You're Not Alone in Feeling Completely Alone: Why Motherhood Feels So Lonely (And What Actually Helps)

By Simone Mazloumian | January 23, 2026

February is around the corner, which means we're about to be bombarded with Valentine's Day marketing. Perfect couples holding hands. Galentine's brunches with perfectly curated charcuterie boards. Love is all you need, they say.

But here's the skinny: 70% of mothers report that motherhood is lonelier than they expected. One in five mums feel it every. single. day.

And the kicker—we're not talking about being physically alone. We're talking about feeling invisible while surrounded by partners, kids, friends, and family. Feeling like you're screaming underwater while everyone else is having surface-level conversations about sleep training and school catchment areas.

If you've ever felt lonely as a working mum, lonely in your marriage, lonely at work, or lonely scrolling through other people's seemingly perfect lives—this one's for you.

Why Do Moms Feel So Lonely? The Data Is Brutal (And You're Not Imagining It)

Let's start with the facts, because sometimes we need proof that we're not losing our minds.

The Global Picture

According to the World Health Organization, one in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness—but the percentage is highest among young people aged 13-17 (20.9%). By the time we're raising those teenagers? The loneliness doesn't magically disappear. It just shapeshifts.

In Europe, approximately 13% of people report feeling lonely most or all of the time, with Ireland leading at over 20%. Eastern and Southern Europe report higher rates than Northern Europe, but nowhere is immune. And here's what should terrify us: the proportion of people feeling lonely frequently doubled after COVID-19.

The American Maternal Crisis

In the United States, the situation is even more dire. Maternal mental health conditions—including the isolation that drives anxiety, depression, and worse—are now the leading cause of pregnancy-related death. Not bleeding. Not infection. Loneliness and its consequences.

Read that again.

Recent data shows:

• Fewer than 1 in 3 adults rate their mental health as "excellent" (lowest ever recorded)

• Mothers identify isolation as a TOP factor damaging their wellbeing

• Mothers are 1.3 times LESS likely to seek mental health support than women without children

We're drowning, but we're too busy managing everyone else to save ourselves.

The Four Types of Loneliness Mothers Experience (Pick Your Poison)

Loneliness isn't one-size-fits-all. Whether you're a working mother balancing career and kids, a stay-at-home mum craving adult conversation, or somewhere in between—it shows up differently depending on where you're standing in your life. Let's break it down.

1. Professional Loneliness: Isolation for Working Mums in Male-Dominated Industries

You know that feeling when you walk into a meeting and realize you're the only woman? Again?

For working mothers in male-dominated fields—whether you're in tech, finance, law, engineering, or consulting—professional isolation is real. And if you're a working mum in the UAE or GCC region, the challenges can feel even more acute.

The stats:

• Women make up only

  26.4% of computer and mathematical occupations and 17.2% of architecture and engineering roles in the US

• In male-dominated industries, women report significantly more negative views of leadership and lower perceptions of fairness

• The McKinsey "Women in the Workplace 2025" report found that women—especially "onlys" (the only woman in the room)—are more likely to feel excluded, scrutinized, and under pressure to represent their entire gender

Here's what professional loneliness looks like for working mums:

• You're at the top of your field but have no female peers to celebrate wins with

• You work from home and haven't had a face-to-face conversation with another adult all week (remote work loneliness is real)

• You're in tech/finance/law/consulting and constantly performing "mankeeping"—the emotional labor of managing male colleagues' feelings because they have no other outlets

A 2025 study introduced the term "mankeeping"—the exhausting emotional and social labor women perform to support men in professional spaces. You're not just doing your job; you're also remembering birthdays, organising team bonding, and coaching male colleagues through their feelings.

And here's the irony: You're surrounded by people all day but feel completely isolated because none of them get it.

2. Social Loneliness: Finding Your Mum Tribe Is Harder Than Dating

Finding mum friends who match your actual vibe—not just your kids' ages—is HARD. Whether you're looking for mum friends in Abu Dhabi, navigating expat motherhood, or just trying to connect with other mothers who get you, the struggle is real.

