Feeling emotionally disconnected in a relationship or marriage is a common experience. However, it is essential to recognize that it doesn’t have to become the permanent normal.
As a couple, it is important to identify the underlying causes of the disconnection and find solutions together before it festers and leads to a downward spiral in your connection
Here’s the thing: The solution to emotional disconnection in your marriage is not going to be a big sudden change, rather it’s the little efforts towards connection that you invest in your marriage every day.
Emotional disconnection looks like emotional distance, a lack of communication with your partner, or feelings of loneliness
Here are 4 reasons why you may experience emotional disconnection in your marriage.
1. Managing Work-Life Balance
Managing work, life, kids and responsibilities can put a lot of pressure on couples and they forget to prioritise their relationship with each other.
Between managing work, kids and chores, you may have little time to spend together or engage in deep conversations with your partner. Conversations may become a routine, basically focusing on to-do lists and managing the home.
The daily grind from work can also leave you physically and emotionally drained.
Over time, the busyness can push partners away from each other. These events pile up and couples feel like they do not know each other anymore.
To get out of this “adulting” stage, couples have to initiate little moments of connection every day in their busy lives. Express simple affection every day to each other. It can be as simple as a forehead kiss, saying “I love you”, a shoulder rub as you walk pass each other in the day, a simple text message at work or even a tiny note in their lunch box to say “I love you”, a long good-bye hug as they leave for work, a butt spank while they are making dinner.
These consistent little expressions of love are what helps you to bring back connection in your marriage, it’s the little things that makes the biggest impact.
2. Poor Communication Skills
Emotional disconnection also happens when couples can’t talk or hear each other out without being defensive, judgemental or disrespectful.
Effective communication is the cornerstone of any healthy relationship, and marriages are no exception. Without open and respectful communication, there will not be emotional safety.
When partners cannot express themselves effectively or listen actively, it creates a breeding ground for misunderstandings and eventually, resentment.
If you are one who avoids difficult conversations or withdraws emotionally, it can create a distance and leave unresolved issues being swept under the carpet.
In my resource, the 3C’s Guide, I share specific guides and strategies on effective communication and having hard conversations to help couples effectively communicate and have conversations that can lead to greater connection.
3. Lack of Emotional or Sexual Intimacy
Sexual Intimacy and Emotional Intimacy must be prioritized if couples are going to be deeply connected to each other. It fosters closeness, and vulnerability and brings passion into the marriage.
The level of your emotional and sexual intimacy in your marriage will overall impact on how deeply connected you are. Without emotional intimacy, sex can be rather empty and disconnected. Also without sexual intimacy, we will struggle with emotional intimacy. The two of them go hand-in-hand.
When you are emotionally intimate with your spouse, sex is usually better because it becomes sexual intimacy which is intimate sex.
- Recommend Reading: 5 Ways to Strengthen Your Intimacy in Marriage
A sense of emotional intimacy means that you have established trust and safety in your spouse. Sexual Intimacy on the other hand requires that we prioritize physical intimacy which could include small acts of affection, like a hug, a kiss, back rubs, and massages etc.
The more physical affection we express, the easier it is to have sexual intimacy. If you are currently struggling with sexual intimacy, read this article on How to Get Your Sex Life Back as a Couple.
4. You Have Unresolved or Underlying Resentment
We all have major needs and if those needs are constantly not being met, we will be disconnected emotionally.
Resentment is a lingering feeling of anger and hurt, a dangerous recipe that silently kills the marital connection. When couples keep a mental tally of past wrongs, it creates an environment of negativity. Every wrong step or mistake becomes an avenue to make negative remarks.
Resentment often manifests in passive-aggressive behaviour, sarcasm or constant criticism. These are negative communication traits that create a hostile environment and make genuine connection nearly impossible.
Resentment also takes away trust. When partners feel they can’t trust each other or believe their needs will be met, it makes it difficult to feel emotionally vulnerable and close.
The key to curbing resentment is open communication. When couples are willing to open up to each other and have hard conversations and check-ins they will be able to prevent build-up of resentment in their relationship.
In Summary
Emotional disconnection is common in relationships. Where it becomes a huge problem is when you leave it to prolong and not do anything about it.
There is no sudden way to reconnect your bond as a couple. It involves little habits of positive communication, making more love deposits and having deep meaningful conversations consistently…
To begin your journey to a more loving and connected marriage, Join my 30-day couples reconnecting challenge. It starts June 1st.
