The Rise of Loneliness in Marriage

We hear from so many people just like you who feel like they're doing marriage alone, and this is tragic. We're going to talk about how to navigate this, plus the damage withholding can cause in marriage. And finally, we'll discuss the hidden enemy of intimacy. It's going to be a full episode with something for everyone, so make sure you stay tuned the entire episode.

Plus, at the end, we're going to wrap up this entire series by sharing three things we do in our marriage to make sure we meet each other's intimacy needs. And there are three things that might surprise you, so stick around till the end for that. We're Dave and Ashley Willis, and you are watching the Naked Marriage podcast.

I love it. All right, so diving into navigating loneliness in marriage. I think probably the number one way, or I guess the number one complaint when it comes to people who feel like they're in a lonely marriage. You know, we've had blogs about this. You guys can Google it. We have blogs called. I mean, there's one in particular called the Lonely Marriage where we go through this. If you're not sure, if you're like, do I have a lonely marriage? It has. It kind of goes through some, you know, some. Some ways to know if you definitely are in a lonely marriage. But I would say if you even have that thought, you might have some symptoms of being in a lonely marriage. But the number one way this kind of happens is through something called emotional withholding. Now, what do we mean by this? Emotional withholding is when you are not willing to really show emotions or connect emotionally with your spouse. And I do think that there are times where maybe you started out where you guys were all about sharing the emotions, you were all about connecting emotionally. And then you find yourself in a hard season where you're grinding it out. You both are trying to save for a house, you're trying to save for your kids, you know, college fund or whatever. And usually it has to do with work. I feel like people are kind of, you're in your workspace, I'm in my workspace. We're just. We're just. This is just part of our life where we have to grind it out, and there ends up, like this withholding of emotion. And we tell ourselves, I'm too busy to share that with him or her. She wouldn't understand. He wouldn't understand. And, you know, so we're not necessarily intentionally doing this, but it. It has, you know, ramifications nonetheless, and it often leads to loneliness. Now, there's other Times where a spouse will emotionally withhold things from their spouse because they are maybe sharing it with someone else. Like, and it not. It's not necessarily an affair or like some kind of inappropriate relationship, but they've decided their spouse is not their safe person. So they're going to their mom, they're going to their dad, they're going to their friend. They're. You know what I'm saying? They're going out with the boys after and they're talking about all their grievances. They're going out with the girls and having margaritas and like, you're my safe people. You're my people, and you're the ones who are. If only he understood me. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not saying don't get with friends. I mean, I was on a girls weekend like, a week ago with some of my besties, and we do share things. But you better believe that I'm not gonna emotionally, you know, share more with my friends than I am with the love of my life. Like, he's gonna get the full bearing of emotions. He's gonna be the one where I'm gonna lean in even more and wanna know how you feel about things. Right?

Yeah.

And so I think that those are some reasons we fall into this. But I think a lot of times, too, we convince ourselves that our spouse can't take it. I mean, I think, like, we're kind of stoically withholding because we're like, it's my cross to bear. He can't take it. She can't take it. They just can't take. They can't process my emotions. So we hold back.

Oh, it's tough.

It's so tough. There's a lot of reasons.

And then you get into that groove of not sharing, and it just creates more distance. And that distance makes you feel even less safe about sharing. And the chasm grows wider. And so you have to work hard to bridge that chasm, that emotional withholding. This is something that our EXO mediators are particularly, particularly skilled at helping couples do is bridge that gap when there's been emotional distance and to rebuild kind of the foundations of communication. And the process happens quickly. I mean, just in a one or two day mediation, something Ashley and I have been through ourselves. Yeah, it is great to help you with communication so you can learn more about them@exomarriagehelp.com that's a link we share in almost every episode because we believe in it so strongly. What our team here at EXO does with the mediators we'll put that in the show notes as well. So if you find yourself in that rut, that's one of the many tools that can help you dig out of it. Now, another thing we need to talk.

About is, before we move on, can I mention something real quick?

Yeah.

So, talking about withholding, I heard a great talk from one of our friends, Dr. Les Parrott, recently at one of our exomarriage conferences in Grapevine. And he actually kind of coined this phrase in one of their books. And they've been doing marriage ministry forever. Literally. They wrote the book that we went through in our premarital training. I guess it was called Saving youg.

Marriage Before it starts over 23 years ago, we went through that.

