In this solo podcast episode, Dr. Zoe Shaw answers a listener’s question about feeling lonely, losing her sense of self, and having nothing in common with her husband after decades of marriage and an empty‑nest transition. She frames the issue through psychology, faith, and a feminist lens, emphasizing that loneliness is a symptom of unmet personal needs rather than a normal state. Dr. Zoe shares personal updates (her new partnership with the Aura mental‑wellness app and an upcoming two‑week break for her son’s college move) before diving into the core advice. She recommends concrete steps for self‑rediscovery—taking exploratory classes, increasing social engagement, moving the body to discover what feels good, learning to enjoy one’s own company, and practicing daily meditation or journaling. She also advises proactive communication with the spouse, cultivating curiosity about each other’s current interests, and using tools like the Intimacy Deck to deepen connection. Resources such as the book The Girl I Used to Know and the Aura app are highlighted, and Dr. Zoe invites listeners to book therapy sessions when she reopens her clinical schedule. The episode ends with encouragement, a reminder to subscribe, and a promise to return with new episodes after her brief hiatus.
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This is not a podcast about being broken, although you may have been. This is a podcast about strength for women who find themselves in difficult relationships, including that sometimes difficult one with yourself. We'll look at your relationship through a lens of psychology, faith, and a little dash of my own kind of feminism. We're not fixing them. We're fixing you. And that changes everything. Welcome to Stronger in the Difficult Places. Save yourself, heal your relationships. Listen in. Hey there, welcome. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe. I'm so glad you're here. Today's episode is actually an answer that I'm giving to a listener who wrote me and asked me a question. And I really wanted to answer this one as an episode because I've gotten a couple of questions similar to this. So I know that she's not the only one, and I think that answering her might help you. So we're going to talk about when you feel lonely in your relationship, when you have given so much that you feel like you've lost yourself a little bit. But first up, my win and my fail. Okay, you guys, this is my last episode before I leave to take my son to college. I know you've been bearing with me. Thank you. And listening to all of my angst and excitement and sadness about this whole process. We're leaving in a couple of days, and our first stop is going to my mother's wedding, which will be interesting. And I'm feeling a little weird about that, which I've decided in my therapist brain is natural, but I'm excited for my mom. So here we go. I'm sure I'll be sharing my journey in some way, shape, or form along the way, and I'll be back in 2 weeks to tell you guys about it. So my win is that I've joined Ara. If you don't know what this is, it's an all-in-one app for mental wellness. It has a couple million subscribers, and they've mostly been a meditation, calm, and sleep app, but they've expanded to all areas of mental wellness, which is beautiful. And they reached out to me to see if I'd join as one of their mental health collaborators and content creators, and I did. I'll be sharing short sound bites of encouragement, wisdom, and mental health skill developments on this platform. I'm loving Aura as a consumer, and I've been using it before I go to bed. And you, my listener, can receive a discount for subscribing to Aura. So if it sounds like something that might be interesting for you, or if you know anybody that could benefit from Aura, I'm going to leave the link for your discount in the show notes. My fail is that I did not prerecord podcasts prior to my trip, so I'm going to be taking 2 weeks off from the podcast. I'm looking forward to getting back to you guys when I return in September, and I might Pull up some back episodes that were the most listened to. Okay, on to the topic. When you feel lonely in your relationship, when you feel like you and your spouse have nothing in common, and when you've lost a little bit of yourself, that's what I'll be talking about today. Listen in. So a listener reached out to me, and I'm abbreviating her question just to keep her confidentiality. So she said, Dr. Zoe, what do I do when I realize that my husband and I have nothing in common? Besides our adult children, he retired a few years ago from 30 years in the military. I raised kids in 8 different states. I don't know who I am. I've been following his lead for decades. My likes are very different from his. I feel lost. How do I figure out who I am? I miss our kids terribly. They live in different states, no grandkids. We spend summers at our vacation house and kids come every summer to visit. I'm lonely in my marriage. Is this normal? Thank you for reaching out to me. I, I feel your pain. And even though, you know, there may be women out there who are not in empty nest situations, they can still feel that same loneliness and feeling like they no longer have anything in