Intimacy

Intimacy in the context of a relationship reflects an individual’s capacity to be completely honest, open and expressive; without fear or favor. By doing so one experiences the completeness of the unconditional love that one feels for oneself. Before one does this; one has to be absolutely sure of one’s partner. One has to love the partner enough to want to share oneself. One has to trust the partner enough to feel free about this sharing and one has to respect one’s partner enough to believe that she/he knows how to handle this unconditional sharing.

For intimacy to develop in the relationship, be a child when you need to, an adult when you want to and a parent when you have to. Intimacy represents the pinnacle of closeness between two human beings. It is harmony with oneself and comfort with one’s vulnerability.

Sensitivity refers to a harmony between intellect and emotions. Without intellect, emotions don’t have a context. Without emotions, intellect does not have a purpose.

SEX&INTIMACY

The act of making love is an intimate one you can have sex with anybody, but you can make love only to someone you care for. The comfort with each other’s nudity, the reassuring feeling of your partner’s body on yours, the need to be touched and so to touch, the knowledge that whatever you share in the privacy of your bedroom is exclusive to two of you, the afterglow of sex can all convert a procreation act into a sublimely intimate experience.

The expectation that sexual passion is an inevitable requirement of a man-woman relationship is one more unfortunate misconception. Sexual passions do not last far more than a few months, or at the most beyond a couple of years.

ADVERSE EXPERIENCE IN EARLIER RELATIONSHIPS

From our earlier relationships we notice similar pattern of expressing intimacy in relationships. Whether with your present or Ex-partners you are doing pretty much the same thing to your present partner and this seems disloyal to your present partner.  You must remember that with whomever you choose to get intimate, the way you respond will be identical you can’t change responses just for this reason. If you do, you lose spontaneity and do a disservice to your present partner who married you because she/he loves you the way you are.

Now is the best time to make a clean break with your past relationships. The break you need to make is only from the past relationship not from the kind of person you were then. If you have not yet told your partner about your past relationships consider doing so now. If both of you, trust and respect each other enough to have come this far, why should being honest with each other detract from your relationship? Love your partner until it hurts and he/she will love you back the same way. Nothing makes for greater intimacy that’s this.

BUILDING ON COMPANIONSHIP BY MAKING TIME FOR INTIMACY

Intimacy requires time. Harmonious intimacy release endorphins in your brains that give you a feeling of well-being. Intimacy is absolutely harmless and revitalizes you. To get there all you need to do is following:

Make more time for your relationships.

Spend at least one evening a week in each other’s exclusive company.  

Just be together.

Stay tune into each other lives.

Look for your partner’s emotional signals.

Keep an eye on your responses.

Take annual vacations, just the two of you. Not expensive vacation, just quite restorative gateways.

Do not keep secrets from each other.

THE GREAT DRIFT & THE GREAT ESCAPE

When the pillars of marriage are wobbly, the couple is often hard pressed to handle the consequences. Before they realize this they began to drift apart and slowly but surely the gap widens. One or both partner indulges in a great escape by going down one or more of three roads:

Escape into work. Addition to keep away from the partner and from the relationship.

Allow the marriage to resolves around the children, the only bond between them.

They have an affair.

Eventually leading a parallel lives.  

PARALLEL LIVES: WORK OTHER ADDICTIONS:

Escape into work domain.

Escape into chemicals.

Escape into socialization.

Escape into spiritual pursuits.

Escape into other activities & pursuits like pursuing educational qualifications, surfing internet.

The minute you realize that the activity gives you a sense of relief from your marriage you should start talking fresh stock of your relationships. Parallel lives, like all other maladaptive relationship patterns will not resolve themselves. We have to take active steps to change our little worlds.

PARENTS MANIPULATED BY THE CHILDREN

Children are insecure and look to their parents to make their lives predictable. When the parents are having a hard time doing this, then each parent attempt to control the child in his/her own way without the others knowledge. Children will have to deal with contradictory inputs. That can be at best confusing and at worst impossible to deal with.

IMPACT OF UNRESOLVED MARRIAGE ON CHILDREN:

No child should ever be compelled to make a choice between parents, even if they are separated. Sadly both parents start actively lobbing to be chosen as the primary parent when children need both at different stage. Mother when young, and father in pre-adolescent or early adolescent.

The parental conflict gets expressed non verbally. Children being extra ordinary sensitive pick up the cues and are very hard pressed to make a choice. It can be extremely disorienting to the child.

CHILDREN TURN TO PARENT FIGURE IN THEIR ENVIRONMENT

When children feel the burden of there parents, they turn to other authority figures in the environment. In such situations children are at high risk for abuse. This is not to suggest that above takes place only when children turn to older persons as surrogate’s parent figures. There are other causes of sexual abuse in childhood.  

THE EMPTY NEST SYNDROME

When two children reach adulthood they will no longer be needed. The nest is empty and the parents haven’t the first idea about what to do with each other. The empty nest syndrome characterized by depression, loneliness, helpless, hopeless and anger with the spouse. The empty nest syndrome is easier to prevent than treat. Cure is possible provided the parents use the opportunity to make a secondary commitment to their marriage.

PARENTS CAN PLAY SIGNIFICANT ROLE IN INITIATING DISCIPLINE IN THEIR CHILD:

Child discovers that there is no need to change no reasons to mature. Every time you reward them for misbehavior you are actually strengthening the part of them that wants to misbehave and that doesn’t want to follow social rules or civilized behavior.

By giving in every time, the child throws tantrum you may be transforming your home into a breeding ground for an emotional black mailer, your generosity, kindness consideration are all transformed into the curse of emotional blackmail.

Adolescents handing out frequent threats to commit suicide, walking out of home, locking themselves in a room and refusing to eat and emotional breakdown are all different forms of emotional blackmails of neglected for a prolonged period can result in Border line Personality disorder (BPD). Most of these children grow up to be ego-centre having scant disregard/regard for other’s feeling and leading to major relationship problems.

Emotional blackmails use fear, obligations and guilt in their relationship ensuring that the victim feels afraid to cross them, obligated to give them their way and feeling guilty if they don’t. You are the expert on your child. Train your child by talking small steps. First write the rules down and put your foot down seeking their strict adherence.