It was so great. Now it's known as symbis. It's basically the acronym for that. But, you know, they're great people. And Les shared this thing where he said, you know, you need to share. He said, you need to share with holds is what he called him. And he explained. He said, it's basically what we're talking about. Like, things that you just don't share for whatever reason, because maybe you don't feel like it's the right time. You don't feel like they can take it. You don't wanna share it because you're like, I just don't wanna talk about it, whatever reason. He's like, you need to get out of that negative spiral because it does create distance. And he said, so there's this exercise you can do where together, you have a practice of once a week, I think is what he said, where you share with holds and what you do is a withhold sandwich. So you start out with a really positive withholding. It's not always. It's not always negative.

It's double positive, right?

It is. You start with a positive. So it's a sandwich. You start with a positive. Like, you know what? I didn't tell you thank you for this thing that you did earlier in the week. Like, that was so meaningful to me. Thank you so much. And I'm sorry I withheld that. And then you go into, you know what? I was really upset. So the negative one, it was really upset that you were late getting the kids. Like, we've talked about this. You really need to be punctual because they were left there a little bit longer. And it kind of put the teacher out or whatever it is. You actually never done that. I'm just using that as an example. And then the last one is a positive. And Say you would finish that negative with. So next time, can we communicate better about that? And if you can't make it, let me know so I can make other arrangements. And then positive finishing up that sandwich, say, by the way, you know, your coffee every morning that you make me is the best. Like, thanks for going that extra mile. And like, making it in just the intensity that I like it. It's just so kind. And then you have shared something where it's in that withhold sandwich. So the negative one, which did need to be said, isn't as much of a sting. It's not taken negative because they've already heard double positive.

It puts a spoonful of sugar with that medicine.

It does. And I just loved how he articulated that because I thought, that's so doable.

It's so doable.

That's so doable.

And he said in his marriage, it went from when if it was just negative. Hey, I need to. We need to talk or I'm going to share these with holes. It was like, oh, my gosh. No. It's like just getting beat up. I don't want to do that. But now with the positive, negative, positive, they look forward to it. When they say, you want to share with Holz, he's like, yes, let's go.

Let's do this.

I'm going to get double the encouragement and compliments. And then, you know, one point of kind of correction that's spoken in love.

That really probably needs to be worked on.

Yeah, that needs to be worked on. So it's a blind spot I'm going to see. And in that way, it's three positives, really.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I loved that. It was a great talk.

It really was. I'd never heard it said that way before. I thought it was really especially for this, because just the exercise of speaking those positive and negative withholds will build intimacy because you feel seen, you feel heard, and you even feel commended by the end of it. So I think it's amazing.

Yeah, I loved our EXO conference this year.

Me, too.

I mean, I love all of our exo. Come to one of our conferences. I promise you're going to have a great time. And you can also, you know, you can get a lot of this content on XO now, exonow.com go back and watch it. But yeah, that was a great talk from old Dr. Les Parrott.

That's right.

He's, you know, on a spot.

He's like Jimmy Evans. He's like an OG in the marriage space, you know, he's amazing.

And something else he challenged me on. This is totally random. It goes back to our health episode.

Oh, my gosh. This is so true.

He's walked five. At least five miles a day.

At least five miles a day for.

Something like 30 years. I mean, it's a ridiculous streak. And so when we were talking to him, we were standing outside the restaurant.

We had dinner with him.

Excuse me. I'm have to, like, walk up and down, like. And he was, like, walking in place, like, stepping back up the curb, down the curb, looking at us, and he goes, I can't break this streak. He said, when I'm travel, travel days are hard. And he explained that he's been committed to this, and his, like, watch is keeping track. He's like, I still got, like, 1.2 miles to go today, and I've been on a plane and doing this other stuff, and. But he was so committed to that, and it was a challenge to me, not only for health, but just in anything in your life that's important, you'll make time for it. You'll make a way. Because his life.

You'll make a way.

Is hard in terms of finding time, because he's in airports, he's traveling. It doesn't always lend itself to have all this extra time to walk great distance every single day. But he's like, no, this is a valuable aspect, and I'm gonna fight for it every single day. I'm gonna create margin to do this.

You know, thinking back to him doing that. We should have been there, just marching in place. We should have joined him.

We should have. I just stared at him.

I know. We just stared at him talking to him. We should have marched in place, sweetie.

I wasn't impressed enough.

Sorry, Les. I mean, we will. No, but I did. I admired that. I thought that was great.

