The Intimate Love
Song
Joe is a forty-seven-year-old engineer with a computer manufacturer. He was referred to me for counseling because he was "not happy with how things were going at home." When I asked him to be more specific, it became clear that Joe and Donna were merely going through the motions; there was no real intimacy in their relationship.
They both seemed to be spending increasing amounts of time at work. She had taken a night job in a department store when Joe was home to watch the children. Donna didn't have to work but she did it for the personal contact with others. Joe is a responsible, conscientious person who works hard to provide for his family. However, the discomfort at home motivated him to travel on the weekends "for work purposes."
Joe is an introverted type of person who has always preferred having time to himself. However, when he was home with Donna and tried to be close to her, she just moved away from him. What little conversation they did have was disconnected, impersonal, and businesslike. Although Joe wanted intimacy with his wife, he didn't know how to achieve it.
"I am so confused," said Joe. "I make a good living. I give the children my attention. I always let Donna have her way. I just want to make her happy. Yet Donna says I don't give of myself. What am I not giving?"
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"I can see why this is so confusing for you, Joe," I responded. "On the one hand you love Donna and you want to make her happy. But it seems like you have done all you know how to do in order to please her, and she just becomes more distant."
"That's right! It doesn't make any sense!" he said.
Actually, what was happening in Joe's life made a lot of sense. Joe was just viewing things from the wrong angle. He did not feel close to Donna because he did not know how to be intimate. Intimacy comes from mutual self-disclosure, not from performing for each other. Wanting to please each other is a good thing, but doing it to earn approval from our partner is not the basis for closeness.
What is really going on here? Why can't Joe and Donna find the intimacy they would both really like to have between them?
Donna has her own point of view about their relationship. "Joe is indecisive and unsure of what he wants," she said. "He seemed stronger and more in charge when we first met. Now he seems so tentative and unsure of himself. He doesn't get involved with what I say. He does almost everything I ask, but he never asks anything of me. I don't feel important to him anymore. I don't even feel like I know him. I just don't understand him."
Joe thought that if he could do everything Donna wanted, he could make her happy, she would accept him, and they could be intimate. But intimacy is not yielding to our mate's requests. Intimacy is giving our mate who we are. It is revealing our true selves to each other, not pretending to be who we think the other wants us to be. Intimacy is being real and open.
Joe is afraid to be himself with Donna, even after being married ten years. This may sound strange, but Joe has never felt comfortable being himself around anyone. He feels guilty thinking about his own needs when he is around Donna. What he needs to realize is that Donna wants to know her husband in a very personal way.
Marital intimacy is detailed knowledge of each other. Donna needs to know what is important to Joe and what his needs
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really are. Without this understanding she cannot know how to give to him. She must know him intimately before she can respond to his needs and feel that she has a significant part to play in his life. Although Joe wants to make her happy, in reality he is making both of them miserable by not revealing himself. At present, it is less painful for her to pull away from him than to move toward his unrevealing self. She feels less lonely when he is at work than she does when he is at home.
Joe thinks the only time he can have his own life is to go quietly within himself, withdraw from others, and enjoy his thoughts and fantasies. It doesn't occur to Joe that his wife would like to share his private inner world with him. Like the Lone Ranger, he does good things for people while hiding behind a mask so nobody can know him. "Who is that masked man I am married to?" she asks.
Donna has a very different personality, so it has been difficult for her to understand Joe's behavior. She has felt hurt, rejected, and emotionally abandoned by the very one who claims to love her. Donna has assumed that Joe was deliberately shutting her out of his life. In one sense that was true. However, it never occurred to her that he didn't really know how to relate to her any differently. She could have helped the marriage if she had taken the responsibility to talk to him about her concerns much earlier in their relationship.
How can Joe and Donna learn to sing a love song of intimacy to each other?
PASSION AND INTIMACY
Marital intimacy is personal familiarity between a husband and wife. It is sharing personal details with each other. In general, intimacy is being close to our mate as a result of mutual self-disclosure and acceptance.
Marital passion is the desire for closeness. Intimacy is the fulfillment of that desire. Imagine that you are hungry. You have a
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"passion" for food until you have taken your fill at the table. Your "intimacy" with food has satiated you and diminished your passion for food temporarily. But your hunger will return if you go for a time without eating.