You show up at the school gate. Everyone seems to know each other already. They're talking about their weekend plans, and you're just trying to remember if you brushed your teeth this morning.

Or worse: You have mum friends, but every conversation feels surface-level. Nobody's saying the real stuff. Nobody's admitting they Googled 'is it normal to fantasise about running away to a hotel for three days alone'.

The EU-wide loneliness survey found that having several meaningful relationships is associated with lower loneliness—but the frequency and quality of contact matters more than quantity. Translation: Five hundred Instagram followers don't fix the fact that you haven't had a real conversation in weeks.

3. Feeling Lonely in Marriage: When Partnership Feels Like Solo Parenting

This is the one nobody wants to admit out loud. You're married, but you feel like a single mother.

You're in a relationship. You're "partnered." But you feel lonely in your marriage—like a single parent with a witness.

The research backs this up:

• Mothers still do 65% of childcare in dual-parent households (down only 7% in a DECADE)

• The "motherhood penalty" means mothers are 42% less likely to receive callbacks for job interviews than equally qualified women without children

• Remote work hasn't helped—women working from home spend an average of 1.5 more hours daily on childcare

  while men working remotely add just 36 minutes

You know you're experiencing loneliness in marriage if:

• You feel more alone WITH your partner than you would without them

• Every conversation is about logistics, never about YOU

• Your partner "helps" with the kids like they're doing YOU a favour

• You've Googled "lonely in marriage with kids" or "feeling lonely in my marriage" at 2am

Local business woman Hana Saad, wrote about this exact experience. After years of feeling invisible in her own home, she realised that leaving wasn't selfish—it was survival. Read Hana's story about life after divorce here.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit that staying is lonelier than leaving.

4. Identity Loss in Motherhood: Who Am I When I'm Not "Mum"?

This is the existential one.

You look in the mirror and can't remember the last time you did something just for YOU. Your hobbies died somewhere between pregnancy and potty training. Your ambitions got filed under "someday when the kids are older." Your identity became "Mum" and nothing else.

The 2025 State of Motherhood report found that mothers describe themselves as "surviving, not thriving." We're in survival mode so deep that we've forgotten what it feels like to just... be.

Identity loneliness sounds like:

• "I don't even know what I like anymore"

• "I used to have opinions about things other than school snack policies"

• "Who was I before all of this?"

And the worst part? Society tells us we should be grateful. We chose this. We wanted kids. So why aren't we happy?

Because being grateful and being lonely aren't mutually exclusive, that's why.

Why It's Getting Worse (Hint: It's Not Your Fault)

The loneliness epidemic isn't about personal failure. It's systemic.

The Breakdown of Community

Traditional "villages" have collapsed. Extended families live countries apart. Neighbors are strangers. Religious and civic organizations have dwindled. We're more digitally "connected" than ever and more isolated than any generation before us.

The paradox: Social media promised connection but delivered comparison. The EU research found that intense use of social networking sites is associated with increased loneliness—online relationships lack the intimacy and quality of offline connections.

The Impossible Standards

We're expected to be:

• Career-driven (but not too ambitious)

• Present parents (but not helicopter)

• Fit and fashionable (but "naturally," no effort)

• Socially engaged (but not neglecting our families)

• Mentally healthy (but don't burden anyone with your struggles)

The "intensive parenting" expectation—that mothers be deeply involved in every detail of their child's life—remains widespread, even as many women shoulder demanding careers and household responsibilities.

It's not sustainable. It was never supposed to be.

The Economic Reality

39% of mothers have considered leaving their jobs because childcare costs more than they earn. But staying home feels isolating. Working feels guilty. There's no winning.

And for those in male-dominated fields? The isolation is compounded by being "the only" in rooms full of men who don't understand why you can't just "lean in" harder.

Loneliness for Mums in Abu Dhabi and the UAE: What We Know (And Don't Know)

Here's the frustrating part: There's very limited data on maternal loneliness in the GCC region.

