What Creates Intimacy In Your Marriage?

What Creates Intimacy In Your Marriage?

Well, let's start with a couple questions that need to come first….

What Is Intimacy?

"I know that town intimately well," Bob said. "After all, I grew up there."

That is clearly not about sex, right?

People - mistakenly - think intimacy is the sex act.

It isn't.

Think about this: Billions of dollars are made in the porn industry by having people get physiologically excited (a nice way of saying j*** o**) watching a computer screen.

What??

Like, how does that work, anyway?

We all know it works.

That's when the body is totally detached from the heart. Is that intimacy?

I once saw a Ted Talk by a prostitute.

She said she was filling an emotional need for people who needed cuddling, touching, and validation.

How about that?

The sex part wasn't even on the list.

So very clearly, intimacy doesn't come from sex.

For the prostitute's clients, sex, along with what was said to them, created a feeling that was "close enough" for them to "imagine" or pretend there was intimacy.

So, then what is intimacy?

Simple: Intimacy is knowing - really well - your partner's deepest feelings.

So What Are The Benefits Of Intimacy?

To take a widely different case from marriage, I work intimately with people because they end up telling me their deepest feelings.

Now, along comes some friend or acquaintance of mine who says, "You have a hard job. How do you do it day after day?"

And my immediate reaction (in my mind, not out loud) is, "What? Are you kidding? I have the best job in the world."

Why?

Because connecting, even slightly, with someone's true Self, their deepest feelings and fears and their vulnerabilities is beautiful. It's an honor.

And as I get to understand each person that deeply, I like them more and more. So I end up doing therapy with people I care about.

For your marriage, it works the same way only better.

Here's a rule: The better you know and understand your partner's most vulnerable feelings, the more you'll like them.

How does that work?

Okay, let's take the weirdest possible case - and this is a true story. A therapist was working in a prison. One inmate would mutilate his own body. Well, you can't like someone like that, right? He seems crazy.

But the therapist learned, after getting deeper and deeper into this guy, that this was his way of lessening the pain he felt at having committed a crime and being in prison for it.

That doesn't seem to make sense, but -

He felt like if he punished himself enough, then he would no longer be consumed with terrible guilt for his crime.

Okay, part of you may just feel, "The guy is crazy."

But another part of you can see it, right? And that part of you can feel sorry for this person. Or maybe even have compassion for his suffering. That's how therapists feel. As they get closer to the person and understand their pain, hopes, dreams, fears, and desires, they like and care more and more.

So the same thing happens to you in your relationships. It's that simple.

But How Do You Get Closer?

The first steps, I'm sure, are really awkward if the two of you haven't been sharing much of any depth.

Nevertheless, intimacy starts with talking.

Actually, I'll change that - listening.

It's asking questions from a place of wanting to know . . . .

. . . and hearing the replies with an open mind and a willing heart.

Even people who have been distant, can stop that and make a u-turn.

People who have been fighting can still ask questions in calm and peaceful moments.

Because I guarantee that you do not know the person you're married to at all.

You may know their flashpoints, their defenses, their offenses, yes.

But that's it.

Nothing deep.

No feelings, hurts, hopes, frustrations and the "why" for all those things.

That's what you have to discover.

• Inner child work
• Internal Family Systems (IFS)
• Relationships
• Sexual health & dysfunction