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is it possible to be married and still feel lonely?

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?

vzq ,

Your coworker is a twat.

ByteOnBikes ,

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.

theilleists ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/e8e9a7be-708e-4a29-93af-8faa85847436.jpeg

PixelAlchemist ,

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.

tiefling ,

Marriage is a legal and religious construct. It does not fix a lack of connection.

ByteOnBikes ,

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.

bender223 ,

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.

lvxferre ,
@lvxferre@mander.xyz avatar

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.

aStonedSanta ,

I think you are conflating the vision of success with happiness. These two things hold no relation.

morphballganon ,

watches hate-spewing tv programs like fox news

is consequently angry

surprised pikachu face

Marriage is a piece of paper. You can absolutely get married to someone you still feel alone around. Being not angry requires something a little more than a piece of paper.

sunzu ,

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

MissJinx ,
@MissJinx@lemmy.world avatar

look, this person is probably an asshole regardless, but to answer you: Yes. Maybe more than if you are single. I stated dating a guy that was super rich and good-looking and he was super nice to me, It was like a real life fairy tale… until we got married and the routine started to show us how lonely we were with each other. We had nothing in comom, he was a bit dumb and shallow and the only subject he was interested was sports. I hate sports and like movies, shows and science. At the end he would say i was too nerd and I would say he was too dumb, but the reality is that he was very nice and so was I, we just were not ment for each other.

Today ,

I feel sad for his wife. Unless she’s hateful too.

Fapper_McFapper , (edited )

Sometimes men like that just need cock. Some men find happiness between the folds of their favorite recliner, others just need a good old fashioned cock down.

Edit: Looks like I found a few more lonely men that need a good cock down. Get off Fox News and get on Grinder, you’ll be much happier! Promise.

riquisimo ,

Brah. braaaahhh

Idk what else to say. Just, braaahhhh

Buelldozer ,
@Buelldozer@lemmy.today avatar

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.

Chocrates ,

Yes, my ex wife and I can attest to that. Your coworker seems like a dick and should talk to a therapist.

bl_r ,

Marriage is a social construct not built upon love or companionship. It is just a social relation that is related to the two, with religious and legal backing to fortify it.

If you see marriage as a means to love and companionship, you are not gonna have a loving relationship. Love and companionship are completely viable (and I’d argue stronger) outside the strange little box that society tries to place it in

Fuck marriage.

I don’t think there is anything that a person of any gender can’t provide in a relationship. I do see that society shuns certain people from performing certain roles, but anyone can do any one of them.

If he is only ranting politics, he might not have anyone to talk politics with. Maybe he is the lone conservative, lapping up every scrap of talking points from Fox (or maybe Newsmax), but can’t spew them out around family who sees him as being crazy for watching Fox. If you aren’t pushing back, he probably sees you as safe, and if he is finding it hard for him to deal with political stressors, that’s probably why he is ranting and getting so emotional.

wirehead ,

So, there’s a lot of things to unpack here.

First, the idea that your spouse is your primary sole emotional connection is a relatively weird new concept on the scale of things. There’s been a huge period of history where your primary emotional connection was your male companions and your spouse was infantalized by comparison. If you were well-off you might be so lucky and have your group of emotional companions, your group of romantic companions, and the person who bears your legitimate children.

Second, there’s really not much of a good underlying working model for actual modern conservatism. The frontiersman/“house on the prairie” sort of rugged independence was never actually a thing back then and a lot of big issues like medical bills were a lot simpler when the answer to having any sort of illness was that you either get over it after relatively inexpensive and simple treatments or you die. So the conservative movement must necessarily sell you a false bill of goods. US politics are such that there is no actual fully-left political party, so that by default makes you a democrat.

There’s also a bunch of added uniquely christian baggage. So there are left-wing christians who also have their own set of weird baggage.

Third, mostly irrespective of politics, there’s a lot of cultural programming for males that they can’t actually worthwhile work though their emotions in a productive fashion. Movies, TV shows, books, literally everything in the media creates this idea of maleness and the writers are just trying to write a catchy story and seldom have time to think about what kind of male they are creating. This is, overall, a relatively recent concept.

Fourth, “things men need emotionally that women cannot provide” is actually pretty silly. Outside of practical advice about what to do with specific pieces of anatomy where maybe it would be nice to have some reference, the things people do is a pretty wide field. “Oh, someone to watch football with” ignores female football fans, et al. This ties in a lot with right wing men because they can’t necessarily have an emotional connection with someone not-male because that’s equivalent to messing around with someone’s property. And it also ties in with the social programming that created a stereotype for how men are supposed to relate to each other that’s just a writer trying to put a good story together without thinking of the social implications.

Radicalization doesn’t work on people who are emotionally connected and comfortable. Part of why we are where we are is that there’s a whole class of people whose happiness has been precluded by the structure of their lives and the best people who can take advantage of this are fraudsters selling a false bill of goods. And I don’t even really feel sympathy for those people anymore because they are hurting people who I do very much care about and after a point it doesn’t matter if they are just too dumb to see it.

But, I guess, to return to your initial point, the idea that if you find a person and get married to them that you have “solved” connection, that’s the road to unhappiness. Partially because marriage generally requires a commitment and effort to stay together as things happen and people change… but also because relying on one single person without other social connectivity is not a stable equilibrium.

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