So it is with emotional closeness. As intimacy is achieved, passion declines temporarily. Likewise when intimacy has been absent for a period, our appetite (passion) again returns. Desire and fulfillment must alternate with each other. We desire something because we don't yet have it. Fulfillment diminishes our desire. This alternation does not go on and off like a light switch. Rather it is more like a rheostat—passionate desire fades out as intimate fulfillment is being realized. Likewise when intimacy has been absent for a period, passion again begins to build. It is this repeated sequence of passion alternating with intimacy that is the heartbeat of a healthy relationship.
If a relationship gets stuck in either position, it becomes unhealthy. For example, the marriage that experiences only passion without the fulfillment of intimacy will eventually die. Passion needs hope to survive. If passion does not lead to intimate fulfillment eventually the individual becomes frustrated and despairing.
On the other hand, if the relationship gets stuck on the intimate side, passionate desire cannot be felt, and the relationship becomes boring, stagnates, and will eventually die. Thus it is vital to any loving relationship to experience both passion and intimacy on a regular, but alternating basis.
Joe and Donna's passion was cooling down because it wasn't finding the intimate expression it required for fulfillment. Over time, as we shall see, they learned to sing an intimate love song to each other which helped give birth to their passion once again.
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INTIMACY IS NOW
There is more to understand about intimacy, however, than its relationship to passion. Intimacy must be viewed as a present experience. This means that a couple cannot find intimacy on their honeymoon and expect that memory to satisfy them years later. Positive memories are important and beneficial. However, the desire for intimacy keeps coming back. Memories of previous intimate moments may help stimulate our desire to be close again. But the need for intimacy is never satisfied once and for all. Intimacy must be renewed through new experiences together in the present moment.
It is not necessary or desirable for every moment together to be an intimate moment. We need to have unintimate moments in order to renew our passion. It is the absence of intimacy as well as positive experiences with intimacy that create the desire. Since intimacy can only be experienced in the present moment, however, it must be recreated on a regular basis in order to sustain a relationship.
Some people talk a lot about past or future activities but say very little about what they are thinking or feeling in the present. The most intimate experience we can have is to share our deepest personal feelings toward our mate in the present moment.
THE PACE OF INTIMACY
Intimacy develops gradually. Many people are so hungry for intimacy that they want it immediately. Some make the mistake of thinking that sexual openness will relieve their loneliness more quickly than working at developing true intimacy. This path is taken by many who do not know any other way. Detailed knowledge and personal familiarity with another person cannot occur instantaneously because it takes time and effort to be openly communicative and mutually accepting.
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THE MUTUALITY OF INTIMACY
Intimacy is reciprocal. I have on occasion accompanied people to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. It is fascinating to hear the stories of people who have been possessed by alcohol and how they have struggled to stay sober. However, it has been equally fascinating for me to see how people respond to speakers who have just told their life story in personal detail.
After the meetings, listeners gather around the speaker with gratitude and admiration. They feel like they know this person who has just revealed so much detail about himself or herself. I am sure the speaker enjoys the attention but there is no intimate relationship at that moment because the listeners have not shared their lives in any depth with the speaker. Although the listeners are greatly helped by knowing the speaker better, the intimacy is not mutual. Everyone at the meeting has something in common, but of course reciprocal relating is not their purpose. The listeners feel close to the speaker because the speaker was open and self-disclosing. However, the speaker cannot feel close to the members of the audience unless they also disclose, which is not practical in this kind of setting. For people to have a truly intimate experience, disclosure must be reciprocal.
One person opening up to another is only the beginning of intimate relating. Joe would listen to Donna, but because he did not know how to reciprocate, Donna pulled away in despair.
STEPPING STONES TO INTIMACY
Intimacy involves the whole person. Knowing each other is not just a cognitive experience. An intimate marriage is one in which our total personalities are involved. This includes our thoughts, our feelings, and our actions.
Joe thought he was being loving by doing a lot of things that he believed would make Donna happy. However, he never shared his intentions with Donna so that she could relate to him
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about them. If Joe had said at some point that he was trying to do things to make her happy but she just seemed to keep pulling away, this could have created an intimate moment. This very act of sharing his personal thoughts is an effort to be intimate.
Joe could have said, "Donna, I feel discouraged about what to do for our relationship. It hurts me to feel so ineffective in meeting your needs. I really desire a closer relationship with you."
Some people initiate more intimacy with their pets than they do with their mates. They can call their puppy a little sweetheart but they don't do it with their own spouse. Yet verbally sharing our own feelings about each other to each other is important for the development of intimacy.
