I always considered marriage the epitome of feeling connected: you share a life with a partner and maybe even have children. Society at least acts like it is.
I have a coworker in his 40s, conservative and Christian, married to a woman holding a job, he is also employed and has a good job, all things considered and they have a child.
I don’t see this person much but each time he sees me he approaches to basically complain and rant, mostly about democrats and foreigners, getting very emotional to the point of crying.
At first I hated him for spewing so much shit, but now I think I’m starting to pity him: he has a job, is married to a working woman, they have a child, they are homeowners… and he still feels angry and needs to rant to feel good. It’s like he’s angry at everything.
Which takes me to think, maybe there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide, but I couldn’t write a list.
What are some of these connections men need out of a marriage?
Your coworker is a twat.
Ignoring his political alignment, anybody who comes to work and vent about their home life just sucks in general. Doesn’t matter what walk of life they come from.
Fucking energy vampire.
They’re not lonely, they’re just assholes.
The thing about marriage is that anybody can do it. You don’t have to love somebody to marry them. It isn’t special. There’s no test you have to take together or qualifications you have to meet.
So yeah - he’s angry, and lonely, and he’s also married, but none of those things are related to each other.
Sounds like he needs therapy, but in our society men aren’t encouraged to share emotions if it doesn’t perpetuate an image of strength. So he’s expressing his emotions in a “socially acceptable” way: anger. Which is probably what also got him into these backwards ideas about his political ideology as well.
Marriage is a legal and religious construct. It does not fix a lack of connection.
I met a former religious couple at my old job.
She and her husband are in their 40s and tried to invite us to an orgy. I did the polite thing and let them know maybe later.
She showed me photos of her dressed like an Amish person in her 30s. She shared that during that time, her kids and church kept her busy. She and her husband never felt aligned, but they feel a strong loneliness when they’re not together.
And when her kids went to college, she and her husband finally bonded and discovered they both love orgies. And it was only at that moment when, after like 20 years of marriage, did they actually connect as human beings.
Wild.
Aww, what a cute story. I’m happy for them
What are some of these connections men need out of a marriage?
Basically the same connections that women need out of a marriage. A peer group, a purpose, and friend groups to share interests with.
Unfortunately many, if not most, people simply don’t know how to go about it. They throw themselves into their work and whatever of their time is leftover gets dedicated to family. The interests and friends that they had prior to marriage and kids are left behind and those sacrifices leave them feeling alone and unfulfilled. They also don’t understand WHY they feel that way when to the best of their understanding they’re doing everything right!
Marriage isn’t, except in exceedingly rare instances, a “one stop shop” where your partner somehow magically fulfills your every need. That’s straight up Disney Movie bullshit.
People, regardless of gender identity, absolutely REQUIRE relationships outside of their marriage.
A peer group, a purpose, and friend groups to share interests with.
Unfortunately many, if not most, people simply don’t know how to go about it. They throw themselves into their work and whatever of their time is leftover gets dedicated to family. The interests and friends that they had prior to marriage and kids are left behind and those sacrifices leave them feeling alone and unfulfilled. They also don’t understand WHY they feel that way when to the best of their understanding they’re doing everything right!
I really feel this. I am especially struggling with making friends in a new place. I have hobbies, but they are solitary so they don’t help me with my loneliness. And it doesn’t help that work takes up more of my time than I wish it did.
He probably watches a lot of right wing/conservative media, and those shows generally aim to get people riled up to be against democrats and foreigners to an unreasonable extent. That and other personal issues messed up his brain. Like others have said, dude needs therapy.
Yes, it’s possible to feel lonely while you’re married. Because “to feel lonely” might mean a thousand different things: lack of physical affection, lack of emotional bonding, lack of intellectual stimulus, lack of ability to coordinate and do stuff together… and only some of those are fulfilled by a romantic relationship. (A good relationship should fulfil more of them, but you won’t get the full package ever.) And often the other person doesn’t have time for you, even if they’re trying their hardest to be a good mate.
That said, it doesn’t seem to me that he feels lonely, but rather that he feels frustrated with something. As people said perhaps therapy would do him good.
It’s easy to feel lonely around your wife if you don’t think women are people. And if he’s a Republican in 2024, that’s probably how he thinks. Drink your respect women juice and you’ll find marriage much more enjoyable.
