Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Have you ever noticed yourself feeling lonely in your relationship? It's a largely unspoken idea that even though you live with, sleep with, raise children with your partner, you may feel lonely around them. So how exactly does this show up in a relationship and what impact does feeling lonely have on your relationship? Well, we're unpacking all of that and more today as we take a deep dive into loneliness, and specifically loneliness within a relationship.
Hey, we're Kim and Rog, and we're here to show couples how to get the best out of their relationship so they can start living their dream life together.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: We're a West Aussie couple who are living the life of our dreams. We don't entertain the word should, we think about the future as a field of possibilities and we let joy be our compass.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: We've taken the simple idea of working as a team and applied it to our marriage, and it's been a game changer, allowing us to work out what truly lights us up in life and to go after it together.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: From living in snowy Japan to starting our own house flipping business, we've achieved some big dreams. And most importantly, we feel fulfilled and are having the most fun we've ever had.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Pick conversations from, inspiring couples, thoughts from relationship experts, and tales from our own lives as we help you to gain the wisdom and skills you'll need to turn your relationship into a real team.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: These are relationship conversations for real people, by real people. So sit back, get comfort in whatever tickles you, pickle, and enjoy living the team life.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Okay, so today on living the team Life podcast, we are going to be talking about loneliness. And what I want to do in the beginning is actually just talk through the concept of loneliness a little bit, because I think it is a very misunderstood idea.
We'll get into how it specifically plays out in the relationship, but I want to talk generally about loneliness first, because a lot of people think that when you're around other humans, you can't possibly be lonely.
And I think that idea and that stigma of having to be not lonely or you couldn't possibly be lonely is a very dangerous one because it undermines what loneliness actually is.
Loneliness is a complex emotional experience.
It's really what's going on on the inside. And that's why being around others doesn't predict you. Not feeling lonely or not being conversely around others doesn't necessarily predict a sense of loneliness. So that complex experience we're talking about goes beyond the physical and it actually speaks to a profound sense. So this is your own experience of disconnection from others.
And that disconnection has feelings of emptiness, sadness, longing for meaningful human connection attached to it. That's what loneliness really is at its core. It's a deep seated perception of being emotionally unfulfilled or even misunderstood.
And that really hits for me because I've experienced loneliness one time that really stands out for me. When I lived in Switzerland and I did Rotary youth exchange straight after school, and I had many, many people around me. That's what a youth exchange student has. They are constantly surrounded by people.
I felt very lonely, and that came from a sense of being misunderstood because I couldn't speak the language yet, and being emotionally unfulfilled because I didn't have any meaningful relationships yet. I had only just met these people, and I had a very, very deep sense of loneliness at that time that really stands out for me. So, as I said a second ago, you have those sorts of feelings attached to loneliness, of emptiness, of sadness. Sometimes anxiety will be showing up with this sense of that you. You feel alien almost to the world around you. Like you don't feel like you're understood. You feel misunderstood and that you don't in some way connect and fit into the world around you. So this sense of isolation becomes pervasive in you. You feel isolated because you feel alone and lonely and like an outsider in. In social settings, an outsider potentially in your own relationship, which we'll get to in a moment. It's that lack of emotional intimacy that. That we. That we crave and we. We want as humans that doesn't exist when you're feeling lonely. And this, one of the words that comes up when you read the research around loneliness is a hollowness. And I think that's really important to understand how big loneliness is. Hollow is a big word. It's describing a gap inside yourself, a sense of something missing. And I think that's how profound loneliness can be. And it's this deep, deep yearning to fill that gap of human connection.