common with their husband. So I'm speaking to you, and I'm speaking to you out there who might be in that place as well. I never like to use the word normal when it comes to relationships, but I do love that word healthy. If you've been listening for a while, you know that. So no, it's not healthy to be lonely in your marriage. I'm sure you weren't a young bride with all the excitement of starting a life together decades ago, expecting to raise a family together so you could be lonely with him at your side in your retirement. It pains me that couples are living this way, but unfortunately they are. As scary and heartbreaking as this must be for you, it's very common in a long-term relationship at some point, which is why I'm sure you've heard the common warning to all couples raising a family to focus on the relationship because way too soon children are grown and gone and it's just the two of you again, often needing to get to know each other all over again. So just because it's common though doesn't mean it's healthy. Sometimes knowing that it's common can make you feel a little better though. You're not the only one. But just like other common ailments like broken bones, the flu, or appendicitis, your relationship still needs attention and treatment to get it back to health. So you brought up 3 different issues. One, you have nothing in common, which begs the question, can your relationship survive with nothing in common? Number 2, You're lonely in relationship, which also begs the first question. And number 3, how do you figure out who you are? So I'm going to try to touch on all 3 because I feel like they're all related. And I'm guessing there's a woman out there listening who's saying, yep, yep, that sounds like me. So you're lonely because you have nothing in common with your husband. You've lost sight of who you are because you've spent a lifetime focused on caring for your family and not your inner self. And that's not a bad thing. It just is. And so please don't blame yourself for that. Just know that you did the very best you could with what you had. You raised beautiful children, but now, now it's time to focus on yourself. So when you're unhappy in your relationship, the first person you should look to is yourself. So despite what I said about what the relationship itself needs, it's time to figure out how to be happy and enjoy your own company. how to live a life that you love, and then see what changes in your marriage as a result. So first I'm going to address you, and then we'll address the marriage. There's this great book called The Girl I Used to Know: How to Find Yourself Again and Put Personal Priority Back on Your To-Do List. It's by Marla Majewski. So I'm gonna put this in my show notes, and if you subscribe to my email list, you'll also get an email with a link to this in my next email. This is a great book of skills and ideas for finding yourself again. If you don't have children though, I don't suggest this book because it may be a little too mother-heavy for you. And if you're a mom of preschoolers or toddlers or babies, I would also not suggest this book until maybe a couple of years from now because some of the activities suggested might just feel unrealistic for you during this phase of life. Not that you don't need to still care for yourself, but this particular book might not be it. But if you have school-aged kids all the way through adult kids, this is a great book for you and I highly suggest it. But my personal suggestions for finding yourself when she's been lost are: number 1, take a class, not to get a degree, but just for fun. Take a couple of them and feel free to quit them if you know for sure you have no interest. Take classes in areas that you hadn't really considered before. Just to expand your exposure, which will actually result in you knowing yourself better. Number two: Get social. So we humans are social creatures. It's why you feel lonely. We don't thrive in isolation. Your loneliness, though, is a symptom. It's not the problem. The problem is you're not connecting well enough with others, possibly not with yourself either. It's so easy to stay isolated these days, and so I'm urging you. To join some groups, not just online, in person. Volunteer for a cause that matters to you. Meet new people in all the ways that you can. Increase your social activity. And it doesn't have to be with him. You can do this all on your own. Number 3, move your body and get to know your body. So you can join a walking club, you can join a tennis club, whatever feels interesting to you. But just like the classes, the point isn't to persevere and finish. The point isn't to get in shape. The point isn't To, you know, make sure you're getting the right cardio. The point is to find out what feels good to your body, to get to know yourself. So if you find that you dread the exercise, whatever, if you started a class or joined a club or started taking lessons, if you find that you're dreading going, stop. Find something different. If you keep trying new things, you're going to find something that you like, and you will be getting to know yourself better in the process. I, for instance, hate stationary biking or cycling. I hate it with a capital H. You'll