Intimacy And Marriage

Your Quick Guide to Relationship Success

It would seem that intimacy and marriage go hand and hand, that is, until you really begin to dig beneath the surface and ask exactly "what do you mean by intimate?" How strange that a word that so many of us think we understand causes so much confusion inside of marriages and relationships. Just when you think you're being intimate, your husband or wife or intimate partner makes it abundantly clear that what you're doing has nothing to do with intimacy; at least the behavior you're exhibiting or the words that you're sharing don't feel anything like intimacy to them.

Steven M Cohn, PhD, LMFT
Virtual Marriage and Couples Counseling
Serving Clients Throughout Oregon
503-282-8496

Sometimes couples in counseling feel shy or embarrassed about talking about their sex life and they say, "Oh, we're having a hard time being intimate." Men and women often confuse what the other means by being intimate. Women often report fearing that when their partners ask for intimacy, they are only asking for sex. Sure, sex is intimate, but sex is only a sub-category of intimacy. Intimacy is so much more.

When most people think about intimacy and marriage they think about warm and fuzzy feelings that they have for their partner.

Or, a close and special connection with their spouse. The truth is that intimacy isn't always warm or close. Actually, sometimes intimacy doesn't really feel very good at all. Intimacy is all about being able to be yourself inside of an important relationship. That is, not losing yourself even when your partner or spouse is seriously disagreeing with what you are saying or how you are behaving. Another truth about intimacy is that achieving it takes a lot of work and true intimacy can sometimes take years to build into a marriage or relationship.

The first article in this section is titled:

Sexual Intimacy In Marriage

Intimacy In Relationship