I really wanted to talk about that straight off the bat in terms of what loneliness is, because it is bigger, I think, than people understand. And it most certainly is not directly related to the physical world around you. And I think those concepts are really important and hopefully very validating to hear them spoken for anyone who might be experiencing loneliness.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: I think when you brought this one to the table, I thought it was really important to talk about. And you also said you wanted to talk about the concept of loneliness, not just related specifically to the relationship, which is often what we do here. And, you know, I think we're hearing a lot about loneliness in the world right now. I think it happened, it was before COVID but definitely in COVID, when people were more isolated, they seem to. There seem to be this issue with loneliness, but the world's sort of back to how it was pre COVID, and the loneliness doesn't seem to be going away. Everyone talks about how connected we are through social media and through our mobile phones, where you can access literally anyone in the world all the time through the palm, through something that's in the palm of your hand. And yet we feel more disconnected than ever. And maybe that's the world we live in these days. I don't know.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: It's interesting you say that, Roger, because there was a landmark study done in 2023 called the state of the nation, the state of the Nation report, I think, and the statistics in that showed that one in three Australians reported feeling lonely and one in three. That's like 33% of Australians, reported feeling lonely and one in six reported feeling severely lonely. If my math serves me, that should be around 15%.
That's a very high number.
When we unpack what loneliness is, that you feel emotionally disconnected, that you feel emotionally unfulfilled and misunderstood. That's a lot of people feeling.
I guess what I'm getting to is this isn't necessarily what people see, so it's having compassion and empathy and considering that someone might be feeling lonely without you being able to see it, because the stats tell us that a lot more people are feeling lonely than we could possibly guess from the outside, from their physical circumstances. And what does that mean for people? Well, again, research suggests that you are five times more likely to have poorer wellbeing if you experience loneliness and you are two times more likely to have a chronic disease. And I can absolutely say, as someone with two chronic diseases, that my wellbeing and my mental health directly impact my physical health categorically. So loneliness can, the stats are telling us, can absolutely lead to poor physical health.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah. That mind body connection is, you know, there is a bit of scientific evidence behind it these days where, you know, if you feel poor in your mind, your body will, as a lagging indicator, feel that way. And if you feel poor in your body, your mind will feel the way, feel that way as well. So you can see how you also start to take less care of yourself if you're feeling lonely. You don't have a lot of self worth often when you're feeling lonely.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: That's a really interesting point. And I guess that really goes to that sense of being emotionally unfulfilled in that sense of isolation, when you feel really isolated and that lack of emotional connection and intimacy, it can be really hard to feel connected to yourself as well. And I think that, like you say, that has a huge knock on effect to the way we engage with ourselves and the health outcomes we have as a result of that. And something I just want to touch on that I think is a really important nuance. And I guess I've spoken about it in the introduction here.
In the sense that I've said loneliness is not obvious. That's what I really want to, you know, acknowledge and validate here that loneliness exists inside of us. It's not a. It's not a physical thing in that regard, it is highly subjective. So remembering that we are all wired differently, we have different brains, different bodies, and as a result, it's not about whether you're around people or not, because some people are very, very happy not being around other humans. They don't experience loneliness in that situation. Situation. So it is a real subjective experience. And again, just a personal, personal anecdote for me on that line would be, I am far more introverted now as a mother who's 40 years old than I used to be. I also am aware that I am ADHd. So what used to come out as people thinking I was extroverted was more likely my ADHD playing out as confidence. I actually think I've always been introverted and always struggled to be around other people and gather energy from that. I actually felt very drained from being around other humans. But because I'm so chatty as an ADHD person, people think that I am more extroverted than I am.
I do not feel lonely not seeing other people.
That hasn't been part of my experience of becoming more.
More physically isolated from others. I definitely feel lonely for other reasons sometimes, but that's not one of the contributing factors, and that's just the way I'm wired at the moment. I'm quite content in the world that I'm in with a lot less people most of the time. So I absolutely see it as a highly subjective experiencing. Depending on the way your brain works, depending on who you are as a person, your temperament, your upbringing, all of those things, that what one person's lonely is would be another person's lonely, or what one person's not feeling lonely would be another person's not feeling lonely.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: I think that's a really good point, sweetie, because it also can lead you to conclusion that you can be lonely even though you're in a relationship with someone, even if you share a bed with them, in a house with them, and kids and a life, even if you go out on dates with them, even if you. You live intertwined life with them, you can still feel lonely. So that's what we'll actually move on to now, is talking about loneliness in relationships, because it is a thing. And I want to point out that this is something that Kim and I, probably during the early to mid part of our relationship, that we did feel lonely sometimes. And we lived in an apartment together, we spent time together. We weren't on holidays together, but we felt disconnected. We weren't on the same page. We didn't have a shared vision of the future. We were lacking a bit of empathy towards each other.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: We felt misunderstood.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: We felt misunderstood a lot. So I think, and from the outside, people would just go, they're in a relationship, they've got lots of friends. How could they ever feel lonely? But I think we really did. And sometimes being in a relationship where you do feel that disconnect and some of the things we'll talk about now might actually exacerbate the fact. It's like, well, how come I feel this way, but I'm not alone? How. What is wrong?
