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The Lonely Blog

I found my partner, now what?

11/16/2011

3 Comments

 
If you have taken The Lonely Quiz, there is one question on there that asks if having a romantic partner is one of the most effective ways of permanently curing loneliness. Not surprisingly, 67% of those answering said that it is true, a romantic partner is an effective way of permanently curing loneliness. And, as you will see after you have answered the question, I said that it is not, in fact, true.

As a teenager I have been guilty of constructing in my mind, the image of the perfect woman. I am sure I am not the only person who is guilty of doing this. I would venture to say, most of us have some kind of list of what we think a potential partner should have. For some of us, our expectations are realistic, have a decent income, perhaps a non-smoker, etc. For some of us though, our expectations are a bit too detailed. In our minds we construct a caricature of a real person, like a Barbie doll, something that could never exist in real life but in fantasy is appealing.

If you ask the average lonely person, what do you need to cure your loneliness, most would agree with the 67% of respondents and say, having a romantic partner. The thought is, if I just had that one special person in my life, someone who would understand and love me, then my loneliness would disappear into thin air. In fact, back in 1976, when one of the founding loneliness researchers, Robert Weiss started his work, he found a similar phenomenon in a single parents group he was working in. He said that having that romantic attachment almost seemed like an "anti-loneliness" pill. By magic, falling in love made loneliness vaporize into thin air. The problem with falling in love though is that it doesn't last. In fact the brain is playing lots of tricks on you for you to fall in love. One of those tricks is that you tend to ignore all of the bad/incompatible traits in your partner when you are in that "cloud 9" stage. Once things cool down, you begin to notice all of those traits you had previously ignored. Another trick is that what appears to be love at the beginning of a relationship is in fact something else entirely. If you think about people in abusive relationships who grow up in a household with abusive relationships, you sometimes wonder, why is it, someone would choose to date/marry someone as abusive as their parent was. The reason is that familiarity is often mistaken for love.

I think when 67% or more of you say, a romantic relationship would cure your loneliness, you're not talking about a romantic relationship with someone with lots of emotional baggage or who needs things you are unwilling to provide. When you imagine a romantic relationship, you are imagining the Cinderella fantasy, a Prince Charming (or Princess Beauty) coming to rescue you from the abyss of loneliness you currently reside in. The trouble is the expectations can be unrealistic, people are going to fail you, and you will not have all of your needs met. In fact, even if you did get someone to "rescue" you, you're still not going to be happy. The illusion of perfection only exists in your head. Try putting those expectations on someone and watch that relationship crumble.

So, if you're lucky enough to find a partner, as my blog title asks, now what? Yes, your loneliness is going to disappear probably for three months, maybe longer. And then it's going to come back. If you had trust issues before, you're still going to have trust issues in your relationship. If you had communication issues before, it isn't going to magically disappear. If you really want to get rid of your loneliness permanently, you have to work on your own issues without expecting your romantic partner to do it for you. Romantic partners are exactly that, partners, they aren't your therapist or your parent that never loved you and quite frankly they can never be. You need to love yourself, to be content in your own skin, to be brave enough to be vulnerable before you can partner up with anyone. Otherwise, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.
3 Comments
Deckard
12/26/2011 07:44:51 am

I have never believed that romantic relationships were the cure-all for loneliness. In fact, I rather like to call them romantic entanglements. They can often exacerbate loneliness which seems instinctively opposite to what we would think the result of being with someone would be.

Being solitary and feeling lonely is a bad feeling to be sure; being in a relationship or marriage and still feel lonely is the absolute worst anybody can feel; at least to my reckoning. However, I don't think it's as easy to cure loneliness by addressing other issues. Much of the time, it's those other issues that feed the loneliness, which in turn feeds those other issues. I believe the term I am searching for is self-fulfilling prophecy. However romantic the notion of being that rebel without a cause, that person who stands outside the conclave of human interaction and acceptance, it is a genuinely painful place to live. I have spent so many years of my life claiming to not care that I was an outsider, and that being solitary was better than caving in to the petty and frivolous standards of everyone else; I still feel this way, as I cannot identify with what passes for entertainment or engagement in the world today. So what answer is there? Shut off my distaste so that I may join in the conversation, or keep myself apart from Madison Avenue's ideas of happiness through rampant consumption?

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Jimtastic
8/3/2012 02:45:11 pm

I can relate. Nor have I ever believed that my romantic relationship would be an answer to loneliness. The awkward part is that I have started to think that she thought I would be an answer to her loneliness, and now we're in a right old mess so far as I can see. I never expected love to answer loneliness. In fact I have chosen therapy in order to deal with my issues, because I think you7re right, it's the other issues that feed the loneliness, and the loneliness that feeds the issues. But unfortunately I cannot disentangle my romantic entanglement from that cycle. When I met my partner we were both lonely people, and we are both still lonely people. But I am trying to deal with my original issues externally; whereas it almost feels like she is turning our relationship into the self-fulfilling prophecy. Ultimately I, too, only have questions.

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pawan
8/28/2013 07:46:37 am

you may be right about romantic relationship but if you have a partner who is compatible and understand you than loneliness can be reduced to greater extent. I am married with kids but my wife, as i think, not of my matching in appearance, and i tried to make her by ways of various methods of grooming which she ignored and i felt broken. surprisingly this has been the main issue in all our quarrel. For few months and 2-3 yrs so, i met a lady exactly what i ever dreamed of, beautiful, educated, witty and understandable. But she is also married. we talked over phone for hours mostly about our profession but about family also. During all my 17yrs of marriage i might not have conversed with my wife to that extent which we did in just few months. But now she has distanced may be due to family reasons and i too not have tried to approach her. there has been no physical relation but i always enjoyed to talk to her as she could understand me immediately. while with my wife she does not have understanding to that extent and there is not friendly relation with my wife. i have always felt lonely and though i knew the fate of my relation with that other lady, i am feeling bit more lonely and uneasy all the time. i am however controlling my self to initiate for a telephonic talk and even try to avoid her if she meet me in any party. But i am not happy and as usual my wife do not bother to have a detailed conversation with me which i need the most. i think i desperately require a loving relation who can understand me. i am a simple, non smoker guy. this state of mind is affecting my professionalism also.

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