When You Feel Like Roommates: Reigniting Connection in the Middle of the Mess
By Ross Hendrickson
In a recent session, a couple sat across from me on the couch, both slouched just enough to reveal how tired they were. Not tired of each other, necessarily. Just tired. They had been married for over a decade, raising kids together, navigating careers, scheduling dentist appointments and soccer practice, and figuring out what to cook for dinner with whatever was left in the fridge. When I asked them how things had been going lately, the husband gave a small shrug and said, “We’re fine. Just busy.” His wife nodded, then added, “It feels like we’re just roommates right now.”
That phrase landed heavy in the room. Not angry. Not dramatic. Just honest.
They still shared a home, a bed, and a life. But they had stopped sharing each other. Not on purpose. They had simply drifted. Conversations became transactional. Affection became routine. Emotional presence became sporadic, like a radio station that used to come in clearly but now just hums static unless you hit the antenna at the exact right angle. They were still in love, but the love had gone quiet.
This is something I see often. Couples who are not in crisis, not in chaos, but in the slow fog of emotional disconnection. They show up to therapy not because they are planning to leave, but because they miss what they used to feel. They miss the version of their relationship that had sparkle and spontaneity. They miss the person who once made their heart skip, but now just asks if they bought more paper towels. They are not enemies. They are simply stuck.
Roommate syndrome, as I sometimes call it, is sneaky. It does not arrive with a bang. It creeps in over months or years. It shows up in the silence during dinner, in the separate screens before bed, in the gentle “love you” that sounds more like a habit than a declaration. It thrives in busyness and blame. It grows in seasons of stress and survival mode. And it feeds off the lie that this is just what marriage becomes.
But here is the good news. Feeling like roommates is not a death sentence for your relationship. It is a signal. It is your relationship waving a tiny white flag, asking for attention. It is an invitation to shift from autopilot back into intentional connection. And it is absolutely something that can be healed.
The causes of this drift are rarely about moral failure or lack of love. They are about erosion. Life gets loud. Kids need everything. Work demands stretch longer. Conflict avoidance turns into emotional withdrawal. Sometimes the disconnection grows because of resentment or unresolved hurt, but often it is simply due to fatigue and inattention. It is hard to pour into your marriage when you are running on fumes. It is hard to feel close to your partner when you are both staring at to-do lists that never end.
One of the myths many couples believe is that closeness should come naturally. That if we are really in love, we should not have to work so hard at staying connected. But the truth is, every relationship drifts without effort. Emotional connection, like physical fitness or spiritual growth, requires intentionality. No one drifts into depth. We drift into distance.
That same couple I mentioned earlier did not need a grand romantic gesture to find their way back to each other. They did not need a tropical getaway or a vow renewal ceremony. What they needed was five minutes of undistracted attention. They needed to remember what it felt like to really see each other. They started with a simple practice. Once a day, after the kids went to bed, they would sit on the couch with no phones and no agenda. Just a question. “What was the best and worst part of your day?” That was it. A small ritual. But over time, it became a doorway back into each other’s emotional world.
Connection does not require hours of therapy homework or Pinterest-worthy date nights. It often begins in the small spaces. The six seconds of eye contact while saying good morning. The fifteen seconds of physical touch while passing in the kitchen. The unexpected text that says, “Thinking of you.” These micro-moments matter. They are stitches in the fabric of your emotional bond.
Of course, every couple is different, and some disconnection runs deeper. If there is unresolved betrayal, emotional wounds, or long-term conflict, you may need more than a few connection exercises. You may need guided repair work, the kind that happens in therapy or intentional relationship coaching. But even in those cases, the path forward still begins with willingness. The willingness to stop blaming. The willingness to show up. The willingness to believe that this person next to you is worth rediscovering.
Another common thread I notice is how many couples assume their lack of connection means they are doing something wrong. They assume they are broken, or that their love has faded. But the reality is, most of the time, they are just tired. They have been running a marathon with little rest, carrying responsibilities and emotions that rarely get named out loud. What looks like apathy is often exhaustion. What looks like coldness is often a protective numbness. And what feels like distance is often the absence of emotional safety.
So how do you build that safety again? You start by choosing curiosity over criticism. Instead of, “Why are you always on your phone?” Try, “What are you needing right now?” Instead of, “You never listen to me,” try, “I miss feeling heard by you.” Language matters. Tone matters. And trust is built in how we respond when our partner reaches out.
Another couple I worked with recently made it their mission to laugh together again. That might sound trivial, but it changed everything. They started watching old sitcoms before bed instead of scrolling separately. They kept a shared note in their phones of ridiculous things their kids said that day. They made fun of each other’s quirks in the way you do when you know it is safe to be seen. Humor, when used kindly, is one of the most healing tools in marriage. It softens the edges. It invites play. It reminds us that life is not just about enduring each other. It is about enjoying each other, too.
Faith can also play a powerful role in this healing process. For couples who share a spiritual foundation, prayer becomes more than just a ritual. It becomes a moment of alignment. It reminds you that your marriage is not just a contract. It is a covenant. And covenants are not kept by accident. They are kept by grace and grit. They are strengthened by the daily choice to stay present, even when it would be easier to check out.
If you are reading this and thinking, “That all sounds nice, but we are too far gone,” I want you to hear this clearly. You are not. If you are still in the same room, even metaphorically, there is hope. The spark may be buried, but it is not gone. And it does not take much oxygen to breathe life back into it.
Start small. Sit next to each other without a screen. Ask a better question. Offer a longer hug. Say one kind thing without expecting anything in return. Choose one action that says, “I still care. I still want this. I still see you.” And then repeat it tomorrow.
Marriage will always have seasons. There will be moments of magic and moments of mundane. There will be stretches where you are deeply in sync and stretches where you feel like polite strangers. But the miracle of love is not that it always burns brightly. It is that it can flicker and still find a way to catch flame again.
So no, you are not just roommates. Not really. You are co-builders of a life, weathered and worn, still standing. And sometimes, all it takes to remember that is to look across the couch, ask one good question, and actually listen for the answer.