foster community and encourage people to talk to strangers more. Having good conversations with strangers is how you make friends, and is a great treatment for loneliness
- The decline of the Third Space is an interesting social phenomenon.
  The more comments I read the more apt this is. Without places to just be, with no expectation or obligation to be a consumer, somewhere to be around people with or without socializing. Makes you feel like part of your community, part of something that’s bigger than you, to be seen, to be acknowledged.
- People that isolate themselves become isolated. I just don't use a car, but go often with the kids by train to meet other families. We meet strangers and have fun, but sometimes I am lonely anyway. Sometimes in the middle of a chaotic people storm. It's just what I "blame" it on that is the biggest difference. It's the way we talk to others, if we are open and if those meet our vulnerability that is the biggest contributor imo. You can never be lonely if someone really cares about you.

I think that sometimes what happens to people is that they build the life that they implicitly believe they are "supposed" to be living because that is what they see everyone else around them doing, rather than based on an honest self-assessment of whether this really is the what will make them happy. When they realize that this life is not actually making them very unhappy, they look for outside factors to blame because they did everything that they were "supposed" to be doing so it could not have been their own misinformed choices that led them to this point.
And in fairness, no one chooses where they are born and the cultural conditioning that we receive, so this is not entirely their fault. It is really a societal problem that we do not encourage enough people to engage in true self-introspection to figure out for themselves what is important to them and what they want to get out of life so that they make these kinds of decisions with great deliberation and personal self-insight rather than taking the default option.

Yes, my ex wife and I can attest to that. Your coworker seems like a dick and should talk to a therapist.

each time he sees me he approaches to basically complain and rant, mostly about democrats and foreigners,
And you wonder why he seems lonely?
Maybe if he didn't do that, more people would want to spend time with him.

Marriage is not a fix for anything it's just a definition we give for two people that want to hold hands endure life together and I use endure on purpose. Since it's the good and the bad that comes with it. To many people especially men raised on 1950's fantasy think marriage is about getting something but really it's about giving something sometimes everything for your family. So they get mad when both people in the marriage have to work but for some reason they think just because house work was gender coded to be women's work they expect their wives to do that on top of everything else.
Marriage is no longer man and wife it two partners coming together to face the harsh reality that is our world. That means doing your fair share not being asked to do the damn dishes. Trading back and forth who is going to be the rock and who is going to be the one holding on to the rock. So they don't get pulled under.
long story short your coworker is a dumbass that just wants things handed to him. Just because he checked a box that said I'm married now. where is my happiness.
Also I have been married for a long time and I will tell you. you go through phases. You will fall in love with your partner then after time you may fall out of love for a bit and then after some more time fall back in love again. But the whole time they are your partner, your family you just can't imagine them not being their. That's marriage.

It is a known personality issue.
It is called avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) or schizoid personality disorder (SPD). Both of these conditions can lead to feelings of loneliness due to inner walls and barriers that the person builds to protect themselves from perceived threats or emotional pain.
- Here I thought it was normal to feel lonely. When that whole FOMO term use being thrown around a few years ago actually made me both aware how often I was feeling it more than others perhaps, but also that I wasn't alone in feeling it all the time. Always kind of figured the fomo part was tied more to self centeredness or lack of self worth acknowlment or such on my end though. 34 years down, likely only 34 to go, I'll figure myself out eventually, haha
  Edit: Not married though, a couple occurrences of staying in relationships to long when I should have left though, fear of being more lonely.

I feel so starved for attention. I wouldn't be on lemmy if my partner didn't need soo much alone time. I grew up in a home full of people. There was always someone to play or talk with now it's just internet.
- Same. My partner needs his quiet time and alone time and just a spouse and child (I am the primary caregiver) is so overwhelming. I never expected to become the parent of an only child, I felt like just me and my sister was so little when I was growing up. But now this is what I am stuck with. Just one child and a spouse I hardly interact with because it's too much and meditation and peace and quiet is making them more happy than time spent together.

Yeah, have you ever had an annoying roommate? Isn't it so much more frustrating and isolating than living alone? You don't even have your own space to get away so you just become more irritable all the time. Now imagine if you wanted to not live with that person that you need to get lawyers, your family, another family and the government involved
A lot of people get married because "they're supposed to", "they've been dating for a while", or because it's arranged. Is it shocking that those people don't have the foundation for a good long term relationship? Is it shocking that every day is a little bit worse for them?