[00:13:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a confusing situation, isn't it? And I guess that's why I really wanted to run through what loneliness is, because it does. It is important for people to understand that even in a relationship where you have an intimate partner, you may be experiencing, you may be subjectively experiencing yourself loneliness. And it is very much about your own personal experience, your inner experience in that relationship.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And this can really look like sometimes, like, I don't feel seen in my relationship, you know? And that can be because you have unmet emotional needs. This means when one or both partners, partners feel emotionally neglected or they don't feel supported by their partner, this can create feelings of loneliness. You know, there's a communication breakdown. You don't have the tools, you don't have the skills to communicate. You don't have that want and the energy to communicate. And so what happens is you start to misunderstand each other. Conflicts escalate, and because you're not repairing correctly, they become unresolved. And that emotional distance and that gap slowly and slowly over time, sometimes years, can just grow into a massive divide. And that divide causes the loneliness. There's not a physical divide, but there is an emotional divide. There's a communication breakdown causing that.
We definitely need to do an episode on this. There's a lot of people in, on social media who talk about attachment styles. But when couples have different attachment styles, so that's really how they, how I'm going to probably butcher this, but how their experience of relationships when they were children and they were younger, they often bring into their relationships and experiences when they're older. And if they have a different experience, they will likely have a different style. Now, again, these aren't bad things. These are things that can be managed and these things that can be healed in a relationship. But they can cause emotional disconnection and this can cause to cause insecurity and it can cause loneliness. So Esther Perel has done a lot of work in this area as well. And she's done a lot of work, not just research, but in her therapy room. And I actually doing the research. I love some of the, I guess, sound bites or the things that she heard from couples in her therapy sessions about what it felt like, what other partner would hear from a partner, or what she would hear from a couple. Uh, when they felt that they were lonely, there was a sense of loneliness identified in relationships. So I'm just going to quickly take you through them now. So sometimes a partner may feel like they have to initiate every conversation they're happening while the other partner wishes the conversation would just always end. Or the other person feels that their partner's wanting to shut down a conversation, or they're not talking at all, because they, every time they do talk, there's a stonewall or there's a conflict and there's no resolution, there's no repair.
A partner might be feeling that they're not seen and because there's a lack of empathy, because they don't feel like the other person really ever sees things from their point of view and puts themselves in their shoes. They might not feel safe to bring up critical issues or even small issues in the relationship because they feel they get criticized, they feel their partner will be defensive. There's not a safe space being created for them. So that loneliness starts to occur with that disconnection. They might have, I guess, a partner who makes everything about them. They're being that partner they believe is being a bit selfish. And there might also be a lack of physical intimacy, experiencing maybe a lack of touch, cuddles, or even sexual rejection.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: I think that's the great scenarios that Esther wrote about, because I think sometimes people will experience those things and not recognise that what's underpinning it or what comes as a result is a sense of loneliness. And that's why I think she wrote about it, to demonstrate that there are many scenarios in a relationship that can actually be contributing to a sense of loneliness. You know, like you said, a partner resisting conversations, and that could be contributing to the sense. To a sense of loneliness. You might not have enough empathy in the relationship that can contribute to a sense of loneliness. So watching out for if these things are happening, what's happened? Has this led to me feeling more lonely in the relationship? And on that note, what does feeling lonely do to the relationship if I am starting to feel lonely? So say those scenarios are popping up regularly. Say there's a partner making everything about them, and as a result, you or your other, you or the other partner, whatever way you want to phrase it, starts to feel more lonely. What does that do to the relationship? Well, the first thing it does is it creates emotional distance. You may become more distant towards your partner even though you're still physically close because you have a sense of loneliness. You're not feeling emotionally fulfilled by that person. You're not feeling understood by that person. It also creates a sense of a lack of intimacy. You don't want to be intimate with that person. You don't want to be touchy feeling and intimately connected to that person because you don't feel understood by them. There's no safety in that. Loneliness indicates a lack of a sense of safety in the relationship. So why would you want to connect in that way with them?