Exactly and OP is giving people like him a out by pitying him and using the phrase “there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide”
why should one gender’s emotional needs be fulfilled by another? that’s misogynist by nature
OP’s coworker is an horrible person and deserves evactly what he’s getting and much worse
I think what OP should have said is that people have needs, and one single partner can’t provide all of those needs
Which takes me to think, maybe there are things men need emotionally that women cannot provide, but I couldn’t write a list.
This is a ridiculous conclusion. Even taking out the arbitrary gender roles, it’s a ridiculous generalization.
Exactly. Maybe this man isn’t connecting with his partner because of his attitude and viewpoints.
Yes, but based on your description that guy has other issues. He should probably see a therapist.
Dude can’t even ID who he needs to hate properly due too much fake news lol
I dotm get why you think he is lonely though… Sounds like he is trying to “educate” you on shot his shiti teevee told him lol
Other commenters have done a better job addressing your questions more directly, but I want to piggyback off of this question to point something else out: the atomic family, the suburban dream is extremely isolating and breeds loneliness
When you live in your house, only enter and leave by the garage and your neighbors do the same, you will never interact with your neighbors, and your neighbors will never interact with you.
Driving to the store in your personal vehicle there’s no sense of shared identity to start interacting with other people meaningfully. You’re just various individuals in the same space
Having kids can be extremely isolating as to go out to do anything you must either have a babysitter (and be able to afford said babysitter) or bring the kids with you. No opportunity for spontaneity, and it quickly gets expensive to just spend grownup time with friends unless you and your partner spend the time seperately. And taking your kids to events means paying more attention to your kids and the event than meeting anyone else. And if you have a special needs child it can be even more isolating as you are no longer sharing experiences with your fellow parents except for those who also have special needs kids.
We need to do things to foster community and encourage people to talk to strangers more. Having good conversations with strangers is how you make friends, and is a great treatment for loneliness
The decline of the Third Space is an interesting social phenomenon.
The more comments I read the more apt this is. Without places to just be, with no expectation or obligation to be a consumer, somewhere to be around people with or without socializing. Makes you feel like part of your community, part of something that’s bigger than you, to be seen, to be acknowledged.
People that isolate themselves become isolated. I just don’t use a car, but go often with the kids by train to meet other families. We meet strangers and have fun, but sometimes I am lonely anyway. Sometimes in the middle of a chaotic people storm. It’s just what I “blame” it on that is the biggest difference. It’s the way we talk to others, if we are open and if those meet our vulnerability that is the biggest contributor imo. You can never be lonely if someone really cares about you.
I think that sometimes what happens to people is that they build the life that they implicitly believe they are “supposed” to be living because that is what they see everyone else around them doing, rather than based on an honest self-assessment of whether this really is the what will make them happy. When they realize that this life is not actually making them very unhappy, they look for outside factors to blame because they did everything that they were “supposed” to be doing so it could not have been their own misinformed choices that led them to this point.
And in fairness, no one chooses where they are born and the cultural conditioning that we receive, so this is not entirely their fault. It is really a societal problem that we do not encourage enough people to engage in true self-introspection to figure out for themselves what is important to them and what they want to get out of life so that they make these kinds of decisions with great deliberation and personal self-insight rather than taking the default option.
each time he sees me he approaches to basically complain and rant, mostly about democrats and foreigners,
And you wonder why he seems lonely?
Maybe if he didn’t do that, more people would want to spend time with him.
I feel so starved for attention. I wouldn’t be on lemmy if my partner didn’t need soo much alone time. I grew up in a home full of people. There was always someone to play or talk with now it’s just internet.
Same. My partner needs his quiet time and alone time and just a spouse and child (I am the primary caregiver) is so overwhelming. I never expected to become the parent of an only child, I felt like just me and my sister was so little when I was growing up. But now this is what I am stuck with. Just one child and a spouse I hardly interact with because it’s too much and meditation and peace and quiet is making them more happy than time spent together.
It is a known personality issue.
It is called avoidant personality disorder (AVPD) or schizoid personality disorder (SPD). Both of these conditions can lead to feelings of loneliness due to inner walls and barriers that the person builds to protect themselves from perceived threats or emotional pain.