Your coworker is just a miserable piece of shit. Even if he was able to personally remove all democrats and immigrants, as he so claims to want, he'd still be a miserable piece of shit and no happier.

So, there's a lot of things to unpack here.
First, the idea that your spouse is your primary sole emotional connection is a relatively weird new concept on the scale of things. There's been a huge period of history where your primary emotional connection was your male companions and your spouse was infantalized by comparison. If you were well-off you might be so lucky and have your group of emotional companions, your group of romantic companions, and the person who bears your legitimate children.
Second, there's really not much of a good underlying working model for actual modern conservatism. The frontiersman/"house on the prairie" sort of rugged independence was never actually a thing back then and a lot of big issues like medical bills were a lot simpler when the answer to having any sort of illness was that you either get over it after relatively inexpensive and simple treatments or you die. So the conservative movement must necessarily sell you a false bill of goods. US politics are such that there is no actual fully-left political party, so that by default makes you a democrat.
There's also a bunch of added uniquely christian baggage. So there are left-wing christians who also have their own set of weird baggage.
Third, mostly irrespective of politics, there's a lot of cultural programming for males that they can't actually worthwhile work though their emotions in a productive fashion. Movies, TV shows, books, literally everything in the media creates this idea of maleness and the writers are just trying to write a catchy story and seldom have time to think about what kind of male they are creating. This is, overall, a relatively recent concept.
Fourth, "things men need emotionally that women cannot provide" is actually pretty silly. Outside of practical advice about what to do with specific pieces of anatomy where maybe it would be nice to have some reference, the things people do is a pretty wide field. "Oh, someone to watch football with" ignores female football fans, et al. This ties in a lot with right wing men because they can't necessarily have an emotional connection with someone not-male because that's equivalent to messing around with someone's property. And it also ties in with the social programming that created a stereotype for how men are supposed to relate to each other that's just a writer trying to put a good story together without thinking of the social implications.
Radicalization doesn't work on people who are emotionally connected and comfortable. Part of why we are where we are is that there's a whole class of people whose happiness has been precluded by the structure of their lives and the best people who can take advantage of this are fraudsters selling a false bill of goods. And I don't even really feel sympathy for those people anymore because they are hurting people who I do very much care about and after a point it doesn't matter if they are just too dumb to see it.
But, I guess, to return to your initial point, the idea that if you find a person and get married to them that you have "solved" connection, that's the road to unhappiness. Partially because marriage generally requires a commitment and effort to stay together as things happen and people change... but also because relying on one single person without other social connectivity is not a stable equilibrium.

There is people in unhappy marriage. Who sometimes sacrified their own life for their marriage and kids and end up living with someone they don't love anymore (if they ever did) and no social life on their own.
- From what I have seen, unhappy marriages are very common in highly religious/conservative groups.
  Most of these groups have stupid "No Sex before marriage" rules. So two horny young adults (teenagers in some cases) get married quickly. Pregnancy follows immediately and they start being parents before they are fully mature.
  Fast forward 5-6 years later and they don't even like each other anymore. The smart ones do the adult decision and divorce.
  Way too many of them live misery constantly bickering while claiming to be "happily married" because "divorce is a sin". They then spend most of their time complaining about their spouses. The kids of course have all sorts of baggage from growing up in the toxic environment.

Lots of great answers here already about the marriage part. I'm going to say something really unpopular in today's society about things men need. Men need a non-verbal outlet for their anger and frustration. Even cerebral men will not successfully purge all of that negativity just by talking. That outlet can be weightlifting, running, hiking, boxing, or any number of things. Without that outlet that bitterness builds endlessly. Fight Club does a great job of showing the despair that comes from not having a physical outlet for those emotions. Or maybe not all men need that, but I know I do, as do all of my male friends. Obviously we can't say if that has any bearing on your coworker's situation, but you asked about needs that aren't fulfilled by marriage alone, and that's one that I'm aware of.
- I think exercise is helpful to everyone who experiences stressful or frustrating situations regularly. Our bodies are still built for fight or flight responses, and physical exertion helps get rid of that stress response.
- I find some of the most frustrating and angry times I have is when I don't have a physical outlet. I need physical catharsis. Usually it's weightlifting, a few times I've run until I drop. Ultimately I feel like a lot of it stems from society not fully being there with letting men be equally as emotional or emotionally open as women. This means the solution most find if they can't express themselves that way, they do in a physical way.
  This is just a personal take based on personal circumstances and lived experiences.