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I've always said that emotional intimacy is the emotional intimacy is foreplay.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: Is foreplay, like, you know, definitely for women.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Definitely for women. You know, if you want to connect with your partner, if you want to be intimate with them, you got to understand them. You got to have that emotional connection that's emotional intimacy leads to physical intimacy.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: Yes. Good. Good one, Rogie. And another sort of feeling that comes up in the relationship.
Sorry. Another sort of outcome for the relationship when you are feeling lonely in it, what does it do to the relationship? You mentioned this before, Rog, when you said that. How does. Why does loneliness show up? And one of the reasons is communication breakdowns. And you spoke about what that sort of manifests as, and what it manifests as is constant conflict. So when you feel lonely in a relationship, you become less inclined to resolve things. You become less driven to connect with your partner. You become less motivated to be emotionally intimate, to show physical intimacy, to be open and transparent with them. And as a result, that can really build the conflict because you don't want to connect with them. You feel alone. You feel a disconnection and a misunderstanding from them. And that's, that's one of the big things that can show up.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: So you're feeling lonely in your relationship and you're wondering if there's anything you can do. Well, yes, there are things you can do. Of course there are. For me, the biggest thing you can do is become a team. And that's what Kim and I did probably just over ten years ago.
We were in a long term relationship. We'd been together for just under ten years and our lives were perhaps going in somewhat separate directions, but we loved each other so, so much and we knew we wanted a future together. We didn't know how. So we started, we started going internally and doubling down on the relationship.
We started acting like a team. And if you're not feeling like you're connected to your partner and you're feeling lonely, the whole reason we're doing this podcast is, we believe, to turn that around, to stop feeling stuck in your relationship, stop feeling disconnected with your partner, to stop feeling lonely when you've got someone you live with in your life is to become a team. And there are so many ways that you can do that. We've built a whole podcast around this and, you know, Kim and I are, Kim and I are parents to an incredible little girl who has additional needs and as a result has a lot of trouble accessing the community. And as a result, we have trouble accessing the community. So we can get into a place where from the outside you might say, well, we have less access to the community. In community, when you have, they show in studies that if you have less access to a community, you, you are more likely to be lonely. But Kim and I have each other and of course we've got our beautiful little girl, but we've got each other because we're a team. And as a result, we don't, we don't feel lonely. I don't feel lonely because I know I've always got her by my side. She's an awesome teammate and I know I'm so lucky. And being part of her team, just like in your sporting team, just like in an awesome team at work, you feel like you're a part of something, and it's really hard to feel lonely when you feel like that. So yes, there are ways you can build towards the team and we're going to take you through those. Now.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: I just, I really enjoyed what you just said then. What a lovely way to phrase it. And I said the same thing at the beginning, but I really do feel like it's very, very true from the outside. We look physically isolated and we are physically isolated, but we don't have that pervasive sense of loneliness because we have chosen to focus on our own bond and connection and that helps us to feel emotionally fulfilled and understood in this world. And that's when we're not emotionally fulfilled and we don't feel understood. That's when we get that sense of loneliness. So yes, love that ways that people can build their own bond and connection in their relationship and cocoon themselves from the possibility of loneliness or come out of a sense of loneliness, move on from a sense of loneliness. Because as we said, we have felt lonely before in the first decade of our relationship. We don't feel that really these days. And some of the things that we worked on included building better communication together, upskilling on how you can converse in a more compassionate, engaged and frequent way with your partner.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Listen to living the team life with.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Kevin Roger podcast making the relationship your priority. Showing up for the relationship and being deliberate in focusing on the health and the well being of the relationship. Spending more quality time together, working on your mindset and approach towards making consistent time for your partner. Do you see this as a chore? Are you working on doing this because you want to build health in the relationship? Because you want to build connection in the relationship, not because you feel like you have to. And that's why we say working on the mindset and approach to spending more quality time together, sharing more of your life together, really putting an effort into making your partner a big part of your life. And I think for people, this one is confronting. People feel strapped. We talk about this all the time. They feel under resourced because they've given out all their resources and they feel like they're struggling. So the idea of trying to do even more for your partner feels heavy. And it is heavy at the beginning.
