One of the strange things that you find out when you interview different people is how little they understand about what intimacy is. Men look on embarrassed and think that intimacy is sexual and women think it's about sharing. Both are partly right, but they are also partly wrong and that’s a great shame. To understand intimacy and what it is may be vital to being able to bringing that part of the relationship back to life again. It isn't dictated by the size or shape of your body as you get older. It is much more than that. This chapter is going to reintroduce you to the subject of intimacy in a way that other books seem to fail. There are books that tell couples about lighting candles and creating an ambiance for more intimate time together, but you don't actually need candles to do that.
Intimacy begins when you and another person can look each other in the eyes without words and understand something that is mutual. It's the kind of feeling you share with special people. They know you know something just by the look in your eyes and you may even feel intimacy with close friends as well as your partner. It's a quiet acceptance of each other that goes beyond that. You not only accept the other person, but you both find total comfort in each other's company. I had to explain this once to a colleague that made me feel like this even though we were not in a relationship other than friendship. A man and wife find this because they go through so many events in life together, so have many common memories and interests. People who are friends and who have intimacy can be described in this way, as was the manner in which I explained it to a friend, "I feel sometimes that we are so much on the same wave length that we could sit naked across the room from each other and that isn^t nakedness that is found by taking one’s clothes off. It’s found by allowing another person to get under your skin in the best kind of manner. There’s a trust and there's a special something that is hard to define, but it's there none the less."
My colleague was indeed so much on the same wavelength as me that he understood totally what it was that I was talking about. Between a husband and a wife, there is that same closeness, though sometimes it seems a little distant. We need to remind ourselves of it sometimes and keep it alive. Once you argue and build up defenses, the comfort level between the couple changes in dynamics and it's hard to get it back, but it’s entirely possible. Ask yourself the following questions:
• Would I trust anyone more than I trust my partner?
• Do we share a level of privacy that is exclusive to us?
• Do we laugh at the same things?
• Do we share secrets we wouldn't share with others?
If you feel that the intimacy in your marriage is lacking, it's very much a two-sided thing and requires total trust. You need to be able to examine what it is that seems to have eroded that trust and deal with it. The kind of things I would get as answers from women whose marriages were in trouble would be:
• I don’t trust him as much as I used to because he is too critical of me.
• We don't have the same kind of passion that we used to. I guess I got older.
• We don’t laugh at the same things any more.
All of these stop intimacy from happening. Yes, you may have sexual intercourse as a matter of duty, but without the intimacy between you, it really isn't the same thing. Take, in the first instance, where the husband is always criticizing his wife. She is never going to feel at ease with him until that issue is resolved. In a case like this, communication is vital. Here are some ways of getting around the first of the three statements shown above in an attempt to win back some of the harmony and intimacy in the relationship.
“If you didn’t make me feel so lacking, we really could have a great relationship.”
Opening up about problems rather than letting them continue will help. Tell him that you don't feel that sexy, when your choices are always questioned and that things need to even out a little to get the relationship back on track.
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