These two people were once very close, but they have been driven apart by their guilt, disillusionment, and growing misery. Near the end of the play they do not even appear together in the same scene. She is alone in one part of the castle, and he is alone in another part. Shakespeare does not want to make the audience feel that they have been deserted by everyone else "but at least they still have each other." They do not still have each other. Lady Macbeth has apparently lost her mind and isn't even aware of her husband's existence except as someone who haunts her memory of the past. When she says, "Hell is murky," she means just that. She thinks she is in hell already. "Hell is murky" is a good description. We would expect the place to be murky because it is so deep underground.
Macbeth, it would seem, does not love this woman anymore and does not want to spend any time with her. He has sent for a doctor to take care of her and just wants to leave her in the doctor's hands. Among Macbeth's reasons for no longer loving his wife is probably the fact that he blames her for encouraging him to kill King Duncan. We know that he would not have gone through with the murder without her adamant insistence. She thought it would be easy. He knew there would be endless repercussions, but he let himself listen to her. Now he feels totally depressed. He believes they are both doomed. It doesn't matter whether she dies first or he does. Life is meaningless.
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. V.5
A long time has passed since Macbeth became king. Shakespeare does not specify the exact amount of time, but it must have been something like ten or fifteen years. In that time neither Macbeth nor his wife has experienced any of the pleasures they expected to attain by becoming the reigning monarchs. This is because they both know everybody hates them. Macbeth expresses the general feeling when he says:
I have lived long enough. My way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf,
And that which should accompany old age,
As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not. V.3
Also they apparently have not been able to conceive a child. The kingdom will pass down to others. Banquo's heirs may eventually inherit the throne as the witches promised. Macbeth does not even show surprise at his wife's death. Everything is going badly for him. He expects nothing but bad news. When he hears the women shrieking because the Queen has just died, he says to himself:
I have almost forgot the taste of fears:
The time has been, my senses would have cool'd
To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in't: I have supp'd full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,
Cannot once start me. V.5
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