It will pay off. We we know it will pay off. It always pays off. Investing in the relationship always pays off because there is nothing, nothing that will help you to live your best life more than your partner. They are your number one asset. And I don't want to be brutal, but if you want to think about it like that, they are. They are your emotional safeguard, they are your support, they are your encouragement. They are everything. And if you have a thriving relationship, there's nothing you can't achieve, there's nothing you won't go after. So sharing more of your life, it may sound heavy in the front end, but I absolutely promise it will pay off in the back end.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Yeah. I loved what you said at the front end about cocooning yourself from loneliness and moving out of loneliness. And, you know, so much of what you said, that is, you have to give a little bit of yourself and take a bit of a leap of faith at the start, if you're already feeling lonely, to give more of yourself.
And that might, that'll probably mean saying no to a lot of stuff. But if you're feeling lonely, like things aren't working, you need to change things, you need to make change. So saying no to things so you can say yes to your relationship is really, really important to enable you to do those steps that Kim took you through, to have better communication, to be more generous, to make your relationship a priority, to spend more quality time together, and to realize that you need to have a shared life together.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: All right, Rogie, what was your gold nugget out of today's episode?
[00:27:28] Speaker B: My gold nugget was when you first raised this, talking about loneliness, I was a bit like, oh, you know, yeah. So let's talk about loneliness in relationship. Like, no, no. It's really important we give people the context of what loneliness means. And for me, it was just understanding that it's not a hermit out on a farm in the middle of WHOOP WHOOP, who's lonely. It is. Could be one of your friends, it could be someone in your family.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: And the hermit might not be lonely either.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Hermit is just hermiting it up and loving it. But maybe someone you know, close to you is feeling lonely and maybe you yourself are feeling lonely in your relationship. So, yeah, just the fact adding a bit of context to what we talk about today actually was just resonated with me. It was a way of thinking differently.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: Mmm, I like that. For me, I think what I took out of the thing that I really took out of this was Esther Perel's scenarios that she gave. Because I don't think people think about the concept of loneliness probably a lot as an idea in their relationship, as something that may be occurring and. And causing damage in the relationship as a result. Because, as I said, there's some serious knock on effects when you start to feel lonely. What can show up that emotional distance, lack of intimacy, constant conflict. So thinking about those scenarios that might be contributing to a sense of loneliness is really helpful because you can tackle those individual scenarios as well. You can find antidotes to them, ways to build your skills, so that those, those scenarios aren't the most normal way or normal behaviour in your relationship. That you have a more productive way of engaging in communicating or connecting with one another or becoming intimate with one another or sharing your life together, whatever it is. So yeah, for me it was those scenarios because I think loneliness is sneaky and I think it can be difficult to identify and I think the more light we shed on how it shows up, where it shows up, what you can do to combat it is really important for relationships.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: You're amazing. You've just spent quality time on your relationship.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: Feel like you're on a roll. If you want more living the team life relationship insights and conversations, head over to kimandroj.com where you can find all the show notes as well as tons of other relationship goodies.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: And if you like Today day's episode, please hit subscribe or let another couple know where they can find us. It'll make them happy and it'll make us really happy.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Until next time, keep on living the team life.