Yeah. We got an interview with him coming up.

We do.

So stay tuned for that. It was a great interview that'll be released. So.

Yeah. So I just wanted to insert that snippet because I thought that that was gold, what Dr. Lissa said.

No, it was gold. He's. He's. He is, like you said, an og.

He is. He is. I love it.

And five miles a day.

I know. Challenge accepted. All right, so let's go on to kind of our next category. When it comes to what cultivates loneliness in marriage, and that is unresolved conflict.

This is the hidden enemy of intimacy that we referred to.

Oh, yeah.

When you let stuff simmer, when you don't. When you don't say those withholds. And all of a sudden, those little things turn into big things and resentment grabs on hold of them.

Yep.

And all of a sudden, you're maybe just blowing up emotionally on each other instead of.

And it's not even about the thing that you actually have conflict about. You know, I think every couple can relate to this. Where I remember kind of in the earlier parts, or maybe just the more stressful parts of our marriage were probably around a move. Moves are very stressful. And we've moved a lot.

We've done it, too. And with children, super stressful. Moving with children, extra stressful.

And moving to a new place where you don't really know anybody yet. Super stressful. So we. I remember just in those kind of seasons, there would be times where. And you guys know, like, we've shared on here. We're not like yellers. That's not our norm or anything like that. But there have been times where I could sense your intensity. And I would take it. And it wouldn't even be what you said, but it was kind of like the tone. I would feel intensity, and I would take it as like, are you mad at me? And he'd say, I'm not mad at you. And then, you know, I would get upset. Cause I'm like, well, why are you so mad? Like, stop being so mad. You know? And like, he's in a bad mood.

Okay.

He's like, I'm just in a bad mood.

But then to be in a bad.

Mood sometimes what would be better for us is when I would give Dave the space to work out his mood, you know? Cause sometimes we just can't shake it. And he'd go on a walk or he'd go lift some heavy weights or whatever it is, and we come back to it later. Cause you don't want to. You don't want to keep on leaving this conflict going. And I would say, hey, what was it earlier? Why were you so frustrated? And he would say, I'm so sorry. Like, that was. I mean, actually, just recently, there was something where you were just having a morning.

Yeah.

And it's not even that you said anything frustrated and sleepy and.

And it had nothing to do with you, but.

Right. But you apologized. You said, honey, I'm so sorry. That came off really snippy this morning. It had nothing to do with you. I'm just stressed about whatever it was. I can't remember what it was. And I. And I was like, well, let's talk about that. Like, let's unpack that. And so. Because then I, you know, to be that safe place. And I realized early in our marriage, if I always shut down your frustration, I'm not allowing you to be the safe place where you can have, you know, free rein to just say, like, I'm really stressed about this thing, or I have conflict with you. Like, I really don't like that you're not prioritizing this particular part of our marriage. I mean, you may not even realize it. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, but I am so frustrated about that. Like, it really, really frustrates me. And that way we can have that conversation in a calm way and not allow this conflict to. To just simmer below the surface, because then it builds up into resentment. And what happens is over time, we make assumption after assumption after assumption that they just. They meant. That they meant to hurt me.

Yeah, they're being so mean. They were trying to hurt me.

And he never does this. He always does that. And before you know it, you can fall into a category that Dr. John Gottman, he has some really good marital information out there. Many of you are familiar with the Gottman Institute a lot on communication. And he calls that, like, the kiss of death is when you fall into contempt, where you can't even think. Like, anytime your spouse, you know, pops into your head or you see them, you're like, I don't even want to look at you because you always mean to hurt me. You always mean, like, you're. You are my worst enemy. Like, that's how. That's really what contempt is. Is like, you are my enemy, and I've got to defend myself all day long. And I think where loneliness enters in this picture is really, like, somewhere in between there. I feel like there's this. This point, or maybe. Maybe right when you get to contempt, there is a point where you're so disconnected and maybe even angry that you just stop talking altogether.

Yeah.

And you guys start living separate lives. You start just like, well, if we can't get along that I'm just not going to talk. Because every time we talk, it's just hard, and we're not getting long. And he doesn't get me. She doesn't get me. So you know what? I'm going to do my own thing. And that's where you really, really see that loneliness grow. And it's hard. Now, I will say with all that, that doesn't mean you can't make it better. You can. You first have to recognize, like, hey, we've not been communicating in a healthy way. We've not been fostering our relationship and fostering our intimacy, and. And we need to reconnect again. I'm going to have to reprioritize my marriage as being my first human relationship priority under God, and I need to start spending time and effort on this marriage so that I can rekindle, you know, what we've lost because you can regain it and really pray about it. Pray together and just start doing, you know, some of these things we've talked about all throughout this podcast to build the intimacy back within your marriage.

