“Intimacy”, the word that most of us confuse with physical intimacy alone. Well…being physically close IS intimacy, but merely a tiny part of it. Did you know that there are different types and stages of intimacy? And for a relationship between couples to be successful you need to nurture them all! These include being emotionally, intellectually and spiritually close to your partner. Many partners experience a strong bond among themselves by being intimate in one or more of these ways and also in the absence of one of more of these. For instance: Couples couple be intellectually and spiritually close but not physically intimate; they could be physically and emotionally close and intellectually not connected and so on. It is possible to nurture the different kinds of intimacy so that you can have them all. For more on that, you could take a look at an interesting piece here.
Whatever be the kind of intimacy you wish to nurture with your partner, you must understand that this is not possible in a casual flings. Only if you have reached a certain level of closeness with your partner, you could start getting intimate. For this you need to:
- Share personal information which you would normally not share with anyone else.
- You need to feel that you are influencing each other in meaningful, positive ways.
- Express care at all times, being available when needed whether physically or emotionally, comfort in times of distress and take care of the other’s safety and so on.
- You must understand and support when needed, both in times of grief (like a loss) or happiness (like getting a job, a raise and so on).
- As you progress into the relationship, at one point the “me” becomes “we”. You tend to keep your couple priorities higher, whenever possible and that’s a healthy sign. But at no time do you give up your personal needs and self respect. It is a point when you are able to balance the “me” and the “us” perfectly.
- Any relationship that is meant to last cannot survive without the foundation of trust. Unless you trust each other and make sure you never break it for any reason, the intimacy will continue to grow. In fact, trust and intimacy are directly proportional. The more you trust, the more intimate you are.
- With lots of love, trust, support comes commitment. Because you want the relationship to be…forever.
A very interesting article notes that just like grief, there are 5 stages of intimacy:
- Infatuation: We all know what it is; a stage when everything seems perfect; where partners feel they are made for each other and have found the right person!
- Welcome to Reality: This is the stage where infatuation has walked out and you step into the real world, where things are as they should be. That means, you start looking at those traits of your partner which you didn’t notice before.
“Gosh! he’s boring”.
My God! She talks a lot!
“Is he always so lazy?”
“Is she never organized?”
3. Let’s Get Things Sorted: In this, you realize that you do have a life too, with all its chores to be attended to. So, you start thinking who’s going to do what. Yes, the mundane life comes to the fore. This is not a bad phase; everyone goes through it. But you must make efforts to make life more interesting together rather than wallow in it.
4. Coming Back: This is where you once look at the positive side of your partner.
“OK! He’s not so bad after all!”
“She is HOT!”
“I can’e believe he’s so sweet and caring!”
This stage could come up when you had a huge fight, not talked for a couple of days and were almost about to lose each other or after a bereavement in the family, a wonderful time out together or after a huge problem got solved.
5. Love: And finally true love does show up, probably a couple of years into the relationship. This is when we look at each other even from a distance we know we have found the right person and are so blessed to have the other in our life.
No matter which stage of intimacy you are in, the more you invest in it, the more loving and intimate you get. Ultimately, you would not really need to nurture it because it is taken care of so well, it blossoms. All you need is time, patience, understanding and shared responsibilities. Listen to each other and take time out for each other. Of course, the efforts must be from both and that’s the most important word in the relationship– We.
This post is part of the month-long #BlogchatterA2Z 2019, where we blog about a word everyday. Today’s letter is I. To see my post on letter H, click here. Keep following my posts all through the month as I explore relationships through A to Z.
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