Is there a (metaphorical) hole inside you that you have no idea how to fill?

It has recently become apparent to me that there’s a kind of hole inside me. I actually experience it as a hollowness in my stomach and in my ribcage. It is a dull kind of ache. This ache is usually accompanied by an existential ache where I wonder about meaning and how to explain this feeling.

I don’t know if this is the right interpretation, but when I think about what could fill this hole, I think that I need love. It makes me feel like I can’t get enough love, which weirds me out because my relationship with my wife is better than it has been in a decade.

It seems like no matter how good my relationship is with my wife, and no matter how close are my relationships to other people, it always feels like I need more. Through therapy, I have come to understand that the thing that will fill that hole is probably something only I can create.

I am working on that, but whenever I think I’ve made some progress, the hole seems to reappear. It scares me, because I will do just about anything to fill that hole.

Do you have a feeling like that? How would you describe it? Do you have any insight into it—where it comes from; what it is; how to fill it; whether it is even a good thing to fill it?