Loving Marriage: Communicating Intimacy

Wikipedia defines intimacy as, the feeling of being in a close personal association and belonging together.

A feeling of belonging, isn’t that what we’re all looking for when we get married? To commit to our other half… the one we love, get our piece of paper, the piece of a paper that says where we belong.

I believe that intimacy is feeling close to one another in mind, body and spirit. What intimacy includes may change depending on the day. Intimacy may mean connection, sex, communication, a greater knowing or understanding, a history, common ground, a spiritual bond.

I recently read this in a blog post: “just like the body needs water to live, a marriage needs intimacy”, and it made me pause, how true.

By shear definition to thrive and grow, a marriage requires intimacy.

Me, I’m not so good at the communication part of intimacy… I completely related to a blog post by Alisa Bowman where she talked about how couples connect or fail to connect when something is wrong. She describes how when something is bothering her she tends to give short evasive answers at the same time, she admitted that she can’t stand it when the tables are turned and her husband is sulking in silence.

I’m good at being perceptive, drawing other people out, wanting to offer comfort. At the same time, I’m not so good at communicating my own concerns. It takes me days to actually understand what it is I’m upset about and why, and then it takes me even longer to convey my feelings.

I can honestly say it took me years of marriage to make the intimacy of communication a two way street in our relationship. Of course it’s something I still work on, but without a doubt I can now say, that I do have the ability to communicate most of my intimate feelings to my husband… the rest of the world I’m still working on, but that’s a whole other blog post.

I feel that complete intimacy comes when two people are open with each other, they can freely express who they are and how they feel to the other person. How did I achieve the ability to communicate in an intimate fashion you ask?

Frankly I can take little credit for it, it was by the sheer will and determination of my husband who pulled it out of me, I was left with no other option. Of course I had to learn to understand, label and express my feelings… on his prompt.

All this talk about communication and intimacy has left me searching for some other great ways to achieve intimacy and create communication, here three ways to begin communicating without talking:

Have curl your toes sex. Rather than focus on what you can’t say, what if you focused on what you feel. Connection has to start somewhere, I believe that when a couple is committed, a connection can spark into sex and sex can spark into connection. When you feel connected, it’s easier to communicate.

If you can’t say it write it. Writing a love letter to your spouse is a great way to make your spouse feel special, and it expresses your emotions in a format that allows you time to contemplate and think before you share.

Simply touch. There is even a scientific basis for why we need touch. It has been proven that a warm touch seems to set off the release of oxytocin, a hormone that helps create a sensation of trust. Trust is intimacy, I’m sure you’ll agree that something communicated through a loving touch is easily given and received.

Is  achieving intimacy through communication easy for you? How do you communicate your feelings to your spouse?

Tagged as: intimacy, love, marriage, Marriage Advice, sex