Having intimacy in a marriage is not just about having a healthy sexual relationship. There is emotional intimacy as well that is being connected on a deep emotional level. Not having intimacy in your marriage can feel painful, lonely, and confusing. For many, not having the deep emotional connection they crave with their spouse leaves them feeling abandoned. So why do so many couples struggle with developing and keeping emotional intimacy in their marriages?
Even though the answer to this question is often right in front of us, it is a hard one for many to answer. Sometimes the easiest answers about our issues are the hardest to see. Everything that we know how to do today we had to learn from somewhere. We learn to read, we learn to add numbers, as infants we even have to learn how to eat. So why do we often not take into consideration that we have to learn how to be in relationships? If you did not have any examples of intimacy or few examples of how to be intimate, why would you know how to be intimate in your relationship?
If a girl grows up in a home with a domineering mom who is on the go 24 hours a day and a dad that works all the time to escape the demands of the mom, she is not taught what intimacy looks like. To be married to her is to be busy and constantly being on the go separately from one another. A man who grows up in a home with a father who is constantly being critical of him and is distant outside of the criticism, he again comes into adulthood with no framework on how to be intimate with other people, let alone a spouse.
The issue is this girl and this man do not go into their marriage understanding their lack of intimacy. They get consumed by the honeymoon period and mistake it for true intimacy. The true lack of intimacy does not rear its ugly head until the honeymoon period has worn off. But again, most of us just figure we should know how to have intimacy, we do not give consideration to the fact we never learned. It is never too late to learn how to be intimate with people in your life, your journey to a more connected and intimate relationship can start today.
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