18/07/2025
The Loneliest Roommate Situation of Your Life
Nobody warns you that you can be married and still feel like the loneliest person on earth.
Not because anyone cheated.
Not because you’re throwing plates at each other or sh****ng your yoga teacher.
But because somewhere between the school drop-offs and mortgage stress and binge-watching series you both secretly hate, you just… stopped showing up.
You didn’t leave. But you’re not there, either.
Neither of you are
Now you’re two ghosts folding laundry.
Marital loneliness isn’t loud. It’s not a soap opera.
It’s “What time’s the dentist?”
It’s “We need eggs.”
It’s lying next to someone every night, six inches apart, and still feeling like you're shouting across a canyon that doesn't echo back.
You remember when you used to play in the kitchen and laugh mid-argument and actually look at each other across a room.
Now the most intense moment of eye contact you get is when you're both blaming each other telepathically for who forgot to take the bins out.
It’s not that you don’t love them.
It’s that you’ve both forgotten how to see each other.
Somewhere along the way, connection got replaced with coordination. Intimacy got replaced with logistics.
And presence?...
That packed up and left years ago, without even saying goodbye.
You want to know what’s lonelier than being single?
Being married to someone who doesn’t really see you anymore.
Who touches your shoulder in the kitchen and you flinch because it feels foreign.
Who says “I love you” on autopilot while scrolling TikTok.
Who’s in the same room, but hasn’t met your soul in months.
And the worst part? ... Nobody talks about this.
Because you’ve got the house, the kids, the matching towels, the smiling photos. So you gaslight yourself. Tell yourself you're lucky.That you should be grateful. That this is just what long-term love looks like.
This isn’t love growing old gracefully. This is love being put on mute and fed Weet-Bix.
Look ,I get it. You’re tired.
They’re tired.
We’re all just trying to survive our to-do lists.
But love doesn’t die from drama. It dies from numbness.
From quiet days with no truth. From the slow, silent rot of not saying what actually needs to be said.
You want to know how it happens? ... You stop asking the real questions. You stop reaching out. You stop making space for the weird, wild, messy s**t that actually connects people.
You perform “fine.” You perform “functional.”
You perform “not that bothered.”
And then one day, you look at each other across the dinner table and realise you’re just managing each other’s calendars and pretending that’s intimacy.
So what do you do?
You either name the ghost in the room and start showing up again, awkwardly, imperfectly, vulnerably.
Or you keep dying quietly together, like emotionally flatlined roommates with a joint Netflix account and separate inner worlds.
This isn’t about blame. It’s about presence. It’s about honesty.
It’s about looking someone in the eyes and saying: “I miss you.
Not the version of you from five years ago ... you, now. And I miss me, too.”
Because the truth is, half of us don’t leave marriages because of cheating. We leave because of invisible absence. Because nobody showed up for years. Because we forgot that being in the same house doesn’t mean being in the same life.
So if this lands somewhere deep if you’re still waking up beside someone who forgot how to see you, don’t wait for a louder heartbreak to do what your quiet ache has been begging for.
Speak up …. now.
Reach for them, awkwardly, honestly. Say the thing you swore you’d carry to your grave.
Because the real tragedy Isn’t that love dies.
It’s that we let it starve, quietly, while smiling through the silence.
You’re not crazy. You’re just craving what you were promised:
presence over performance.
Warmth over routine.
A love that doesn’t flinch when it finally sees your soul.
So if this hits, and you’re still in it, don’t wait for a crisis to have the conversation.
Resurrect the connection. Or admit it’s gone.
But whatever you do, Don’t keep living next to someone
while dying inside.
That’s not love.
That’s just very expensive loneliness.
Zen Prem
Art: Pinterest
Empower Wholeness Intimacy