Yeah, yeah. And be intentional about it. I think just this intimacy series, these eight episodes start. If you missed these, start from the beginning of these and listen. Listen with your spouse and talk about what aspects of intimacy are we missing? What are the things that we used to do that we've stopped doing? What are the negative habits that have crept in that we need to get rid of? What are the barriers to intimacy right now in this season, this unique season? And what would it look like in our marriage if we could move past those and work through those in a really, really healthy way? So I hope that's been helpful to you guys. We've had so much fun in this series, but we're not done yet because as promised at the beginning of this episode, we are going to share three things that we do to make sure that we meet each other's intimacy needs. And hopefully these three things will be applicable to you. All right, number one, we have a policy where we always, always, always try to answer the phone when our spouse is calling.

Yes.

Even if it's just to say, sweetie, are you okay? I'm tied up at the moment. Can I call you right back?

Or if we see we missed it, we call right back or call right back.

And we miss each other's calls. Like, I mean.

I mean, who doesn't?

It still happens all the time, but not intentionally.

No, no, no.

We don't do that intentionally.

I mean, even if I'm on the phone with somebody, unless it's like an emergency situation, even like, with my mom, I'll be like, hey, Mom, Dave called me. I'll call you right back and I'll take your call. So. Yeah. And she knows that, you know, so we've.

Yeah, that's. That's something I think has been. Has been. Been good.

And I want to add, too. So that's. That's kind of more along those emotional. I think that builds up that emotional connection. So I want to talk about like, the sexual connection is we really, like, we try to prioritize our sex life in the sense of making sure that we have a cadence of having regular sex. I mean, it's like we. And I'm not gonna say the number because then it's gonna mess with people. Be like, it's either too much or too little. Right.

Three hours.

Man. If you have the energy for that, that's pretty amazing. But no, we have, you know, we know we have this thing with us where we know. We try to. It's a regular pattern within our marriage and of making sure we're meeting each other's needs. And we also. If there's different seasons where one of us had surgery, like me having hysterectomy or there's been something where we can't quite do that as frequently, we will check in a lot and just try to do whatever we can to really make sure that we're meeting that need.

To just prioritize connecting in whatever ways we can with whatever modifications we have to, but just making sure that. That we're remaining connected in every way and not letting excuses, you know, or limitations, even very real limitations. Sabotage.

Like, say it's never going to be good again. Like, we're not going to do that. We're going to know we're going to do whatever we can on our part and with the help of the Lord, like, to make that a priority. What about spiritual? That's that other facet. What would you say, spiritually, we do to make sure that we're meeting each other's needs when it comes to intimacy? Like spiritual intimacy?

Yeah, no, I think that's great. I think, one, it's encouraging each other just in our own time with the Lord. And two, making sure we never end the day without saying a prayer together. I think that's something that's been really important. Prioritizing church is always not only attending, but just involvement in the local church has always been important.

And I think one of my favorite things we do. I know this is kind of like more than three, but just in the spiritual sense. I just love talking with you about God and what he's doing in our lives. Like, it just is really. I love that. Like, it's really cool or something. Like, if we witnessed, like, you know, something where, oh, God, you know, I could just see the Lord at work. Like, we'll share that with each other, and it's really cool.

Yeah, we celebrate those wins together. I'll point out one more spiritual. One, that we don't talk about a lot, but from this is a this is a financial and spiritual one together is that we've early on made the commitment to to trust God with the tithe, which the Bible gives us an outline of. Book of Malachi. God says test me. And it's actually test me, test me. And it's the only place in the scripture. He says test me and see and I will open up the floodgates of heaven. 10% and it's 10%, which is a lot. Now, it was not a lot when we were starting out because we had no money and 10% of no money is no money. And so it was pretty easy.

Well, it felt like a lot, though, in those years.

You can test him. You can trust him. And I think that it will end up being a real blessing to you.

To keep improving your intimacy. Watch this interview with Mark Batterson as we discuss one thing we should all be saying more often in marriage. Click here. Like subscribe and see you next time.