Why You Feel Lonely in a Relationship (And How to Write About It)

There is a loneliness that happens in an empty flat and another that happens while someone is asleep next to you. The second one is harder to admit because it sounds ungrateful.

It is not the same as being alone

Relationship loneliness is usually about being unknown rather than being unaccompanied. You talk about logistics. You do not talk about the thing that is actually happening inside you. Over time the gap between the conversation and the life becomes the loneliness.

Write the gap, not the accusation

“He never listens to me” is an accusation and it invites a defence. “We talked for forty minutes about the plumber and I did not say the thing I have been thinking about for three weeks” is a scene. It shows the gap without putting anyone on trial.

Be honest about your part

Often the lonely person is also the one who stopped saying the true thing first — because it was easier, because it had gone wrong before, because they were tired. Write that too. It makes the piece trustworthy and it makes it useful to the reader who is doing the same thing.

I did not stop talking to him. I stopped telling him the parts that could be argued with.

Do not write the ending you do not know yet

You do not have to decide whether to stay. Writing about the loneliness is not a divorce announcement. It is a way of hearing yourself. Decide later, with more information.

Read more at love and heartbreak.