Is it normal to feel lonely when in a relationship?

[Hulabaloo3]

DH is alcoholic - currently dry.

When we met, I knew he could pack it away but he's a big fella and I kinda shrugged it off as just that.

We had our first born and then it became apparent that he is a functioning alcoholic. Perhaps the trigger for drinking becoming worse was the pressure of parenting and sleeplessness!

Since then, he's been dry. We've had another DC and on paper all is good.

But I don't feel like I'm in a proper relationship and I'm just not sure how realistic I being. DH told me that he used to pretend he was someone he wasn't, so I wouldn't suspect he is alcoholic. He says previously all he cared about was keeping me happy so he could drink as much as he liked. Now that he doesn't drink, the real 'him' has emerged, and it appears that he doesn't have much interest in keeping anyone happy other than himself.

What comes with that is a level of selfishness and distance that I dont like. I love him and fancy him, and he can make me laugh like no other, but I feel like I'm not in a relationship because he doesn't let me in. He doesn't seem to bother to try and meet me halfway, despite me mentioning it a good few times.

Part of me thinks I should give him more rope as he's doing really well it to drink. He once said he doesn't know what to do with emotions because he's always dumbed them down with drink. I want to give him time to recover but I don't know if he ever really will. I am embarrassed to admit a small part of me preferred how he was back then (drunk) because at least he pretended to bother!

He makes arrangements without consulting me, but I always check with him so I can juggle dates or times if they clash with his own plans. I share myself with him but find he doesn't volunteer anything back. I found out tonight that his ongoing earth problem is much worse and he's consulted the hospital but didn't tell me about it. Every plan he makes is centred around himself as though he were single, and he won't plan days out or holidays with me, unless it's his idea.

I know a partner can't and shouldn't be your EVERYthing, so I'm finding it hard to establish whether I'm being normal or needy when I say I feel isolated and trapped.

If this is a normal passage of the ups and downs in a relationship then I wi hunker down and ride the storm, especially as there are two deal children that love their Dad dearly and I don't want to unnecessarily rip them apart.

Sorry for typos, the cheeky Siri spell check changes some words at the last minute without me noticing!

Ps, forgot to mention that he swears he wants to be with me, as that was my natural question when he began behaving like he doesn't have as much interest in the relationship.

He SAYS all the right things but sometimes I think actions speak louder than words

I'm sorry you feel lonely, feeling lonely in a relationship is just so sad.

It sounds like you want to be with him still, I'm wondering if some kind of relationship counselling might be beneficial...

Do you think it's normal to sometimes feel lonely in a relationship though?

We had relationship counselling about a year ago because he was 'fed up' and felt he was building resentments. I have a chronic illness that he was finding hard because when I'm ill I am really ill, and he doesn't cope well with child care by himself. Yet when I try to organise assistance to cover for my absence, he takes it as an insult to his manliness and ability to keep the ship afloat

He felt a lot better after counselling, but it was also summer by the time we finished and he's always brighter about life in the summer. He denies any form of depression and won't see a GP.

Give yourself permission to leave if you want to. Life is short and I doubt (although I don't know him) if he can change or even wants to particularly. Some people seem to have parts missing (meant kindly) and he seems to one of those people. Detaching doesn't need to be all dramatic and awful. You could quietly sit him down and tell him you are going and the reasons why. When he counters, tell him what you have said here. That you have been round the mulberry bush on several occasions and don't want to go round again. Re-assure him he will be able to see his DC and then detach in a dignified and more importantly non wavering way. You may be able to end up friends. You get to keep him in your life but not in a role where your expectations cannot be met by him and you can grow and blossom as a person as that is certainly not going to happen at the moment and every person needs to be able to flourish.

I appreciate your advice, and if I were to leave I would do exactly as ou suggest, but my loneliness doesn't seem a big enough reason to break the children away from their Dad like that. What if it's my own short-coming and needs to be overcome? I haven't settled whether that's the case or not. Also I read a bit of one of his AA books and it seemed to say the recovery takes a long time but is worth the wait. What if I bale out too soon? There seem too many unturned stones to go straight to LTB, unless I am missing something obvious here

Hello
Often alcohol is used by people who are emotionally unavailable. They just can't be truly close to others. They get used to depending on alcohol to deal with the ups and downs of life that others would share with their closest friends/ lovers/ etc.
Stopping drinking means dealing with these emotions in a different way, and it's hard to change to be a sharing kind of person.
Is he still going to AA? Getting counselling? Working on himself? If you feel lonely it may be worth sharing your feelings with him. The way he reacts will tell you a lot about how he sees your future. No one says you have to stay with him for the long haul if it's making you unhappy. And if you look closely enough at the relationship you want and the one you have, you will be able to see whether realistically it's going to work for you.... Optimism is one thing, but blind hope is another sometimes.

