“It's very common that people find themselves in long-term relationships feeling lonely,” says Niloo Dardashti, a New York-based psychologist and relationship expert.
Love is magical, but it's not always a solution to loneliness. Many of us believe that if we feel lonely in this world, we are searching for love. We think that love is the most profound feeling possible; it is the glue that holds us together. It is the greatest joy we can experience in our lives!
But in fact, it's normal to sometimes feel lonely in a relationship—whether you're long distance, live together, or anywhere in between. A disconnect can happen even if you consider your relationship to be relatively healthy. "Life has a way of pulling us apart," she adds.
There are a few reasons for feeling lonely even when surrounded by friends and family: You hide your true self. You have a history of being misunderstood or judged. Perhaps you feel insecure about certain aspects of your personality.
Intimate loneliness, or what Weiss (1973) termed emotional loneliness, refers to the perceived absence of a significant someone (e.g., a spouse), that is, a person one can rely on for emotional support during crises, who provides mutual assistance, and who affirms one's value as a person.
When you are truly like someone, you really look forward to any connection you may have. You constantly check your phone for texts, calls, emails, etc. Just thinking about your next conversation makes you smile ear to ear. If you are dating them just to kill time you might be too lazy to reply to their messages.
The Need For Intimacy
The first and the most obvious reason why you may crave affection is because you don't have enough of it in your life. Some people tend to experience this due to a lack of close relationships, the absence of a romantic partner, or simply not having a strong support network of friends and family.
It's characterized by constant and unrelenting feelings of being alone, separated or divided from others, and an inability to connect on a deeper level. It can also be accompanied by deeply rooted feelings of self-doubt, low self-esteem, or social anxiety.
Being loved arouses anxiety because it threatens long-standing psychological defenses formed early in life in relation to emotional pain and rejection, therefore leaving a person feeling more vulnerable.
Feeling Empty in Relationships
A few causes of feeling empty in a relationship include: Over-dependence on partner to meet all emotional needs. Emotional needs not getting met in the relationship. Lack of emotional connection, quality time, or physical connection.
The bottom line? Coan advises every couple to adhere to the 70/30 rule: For the happiest, most harmonious relationship, the pro suggests spending 70% of time together, and 30% apart. That gives each of you enough freedom to explore your own interests while still being rooted and invested in your relationship.
It's not uncommon to be attracted to more than one person at the same time. But whether or not you act on those feelings won't only affect you. If you want to date more than one person, make sure that everyone involved understands this and is okay with it. Also, be sure beforehand that you can handle it.
Being in love with two people may be more common than some think. Studies show that many individuals worldwide identify as polyamorous, meaning they partake in a romantic relationship with or feel attracted to more than one individual at a time.
Some people describe loneliness as the feeling we have when our need for social contact and relationships isn't met. But loneliness isn't the same as being alone. You may feel content without much contact with other people. But others may find this a lonely experience.
Loneliness affects people in different ways, and for this reason there are four distinct types of loneliness identified by psychologists: emotional, social, situational and chronic.
People who don't get their dose of affectionate touch seem less happy, more lonely, and have a higher likelihood of suffering from depression, mood and anxiety disorders, as well as secondary immune disorder.
When you feel like something is lacking within you, you may crave someone. When you're emotionally all over the place on some level, you may crave someone. Feeding into a memory, the way a person made you feel or a desire that you possibly have been suppressing, that too can cause you to crave someone.
A hopeless romantic is someone who continues to believe in love, no matter the struggles they might have experienced in the past. They choose to see the positive in relationships over the negative, believing wholeheartedly that love conquers all.
When you start thinking about someone else's desires and needs as much as your own, it's a pretty good sign that you are in love, Shaffer says. "You may not necessarily want the same things but when you are in love, you start thinking of the other person's perspective just as much as your own."
Love evokes fond feelings and actions toward the other person, particularly. Attachment is driven by how you feel about yourself with the degree of permanence and safety someone gives you, based on your past relationships. In other words, with love, your person is “the one” you have feelings for.
You know you have an emotional connection with someone when you care about their needs and they care about yours. "When there is an emotional connection with someone, you want them to be happy," therapist Tracie Pinnock, LMFT, tells mbg. "The fulfillment of one's desire is a major part of being happy.