Almost every person strives to be part of an intimate, lasting, nurturing relationship with a partner. Intimacy is a combination of caring, interdependence, reciprocity, trust and attachment, says couples counselling toronto. Both partners, in an intimate relationship, have confidential and very intimate knowledge of each other. The wealth of this information relates to personal histories, desires, and plans that may have never been revealed to anyone else. Caring is only the heart of an intimate relationship. Intimate partners are emotionally connected, and their lives are in constant relationship with each other, affecting each other. From there, thinking about relationship emerges through thinking about “us.” Intimate partners are committed to their relationship. Relationship growth and maturation are not seen as processes that are time-bound, but driven by common goals.
What is loneliness in a partnership?
Loneliness, just like connectedness, is a natural human experience, no matter what culture we come from. It represents the subjective sense of insufficient or limited connections with other people, the unwanted difference between the connections a person has and those they would like to have. Love and loneliness are words that by their opposites should not stand together.
However, this is still a reality that many couples live on. Experiences of loneliness in a relationship are described as feeling unnecessary to a partner, unwanted, emotional disconnected, unimportant. A person has a strong need to share their daily experiences, to bring back what goes on in an offline life, but they prevent these feelings (As if talking to myself, I know that they will not share the joy I feel, mine will disappear good mood, better feel…). Such situations have been described as feelings of meaninglessness, constant questions about the purpose of staying in such a relationship and at the same time as very painful experiences of loneliness.
When the value of one partner is judged to be less, when the partner gives a “cold shower” by ignoring the desire to share and foster intimacy, when there is an unwritten rule of silence between the partners, there are inevitable changes in the relationship. All these changes and behaviors of one partner also affect the self-esteem ability of a partner who feels lonely. A partner who feels lonely in the relationship may try different ways to repair the relationship, may develop different symptomatic behaviors, but may also start looking for the possibility of developing intimacy with another person.
What happens in everyday life when loneliness enters the relationship?
The rethinking that comes from the idea: How is it possible for me to be with someone in the same space, in the same room without feeling lonely? leads a person to think that he / she is not part of anything bigger than himself / herself, that he / she does not belong to that “we”, but that there are two persons in this room, completely separated and different. Even when there is conversation, there is a lack of sense of connection, closeness and security.