Thanks for that insight. I must admit a part of me is acutely aware that he's been drowning out emotions since he was a young teenager, and he was only dry about 1/3 of his life. The other 2/3 has been spent dumbing his feelings with alcohol so its perhaps a bit naive to expect he will ever be any different.

I'm not in a relationship now, but I'm sure that the loneliness you feel is not what most people in committed, successful relationships feel. There always needs to be compromise- but surely one of the nice things about being in a good relationship is the feeling of being in it together?

The worst loneliness is that felt within a relationship. I've been there. I've also experienced the loneliness of being single and of being bereaved, yet the ongoing daily pain of being lonely within a relationship was the worst.

Much of your opening post resonates with me, although alcohol was never a factor in my first marriage, so I cannot make comment on your view that his recovery may be a factor. Where I am qualified by experience to comment is the suggestion that it might be something "wrong" with you, feeling that you are needy, demanding - where have those ideas come from? Did you dream them up yourself or did he suggest it first?

He says he loves you. So did my first husband. He probably believed that he loved me. His actions said differently. And I felt lonely and unloved as a result. For years, I accepted it when he told me that there was something wrong and needy inside me and that my lonely/unloved feelings were totally unjustified because he loved me. Eventually, I made the break, as other elements of abuse within the relationship became intolerable, and I discovered that I wasn't broken or needy or demanding ...or anything else he repeated so often that I had come to believe it.

I've posted similarly a few times before, but it's a message worth repeating - I stayed with him for many years because I believed that it would be selfish of me to break up my family simply because I felt lonely and unloved. As a result, my children grew up in a house where they saw me unloved, abused and disrespected, and they grew up not to care about me. Don't let your children grow up to see you as not worthy of love - there is absolutely nothing selfish about demonstrating to them that you deserve better.

Squeegle, he goes to AA once a week at best, but work gets in the way sometimes and he says he doesn't worry about that because he doesn't feel in danger of drinking. He has dreams that he's drinking and wakes up relieved it was just a dream. He attends more to avoid complacency.

He did have a sponsor and started Doug the 12 steps initiated by the sponsor, but the sponsor fell off the wagon and DH hasn't replaced him yet. He also says he doesn't want to rush it so he can do it properly, but when he talks about the step where you put right the wrongs, it's his exes and family he speaks of and not his wife!

I talked to him again yesterday and he said he was sorry to hear that, and said he ignores much of what I say because he is constantly filtering what's important (to him). I pointed out that I probably wouldn't say it if it wasn't important to me, and so I perceive his response to be another demonstration of his selfishness.

He asked me to tell him when I speak that it's important so he will listen! I pointed out that's not how normal people work and if he's really that not interested in me then we should rethink our relationship. Cue panic on his part, and pleading to work with him on it.

The next conversation I had was to remind him that the printer at home has my expensive greeting cards loaded in the tray, so if he uses the printer he needs to remember to change back to normal paper first.

Next the I know, about less than an hour later, he's yelling that his print out is using up all my cards

He tells me he didn't hear me explaining that it has my cards and he needs to change it

So in short, nothing has changed. I'm still the invisible man who talks to herself.

T3rr3 - I am the one who worries I'm being unreasonable in my expectations. I was brought up to see that in my Mum and was taught that as a child. I was always vying for my mums attention and felt she didn't have enough time or attention to give to any of us as were a very large family. It's hard to shake off.

I don't think he's said it, but he does point out he thinks he's a good man as he hasn't had an affair or pushed me about etc!

I know my mum has been very lonely at times in her marriage to my dad. Mum's social worker thinks my dad may be codependent. More info here www.coda-uk.org/index.php?page=patterns-characteristics-of-co-dependency. I have been told that AA probably has the most sane people at meetings. You won't be able to change your h. That's for him, and when he's cleaned up his act you'll have to get to know him all over again.

Hmm, it sounds from what you say that you're still walking on eggshells. It feels like he treats you as second best to him. Did you read that sticky at the top of the relationships board? It's called something like "right, listen up everybody".

I think we get normalised to certain kinds of behaviour, and are quite surprised when we realise that us not the case for everyone.

Certainly I didn't realise that my Ex DP's behaviour was so unusual until I spent time away with more balanced, respectful people. He was an alcoholic and very self centred and often irritable with me. He doesn't drink now, but even though we have now split up, I still find him very erratic, I walk on eggshells when I have to deal with him.
Fortunately it is much better than living with him the whole time. I used to feel very lonely with him as I almost felt I had to hide from others how lonely I was! Now at least I am not covering up.
My advice to you is to look (say) 5 years in the future. How do you want you relationship to be? Do you think it's feasible? If not, then it may be time to start making plans to change direction and find the right kind of non-lonely future that you want.