What is Intimacy?
How many of you reading the headline immediately thought of the personal acts within your bedroom? That is an example of only one type of intimacy, but it begins well outside of sexuality.
Relational intimacy was articulated by Harry Stack Sullivan (1953), who noted that “Intimacy is that type of situation involving two people which permits validation of all components of personal worth.” It is further described as “…feelings of closeness, connectedness and bondedness in a close relationship” by Robert Sternberg (1986).
How that relates to us as humans is as complex as it is necessary. It begins when we are infants and an intimate bond is created with a parent or caregiver. This sets the stage for what will be a lifelong desire and need for bonding intimately with other human beings.
Fast-forward to ourselves as adults in relationships or marriages in which we hope to experience intimacy. Remember, we are not talking about the sexual kind, which in itself is designed to be an extension of core relational intimacy. We are talking about our need to be heard by our partner, have our feelings validated and receive emotional support to enhance our natural bonding, healing and growth mechanisms. Now that the foundation has been laid, let’s look at an example of how we tend to perceive the word and its relevance in our relationships.
A female partner in an eight-year marriage came to me with the issue of feeling disconnected with her husband even though she felt they had a “close” relationship. She stayed at home with the kids and he worked at a local company. She happily prepared meals, kept house, was an engaged Mom and made time for herself and getting together with friends. However, she didn’t feel more than a rote connection with her husband during his time at home. Even when they went out with friends together, she felt disconnected explaining it this way; “It’s like we’re sharing an Uber because it makes sense, but we don’t really connect other than being in the same place at the same time.”
Utilizing the prior definitions of intimacy, I posed a challenge asking her to go home and make a list of all the intimate experiences she had during the week with her husband and advised they should not include sexual experiences. She came back with a very short list by which she was genuinely surprised. She realized that they had only two conversations about what each of them were feeling and that she said, …were more of a chore than real acts of intimacy” based on her need for homework material. They had zero interactions that were validating or bonding experiences for her as he seemed to nod and uh-huh through her sharing while offering nothing in return. She ended up feeling unheard and misunderstood by her spouse which led to feelings of resentment that she chose to not share with him. She explained that if he wasn’t able to hear her before, why should she expect anything to be different if she told him how she really felt. She would just be looked at as a “nag” or “needy.” However, she did report that they were “intimate” in the bedroom twice.
I hope you are questioning at this point how a lack of intimacy in the relationship can equate to real intimacy in the bedroom. The answer is, it cannot. Sexuality and intimacy go hand in hand. I agree that sexuality can certainly occur without intimacy (one of the primary aspects of sexual addiction), but it will be more of a physical act than anything beyond. We talked about her desire to bond more deeply and she admitted that up to this point, if the only connection she felt was physical then it was better than nothing at all. But by talking it out with me she came upon the truth is that it’s truly not better. She realized that true emotional intimacy is the missing component. By allowing herself to learn new communication skills and setting new personal goals, all aspects of her relationship including physicality can be more fulfilling. Her husband is on board with trying out these new approaches and seeing if they make a positive change to their existing dynamic.
The take-away is that true intimacy begins outside of sexuality. It is the base upon which the beauty of a physical experience is built. There are steps to building relational intimacy and repairing the paradigm of a malfunctioning relationship that can bring both partners into an uplifting, supportive, empowering and soulful connection. Developing levels of intimacy can offer each individual room to grow, learn and share while also feeling accepted, heard and supported. The power of this cannot be emphasized enough. As it is realized and developed in the individual it can then be incorporated into healing the couple.