What we do know from living here as mothers in Abu Dhabi and across the UAE:

• Expat mothers face unique isolation (far from family support systems)

• Finding genuine community as a working mum in Abu Dhabi requires intentional effort

• Cultural expectations around motherhood vary wildly

• Domestic help can paradoxically increase loneliness (companionship ≠ connection)

• The "perfect expat life" Instagram narrative makes real conversations even harder

Whether you're a working mother in the UAE trying to balance career and family, or an expat mum navigating motherhood far from home, we need more research. We need more honest conversations. We need to stop pretending that living in a "paradise" location makes loneliness impossible.

How to Deal with Loneliness as a Mother: What Actually Helps

What DOESN'T Work:

• More social media scrolling

• Forcing yourself to "be grateful"

• Waiting until "things settle down"

• Accepting surface-level friendships because it's better than nothing

• Staying in relationships that make you lonelier

What DOES Work:

1. Name it. Loneliness thrives in silence. Say it out loud: "I am lonely." It's ok to stop pretending you're fine.

2. Quality over quantity. One real conversation beats one hundred "how are you" "fine, you?" exchanges. The European data confirms this: meaningful relationships > number of relationships.

3. Find your people. Other women who see YOU, not just your roles.

For working mothers feeling professionally isolated: Starting in February, Eklektik Mama is launching Founder Friends—a weekly Tuesday gathering for women raising businesses AND raising families in Abu Dhabi. Because you shouldn't have to choose between ambition and community.

Looking for mum friends in Abu Dhabi who actually get it? This is your space.

4. Stop waiting for permission. You don't need your partner's approval to join a community. You don't need to justify wanting adult conversation. You don't need to feel guilty for needing more.

5. Consider professional support. Remember: Mothers are LESS likely to seek mental health support than women without children. Break that pattern. Therapy isn't weakness—it's maintenance. In Abu Dhabi, Maudsley Health offer adult mental health services.

Overcoming Loneliness in Motherhood: The Bottom Line

Loneliness as a mother isn't a personal failing. It's a public health crisis affecting working mums and stay-at-home mothers alike.

You're not broken for feeling isolated in a crowd. You're not ungrateful for wanting real connection. You're not selfish for admitting that feeling lonely in your marriage is affecting your mental health.

You're just human. And humans aren't meant to do this alone.

The antidote to maternal loneliness isn't more people. It's the right people. It's being SEEN, not just looked at. It's conversations that go deeper than meal planning and school fundraisers.

Whether you're a working mother in Abu Dhabi searching for community, an expat mum far from family, or just someone who's tired of pretending everything is fine—it's communities like this one where we stop performing and start connecting.

So if you're reading this and thinking "finally, someone said it"—you're in the right place.

You're not alone in feeling completely alone.

And now that we've named it? We can start fixing it.

Sources & Further Reading

• State of Motherhood 2025 Report, Motherly

• EU Loneliness Survey 2022, European Commission Joint Research Centre

• Women in the Workplace 2025, McKinsey & LeanIn.Org

• Loneliness and Social Connection, WHO Commission Report 2025

• "Mankeeping" term coined by Angelica Puzio Ferrara, Men Without Men

• US Surgeon General Advisory on Loneliness & Isolation, 2023

• CDC Maternal Mortality Review Committees Data, 2024-2025

Simone Mazloumian is the founder of Eklektik Mama, a community for mothers in Abu Dhabi and beyond who reject the performance of perfect motherhood and choose real connection instead. Mother of four, a Masters in Media Communication and Management and advocate for women's rights. Creating spaces for working mums, expat mothers, and women who refuse to choose between ambition and authenticity.

Join the Conversation

What type of loneliness resonates most with you? Professional? Social? Partnership? Identity? Join our WhatsApp Community and let's talk about the stuff we're not supposed to say out loud.

Starting February 3: Founder Friends Tuesdays A weekly gathering for women raising businesses and raising families. Because you deserve community that understands both parts of you. Learn more and RSVP

Read More from Our Community: Hana's Story: The Gift of Divorce - One woman's journey from relationship loneliness to choosing herself

About Eklektik Mama

Baby-friendly events and judgment-free community for Abu Dhabi mums who keep it real. No perfectionism. No mum-shaming. Just authentic support for modern motherhood in the UAE.

Instagram | Weekly Newsletter | Abu Dhabi Events | Membership | Merch