- Brah. braaaahhh
  Idk what else to say. Just, braaahhhh

Dude was probably raised on stupid conservative shit and never did the work to find happiness in himself.
You don't need connections to be happy and the connections people are drawn to tend to amplify what they're putting into the relationship. If this dude is miserable and looking to others to fix it they're just going to dig their hole deeper.
I'd clarify that this is different from leaning on friends when you're going through a hard time, if you establish a positive relationship you can lean on it for stability when your life is rough... and some folks culture positive relationships during hard times by compartmentalizing them into a positive part of their lives (an example I've seen was a friend who joined our board game group during a rough time but didn't reveal their troubles until later - when all that shit was going down our space was where she came to just have a good time and be positive).
Life's hard. People raised on the ideology of bootstraps and "Having a family will fix it" are playing on extra hard mode.

It's better to wake up alone knowing you're alone, than to wake up next to someone and nevertheless feel lonely.
— Liv Ullmann, Norwegian actress

As many have already told you, people need more than just physical companionship.
I'd add that some people cannot be happy even with a healthful environment because of internal or personal issues. For example, certain cluster B personality disorders or traits cause that people feel empty deep down. They will enjoy things for a while, but often return to feeling incomplete, disconnected, etc.

While I can't attest to why your coworker is angry all the time, I can say that it is possible to feel lonely in a marriage. While you are connected in a functional marriage, your partner isn't going to be and can't possibly be the only source for your needs. You're not going to have all the same interests as your partner and it's good to have friends outside of the marriage to share those interests. Sometimes your partner will drive you crazy, so it helps to have friends that can help you with that. If you don't have anyone to help with those needs it can get lonely quickly.

Which takes me to think, maybe there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide, but I couldn't write a list.
You could probably write entire books and doctoral theses about this right here. In fact I'm sure people have.
I think, fundamentally, men need the same things women need: love, support, a sense of belonging, opportunities for self improvement, on top of all of Maslow's needs, and more. All things that are often denied to people for various societal and economic reasons. And some men will deny themselves these things because we are lied to about what will make us happy.
More than anything many men feel the need to be in control of all aspects of their life. Control their finances, their property, their spouse. But it's impossible to be always in control, so there will always be an angst there. Men who have everything they thought they needed to be happy, and still aren't, may sooner or later look for someone to blame. That makes then vulnerable to divisive rhetoric.
I've never been married but I am a man who, frankly, hasn't ever been very happy in life despite being loved by my family; yes I think a married person can feel very lonely.

Cool incel vibes

Marriage is a social construct not built upon love or companionship. It is just a social relation that is related to the two, with religious and legal backing to fortify it.
If you see marriage as a means to love and companionship, you are not gonna have a loving relationship. Love and companionship are completely viable (and I’d argue stronger) outside the strange little box that society tries to place it in
Fuck marriage.
I don’t think there is anything that a person of any gender can’t provide in a relationship. I do see that society shuns certain people from performing certain roles, but anyone can do any one of them.
If he is only ranting politics, he might not have anyone to talk politics with. Maybe he is the lone conservative, lapping up every scrap of talking points from Fox (or maybe Newsmax), but can’t spew them out around family who sees him as being crazy for watching Fox. If you aren’t pushing back, he probably sees you as safe, and if he is finding it hard for him to deal with political stressors, that’s probably why he is ranting and getting so emotional.

Anytime we talk about human behavior, it is a good idea to learn and use the lens of behavioral contextualism. If and only if the contextual behaviorist analysis concludes that human connections is the issue, Sue Johnson’s texts will be great to understand your coworker. Otherwise, the contextual behavioral analysis will let you know what’s going on.
Edit: Removed excess text
- Are you Hoffman or Hayes?
  Seriously though, your reading list is a bit one sided. I’m happy you found a hammer you like, but not every relationship is a nail.
  
  Thanks for the response. I guess I do see much of human behavior through a contextual behaviorist lens. Sorry if it seems excessive. I am not Hayes or Hoffman. It is just frustrating to see blanket explanations for human behavior, instead of understanding specific processes. I guess I really want to avoid the fundamental attribution error and reductionism, something contextual behaviorism deliberately aims to avoid.
  While I recognize Emotion Focused Therapy is helpful to understand and, if possible, change social behavior (which is why I mentioned it previously), I maybe should have brought up Emption Construction Theory or even Sapolsky’s multi-lens framework, considering different timescales of explanation. Would you have suggested something different? When does contextual behaviorism fail?
  Thanks for helping me potentially falling into reductionism. I wouldn’t want to fall in that trap.

54 comments