You’re seated at a cafe table with a croissant, a candle, and that cutie from college sitting right across from you. If life was a storybook, you would be the epitome of romance. But inside? You feel bizarrely alone, unwanted, and unwilling to talk about yourself. Long-term relationships can be wonderful sources of companionship that allow you to be fully yourself. Yet, over time they can also make you feel lonely.
If you or your partner has changed and not checked in with each other in a while, the love of your life can feel like a stranger. Maybe you stopped having sex or feel like you need to vent about the disconnect to your best friend instead of your partner.
These are pretty good signs it’s time to pause and breathe some new life into your relationship. Here are five tips from a therapist to help you alleviate feelings of loneliness.
1. Ask Yourself: Are You Holding Back from Being Vulnerable with Your Partner?
A great way to reconnect with your partner is by sharing something you don’t usually share. Maybe you’ve been private about your mental health because you don’t want your conversations to feel depressing.
Sharing your fears, worries, and vulnerabilities with your partner can actually bring you closer together and increase feelings of trust and intimacy. (Especially if you find that you’re going through the same things.)
Relationships are meant to introduce meaning and passion into our lives, and when we hide who we are from our partner, the entire relationship can feel flat and pointless.
2. Spark Topics of Conversation That Make You Curious
Discuss a novel topic you heard about on a podcast, read in a book, or saw on TV. Not every conversation topic has to be spontaneously thought up by you and you alone for it to feel refreshing.
Make it a date by going to a local museum or art gallery. Conversation tends to feel natural when it’s sparked by something in your environment instead of a desperate need to break an awkward silence.
3. See Each Other in Different Environments
Ask yourself: what made you fall in love with your partner in the first place?
Was it their sense of humor? Buy tickets to a local comedy show!
Their superstar athletic ability? Organize a pick-up game of volleyball!
Perhaps their intelligence? Attend a local trivia night at a bar or coffee shop!
Whatever it is, make time for it in your relationship so you can see them at their most passionate and most attractive. You never know—it may make you feel like you are newly dating again.
4. Spend More Time with Each Other’s Friends
If you haven’t met all of them already, meet each others’ friends! Not in a checking-up-on-you kind of way, but to see how your partner acts differently with other people.
Odds are you didn’t fall in love in a vacuum where no one else existed but you two. (Even if it felt that way, and even in a pandemic.) It can be nice to see our partners as holistic people with a professional side, a goofy side, or a caretaking side.
Organize events with friends of yours to take the sexual pressure off and see your partner in a new light.
5. Seek Short-Term Couples Therapy
Even if there’s nothing wrong, short-term therapy can be a great way to jumpstart your relationship when it stalls out. Plus, as new problems arise in the future, you’ll have a therapist in your corner to help figure things out.
Feeling “off” can be a sign that something in the relationship needs adjustment, or that you have unaddressed frustrations that predate the relationship to work out on your own. Either way, I offer therapeutic services to both individuals and couples.
Ready to reignite that spark in your relationship? Schedule a free consultation to discuss relationship therapy today!
Couples Therapy in Long Beach
Prospect Therapy is a queer + trans affirming therapy practice based in Long Beach, CA, with a focus on mental health for first-generation, immigrant, and bicultural communities. We continue to provide online therapy for a variety of mental wellness and relationship concerns to clients throughout the state of California. Learn more about how we bring lived experience to our work with people of all ages in our communities by requesting a consultation below.