never see me on a Peloton unless it's a Peloton treadmill. That is actually on my wish list. Cycling literally makes me want to injure somebody. I don't know why, it just does. Now, people have told me, oh, it's because you haven't taken a really good class. So I tried. I've taken the best cycling classes in the country by the best teachers in the country. And I still hate it. But put me on a real bike outside and I'm there. That's me. But I had to learn this about myself. What I will no longer do is exercise that isn't me. I'm not going to force my body to do things that don't align with what feels good to my body. That is more important than the exercise. So learn yourself. Number 4, don't wait on him to try new things. If he's not interested, Take that day trip up the coast, or some equivalent wherever you live, or go on a weekend women's conference. Step out and start to do the things. Don't wait on him. Number five: Start learning how to enjoy your own company. So yes, we are social creatures. Yes, we are social beings. We need social connection. But remember, the most important relationship you have in your life is the one you have with yourself. It sets the tone for all the others, including your relationship with God. So start. Learning how to enjoy your own company. Take yourself out for a coffee and journal at the coffee shop. Take yourself out to dinner and enjoy a good book. Practice meditating for a few minutes daily. Learn to be your best friend. Women who spend intentional time by themselves know themselves better than women who fill their days with distraction and busyness. So take long walks in silence. Don't cut that podcast on. Unless it's mine. No, I'm kidding. And ask yourself questions just like you would ask a friend that you're really trying to get to know and answer them. I love talking to myself when I'm walking. I'm walking, I can even have my AirPods in and it can look like I'm talking to somebody else, but I love having a conversation with myself because one of my deepest desires is to know myself well, because I know when I know myself well, I can show up in relationships in a healthy way. I can get to know other people well, and I can allow them to get to know me well when I know me well. What you're going to find is that as you expand your horizons, as you try new or old things that you used to love and ultimately get to know yourself better, your newfound independence will actually be curious and attractive to your husband, and it may bring you guys together. Regardless, though, you will find her again. Now, as for your relationship, you can choose to have a conversation with your husband about what you're feeling and your determination to start finding yourself again. Or you can just start and have small conversations about it along the way. As you're pouring into yourself, also work on being curious about who your husband is now. If you haven't been curious about him in years, He's likely changed. There's a lot to get to know about him again. So spend some time doing things that he likes, even if you don't like them. Spend some time with him doing things that he likes, and then request that he spend time with you doing some of the things that you like. You don't have to do things together all the time, but it is important that you find a place where you can come together. You don't have to have a lot of things in common except a genuine interest in learning about the other. Remember, you can You can't change him, you can change yourself, and then a ripple effect will occur in the relationship. There's this great little card deck called the Intimacy Deck. I'm going to link it in the show notes, and I'm going to add it to my email as well. It's a fun little activity that you can do on a long car ride or a lazy evening at home. The deck is just like a deck of cards, and it provides you with interesting prompts to ask your partner to deepen the intimacy between you two. I highly suggest it. So friend, this finding yourself and getting unlonely is not a one-size-fits-all or a one-and-done thing. You've taken an important step, which is recognizing it and seeking help. I hope that you walk away from this episode with the realization that your loneliness is your responsibility, and so is reconnecting with your husband. And I would tell him the exact same thing about himself if your husband asked me the same question. As you start to implement some of the things that I've said today, if you're struggling in any of these areas, I am open to working with you on this journey. Starting at the end of September, I'll have some openings for new clients. You can go to my website to book a session. Loneliness is not a life sentence. It's just an indication to you that something needs to change. Your job is to get to know yourself better and start trying some different things to change it. You've got this. Thank you for listening to Stronger in the Difficult Places. New episodes go out on Tuesdays. I will be back here with new episodes in 2 weeks. Until then, listen to some past ones and go ahead and subscribe to my email list. I send out regular encouragement, and I'll also be adding all the links for the things that I talked about today. Have a strong week.
