You want to embed emotional intimacy in marriage, when you are newly married, isn’t it?
In the initial stages of your married life, you find everything about your relationship exciting and thrilling to you.
After all, you marry out of the intense love you have for each other. And naturally, you love and adore your spouse to the skies.
“Nothing can go wrong with my marriage” you smugly tell yourself.
But after a few years of marriage, you are in for a shock.
As years go by, your relationship changes drastically, for the worse of course. Your expectation of an idealistic married life is dashed and shattered. In actuality, you face innumerable relationship issues with your spouse.
In fact, you struggle to maintain the same emotional intimacy you enjoyed with your spouse before your marriage.
Both are taken aback by the negative changes your relationship undergoes, aren’t you?
The first few months of your marriage is exciting, as both could not have enough of each other. You find your spouse physically exciting.
But as days go by, your mind seeks something more than sexual intimacy from your spouse.
What exactly do you want from your spouse?
You crave for more emotional intimacy from your spouse, than sexual intimacy.
What exactly is emotional intimacy in marriage?
Sexual intimacy is purely physical.
As a newly married couple, you feel confused by the changes your relationship undergoes.
The excitement you feel about your spouse turns into boredom about him\her. You argue with your spouse, than adjust with him\her. You are more inclined to criticize your spouse, than appreciate him\her/
And last but not the least, your love for each other turns into indifference.
Why does these negative things happen to your marriage?
It is because when you live together, both shed the pretense of goodness you wore as an armor, during your love days.
It is a fact, that both always put your best foot forward when in love. And both never really showed your negative side, to the other.
So, both never really know the true side of each other before your marriage. Both assume, that the positive side you saw about your spouse during your love days, is his\her true self. And you are confident that your spouse will never change, after your marriage also.
But, both are in for great disappointment after you enter into wedlock. Your spouse feels, that you are not what you showed yourself to be during your dating days. You too feel that your spouse, is not what he\she showed him\her to be.
You see many qualities about your spouse which you dislike. And your spouse dislikes many of your habits and characteristics.
You are utterly disappointed when your spouse is not as loving and supporting as he\she used to be in your love days. This makes you feel you have married a wrong person.
Does this mean newlyweds cannot enjoy true emotional intimacy in marriage?
Not at all.
You too can enjoy emotional intimacy provided you know the following tricks!
1. Accept your spouse as he\she is
Most of you put your best foot forward when you are in love. You easily adjust to the minor faults of your spouse.
But after marriage, you want your spouse to behave in a way you like. This creates incredible resentment in your relationship.
When you loved your spouse with all his\her faults before marriage, you should do the same after marriage also.
When you keep insisting your spouse to change according to your liking, emotional intimacy in marriage is nipped in the bud.
2. Have enough personal space
Do you insist, that your spouse spend most of his\her time with you?
Nothing wrong in it.
But, do you insist that he\she spend time only with you?
This is when your marriage totters towards failure. When you become too possessive, your spouse becomes bored and disinterested with your company.
Your over possessiveness makes your spouse lose his\her personal space, you know.
Never ever, commit this relationship blunder.
Let there be beautiful spacing between you. You must be able to do what you want, and your spouse should have the same liberty.
How does enjoying your own personal space, develop emotional intimacy in marriage?
When you are newly married, you have all sorts of doubts that your individuality would be lost. When your spouse gives you the much needed space, you feel happy that your marriage will not force you to change.
No one likes changing his\her individuality, isn’t it?
3. Spend quality time together
Spending quality time together, is an excellent tool to develop incredible emotional intimacy in marriage.
It is no use being physically together with your spouse, and spending your time watching television, or browsing the net.
When you do this, you never really interact with your spouse.
Unless you keep communicating, you never really understand your spouse.
When you do not interact with your spouse, you become too apart from each other mentally.
You must spend quality time with your spouse, to embed emotional intimacy in marriage.
Small talk with your spouse. Talk about movies. Have mutual hobbies. Go for long walks. Do gardening. Be humorous. Be funny. Tease each other.
The quality time you spend together, is an open sesame to enjoy quality emotional intimacy with your spouse.
4. Be protective towards each other
It is common to see newlyweds, not knowing the true meaning of being protective towards each other.
The meaning is simple.
When your spouse is emotionally hurt, you should feel the pain.
When your spouse is being criticized, the insult is for you also.
As newlyweds, you feel easy to make fun of your spouse, not knowing the pain you are inflicting.
This is not the way to begin your married life.
When someone tries to degrade your spouse, you should spring to his\her protection, instantly.
Your spouse should have the confidence of doing the dumbest thing, without you ridiculing him\her.
When your spouse is stressed, never ignore it. The stress your spouse undergoes should be yours. Utter consoling words to make your spouse feel protected.
“I am here for you” is an emphatic way to develop extraordinary emotional intimacy between you.
5. Know that you are not always right
When you are newly married, your emotions are raw and vivid.
When your married life does not live up to your expectations, you are all keyed up.
You are psychologically shattered when you feel your spouse is negatively different from the person you loved and cherished.
This makes you, fight and argue with your spouse, for petty reasons. You feel you are always right, and your spouse is always wrong.
When you start blaming your spouse for all the fights you have, he\she gradually withdraws away from you, emotionally.
This is yet another relationship blunder you should always avoid.
Accept your faults. Do not feel egoistic to apologize to your spouse when you are in the wrong.
CONCLUSION
“Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still” – Robert Sternberg
The early stages of your marriage, should act as a foundation you lay for a stable marriage.
Why?
Emotional intimacy is very hard to build. It takes years of sustained love and support to embed it into your relationship.
Develop emotional intimacy in the early stages of your marriage, so that you will able to handle all the relationship issues that might arise between you.
Here is the link to “Marriage Realities”
Leave a Reply