Closing the Distance with Your Partner

You’re together, and somehow lonely. The kitchen is dim and kind. Two phones sleep by the sink. The dishwasher hums, steady and impersonal. You trade updates: soccer pickup, a budget line, a text from your sister. Your voices glide, but the room feels thin.

Loneliness in marriage or partnership isn’t failure, and it isn’t fate. It’s a threshold; a signal that the relationship is asking for a different kind of communication. Not more words or louder arguments, but truer ones: words that include the body’s weather, the heart’s movements, and the values you both want to live by; a spiritual dimension.

Why You Feel Lonely Together and Closing the Distance

·      The “functional couple” persona: Couples often excel at logistics (meals, money, schedules) while vulnerable, playful, longing parts slip into shadow. When the persona outpaces the person, distance grows.

·      Interior movements in conversation: Ignatian Spirituality offers guiderails. Notice consolation (gracious, gratitude, honesty, quietly hopeful) versus desolation (tight, isolating, defended, hope-dimming). Attending these movements nurtures awareness of the Divine Presence between you. Consolation marks the movement toward the Divine in one another, while desolation marks the movement away. Your affective awareness will tell you whether you’re moving toward one another or away.

·      Spiritual direction’s frame: Spiritual direction is the guided practice of discovering how the Divine in one’s inner world directs daily life—and learning to choose interior movements that lead to greater gratitude for life, freedom, joy, and wholeness. In marriage, this becomes shared attentiveness: two people listening for how Life draws them forward together, and choosing it.

The Shared Examen for Connection

(15 minutes)

Do this in the evening as a daily sip, not a gulp. Sit side by side, feet grounded. Ask for light to see each other with grace. Give two slow breaths together.

Prepare (1 minute)

-       Exhale longer than you inhale. Soften your jaw. Feel your weight on the chair. Agree on 15 minutes, and keep it.

Step 1: What felt alive today? (2 minutes each)

-       Speak in images and sensations before the story: “Sun on my face walking to lunch.” “Warm chest when you laughed on the phone.” The Listener gets to ask “What was it like for you when _________,” one time.

Step 2: Where did I feel far from you? (2 minutes each)

-       Name one moment and the felt sense: “Tight throat when we scrolled at dinner.” “Disconnected when we read instead of chatted.” Listener says, “Thank you for sharing that with me.” No fixing.

Step 3: Name a value for the next 24 hours (2 minutes together)

-       Choose one value (care, truth, courage, steadiness, play, stewardship). Which choice raises the most gratitude, freedom, joy, or unity when you say it aloud?

Step 4: One merciful gesture (2 minutes)

-       Pick one concrete action that embodies the value: a 10-minute phone-free walk; screens off in bed; an honest check-in after work (ex. “What was _______ like for you today?”).

Close (2 minutes)

-       Each names one thing about the other that stirred warmth today. Brief touch, or two breaths with foreheads resting together. End there.

Micro-Skills for Better Couples Communication

-       Describe your experience, rather than simply recounting it or explaining yourself. “Tight chest,” “warm belly,” “cool shoulders” gives a felt doorway in.

-       Don’t repeat everything your partner says, or go entirely silent. Pick one phrase that carries the most feeling with it and wonder aloud about it (ex. “You mentioned feeling squeezed; tell me about squeezed.”). It slows the nervous system and shows you caught the thread.

-       Track the room’s climate. Warmer/more open/more honest/ more connected, or colder/tighter/defended/ more disconnected?

-       Pause and notice when tightness spikes. One slow exhale, then continue.

Troubleshooting Loneliness in Marriage

-       If one partner is avoidant: Shorten to 8 minutes, more often.

-       Start with Step 1 for a week before adding Step 2.

-       If criticism rises: Return to sensations and values. Ask, “What’s the smallest helpful change tonight or tomorrow?”

-       If silence feels easier: Trade written notes for a few evenings. Read them aloud, then Close.

Why This Reduces Loneliness and Rebuilds Emotional Intimacy

Surface-level logistics starve connection. The Shared Examen brings the inner world into the room with care. You begin to notice when the “functional couple” persona eclipses the riskier, more beautiful selves you each carry, and how to invite the beauty of the other out more and more. Attending the guiderails of consolation and desolation helps you sense whether your dialogue is moving toward life (spacious, steady, truthful, quietly hopeful) or draining it (tight, defended, hope-dimming). Spiritual direction offers a gentle posture: the Divine is already present between you, coaxing you toward connection, freedom, hope, and meaning.

An Invitation

Practice the Shared Examen for five evenings. Keep it short; keep it kind and honest. Watch for small signs of reconnection: deeper breath, easier eye contact, a softening in the room.

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Live and Lead with Soul,

Ben Shoup