Creating True Intimacy

True intimacy can only be experienced when spouses interact with each other in ways that meet each other’s personal needs.  It is important to avoid sexual fragmentation, that is, to separate the physical from the emotional and spiritual connection.  Our divinely-created souls consists of a spirit body and a physical body, each with its unique capacities and needs.  This is our true nature.  Our spirit bodies endow us with the potential to love, a desire for meaning, and an innate need to be emotionally connected to other people.  The spiritual self is also comprised of spiritual senses, emotional feelings, and a need for belonging in lasting relationships.  Our physical bodies endow us with the capacity for enjoyment, pleasure and contentment.  This physical part of our nature consists of our physical needs as well as capacity for stimulating experience.  Sexual health and happiness comes when we express our sexuality in ways that satisfy true needs for both dimensions-for our spouse and ourselves.

Each person has an innate need for intimacy, the need to belong and the need to become. The need to belong includes our innate desire to be loved by and connected to others; the need to become includes our divine drive to develop our full potential.   Our need to belong and to become make us meaning-making creatures.  We each create meaning and symbols out of our life experiences and often our sexual relations become the most symbolic.  When we marry and have sex we become one flesh, it is a symbol of our total union: union of our hearts, our hopes, our lives, our love, our family, our future, our everything.  When spouses focus on meeting each other’s needs- for belonging and for becoming- we communicate the depth of love and concern we have for each other. Be responsive to each other, and seek out a mutually enjoyable experience that can build your relationship.

To create sexual wholeness we focus on three dimensions.  The first is physical.  This is your satisfaction, pleasure, and health.  The second is Spiritual.  This includes meaning, purpose, and progression.  The third is emotional.  This is your love, attachment, and unity.

The bodies of both men and women are endowed with divinely created “arousal systems” that are linked to the natural processes of attraction, attachment, and touch.  Because of the physical portion of our nature, we innately desire and respond to physical closeness and touch in ways that can provide deep feelings of pleasure and satisfaction.

When sexual intimacy fosters a sense of understanding and appreciation between spouses, it then reduces anxiety and increases emotional security within the relationship.  This can become a virtuous reinforcing cycle as emotional security fosters satisfying sexual intimacy, and satisfying sexual intimacy can in turn build emotional security.  Nevertheless, the opposite may also occur as emotional insecurity leads to struggles with sexual intimacy, and problems with sexual intimacy can in turn aggravate fragile feelings of insecurity.  These patterns-for better or worse help us appreciate the critical roles that commitment, attachment, and strict loyalty play in sexual wholeness in marriage. 

True happiness cannot be found in simply seeking to satisfy our own desires and needs; it must include meeting the needs of others, and fulfilling their need to be loved.   In marriage, this is an opportunity for us to help our spouses meet their wants and needs. 

We strengthen our emotional security when we learn to trust, rely upon, and confide in others-rather than believing we can always take care of ourselves.  An intimate relationship is one in which two people share with each other their inner selves. Many times we think of intimacy as only being good and therefore are afraid to open up and share parts of ourselves that are more vulnerable.  By doing this, we may not be willing to communicate our needs and desires.

The process of true intimacy requires spouses to share their whole inner-selves with each other, which in the natural course of life, may include the parts of agreement and similarity as well as the bouts of disagreement and difference.  At its core, intimacy is a process of knowing and being known.  One of the terms used in the bible to denote sexual intercourse was to “know” each other. True intimacy that creates genuine closeness is a process that involves authentic disclosure and sharing between spouses.  Sometimes this process may be energizing or validating, and other times it may leave spouses feeling wilted or vulnerable. 

These two very different aspects of intimacy are known as the intimacy of validation and the intimacy of confrontation.  The intimacy of validation fosters the need for belonging; the intimacy of confrontation fosters the need for becoming.  Both aspects should be founded upon charity for one’s spouse, trust in each other, and a sincere desire to strengthen the marriage relationship.  Spouses show true charity for one another by giving each other a sense of value, acceptance, and belonging.  Loving one another as who they are and also who they can be, and being committed to helping the marriage relationship reach its fullest potential.  Spouses need to be willing to confront weakness, immaturity, and differences-whether in themselves or their spouses.  In this process of intimacy, spouses may feel vulnerable, hurt fearful, angry, and unappreciated.  As such, it will require courage, sensitivity, authenticity, and a willingness to find deeper understanding.

Challenge

Take the time as a couple to discuss what intimacy means to you.  What do you desire to be different in your relationship?  What do you love about your relationship?  How can you be a better spouse?  What can you do to help your spouse in their personal challenges?  What is your spouse struggling with?  What are you struggling with?  How could your spouse assist you in dealing with your challenges? This changes through the years as you mature and life takes on different demands, so it is wise to develop a habit of reevaluating this from time to time. 

Concentrate on being honest and open with your fiancé/spouse.  Take a chance on being vulnerable.  With each of you being willing to do this, you will open up a greater level of intimacy with one another that will benefit all areas of your marriage.   

Just a word of caution:  Be kind, respectful, and honest in doing so.  Being open and honest does not give you license to be mean, cruel, and disrespectful.  That will only hurt the intimacy level between you.  Even if you have to say something more painful, it can always be done with love and respect.  

References

Busby, D. M., & Carroll, J. S. (2014). Sexual Wholeness In Marriage.