Intimacy involves actions. What we think or feel has little consequence if it is not translated into behavior. True intimacy cannot stop with just a thought or a feeling. An intimate moment is created by the process of sharing, selectively, that thought or feeling.
If Joe had revealed his concerns, bought Donna her favorite perfume, or revealed more of his own needs, he would have paved the way for a more intimate relationship. On the other hand, had Donna expressed her concern more directly rather than withdrawing, fixed Joe his favorite meal once in a while, and acted lovingly even when she didn't feel like it, she also might have paved the way to greater intimacy with him.
INTIMACY AND ONENESS
The night before their wedding, a bride-to-be said to her intended, "Just think, dear. Tomorrow the two of us shall become one."
"Oh yeah?" he responded. "Which one?"
"Two becoming one" does not mean one becoming swallowed up by the other. Some of us think that to be intimate we
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have to think alike, feel the same, and do everything together all the time. If we lose our identity to another, we have little to give each other.
It is our uniqueness that our mate finds so interesting. It is our autonomy that enables us to bring our distinct self to our mate by choice and desire rather than out of need or fear of being alone.
It is a lot easier if spouses share similar values, especially in relation to God, but we don't have to prepare meals the same way or read the same magazines to be intimate. Intimacy is not merging two personalities into one. Rather, it is retaining our own uniqueness and revealing it to each other. Marital intimacy is knowing each other inside out.
Fred and Jan are in their fifties. He is a social worker and she is a supermarket cashier. They were both raised to give themselves away to other people but were not shown how to nurture themselves as well. They were both highly respected in the church for all the time they devoted to church projects. They were humble people who were always there behind the scenes helping out. They shared a lot of their interest in giving, and many people benefited. However, they were like soldiers who worked side by side to meet the needs of the world. There was no intimacy because their own thoughts, feelings, and needs were never revealed to each other. Neither one of them initiated anything on their own behalf. They were both responders to the needs and interests of others. Because they never revealed their own needs and desires, they could not respond to each other. There was nothing to respond to. So they kept busy looking beyond each other for needs to which they could respond. They are always side by side but seldom eye to eye.
Their marriage is faltering now because they are burning out. Their cups are empty. They have gone through the motions of giving all their lives when in fact they had very little to give due to their self-imposed emotional deprivation. Without knowing how to nurture themselves by having fun and learning how to relax, they became caught in a dangerous routine of giving to everyone except themselves.
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When I ask Fred what he would like for himself, he can only answer in terms of what he thinks Jan needs. He does not know himself well enough to define his own needs and interests. The same is true of Jan. She is so used to centering her life around Fred that she has no idea what her own needs are.
Isn't marriage about giving more than getting? Yes! Marriage is very much about giving, both to our mate and to ourselves. Isn't this the ideal marriage? No! If we expect to have resources with which to give, we must receive as well. If a stream is to produce water without drying up, it must have a source of input as well.
If we are unaware of our needs, these needs are not likely to be met. Fred and Jan didn't realize how important it was for each of them to have their respective time alone to think and pray. Fred and Jan are so enmeshed in each other's lives that they have no life of their own with which to share with each other. They bring no fresh perspectives or unique experiences to their relationship.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF INTIMACY
It seems apparent that most people want to be close to someone else. But why is this so? What motivates us to seek closeness with another?
True intimacy makes us feel accepted and loved. We all have a desire to feel significant and it is most reassuring when another person considers us worthy of close personal involvement. Acceptance by another person reassures us that we have something to offer another. It gives our life meaning and purpose.
We can only love someone to the extent that we know them. Since intimacy is a state of knowing another, it opens the door for personalized expressions of love. As we become more aware of who our marital partner is and what his or her needs are, we learn what love songs are most appropriate to sing. For example, if we realize that our loved one has a fear of heights, we
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aren't going to plan a trip to the Empire State Building. Or if we know our spouse is allergic to cats, we will not surprise our beloved with a gorgeous Siamese at Christmas.
Intimacy enables us to be mutually sensitive to each other's needs. One of the ways God desires to reveal his love to us is through each other.
Love is essentially behavior. No matter how much we think or feel loving, these loving thoughts and feelings are worthless until translated into behavior. This loving behavior is made more possible through the detailed knowledge that comes from intimate relating. Because intimacy reveals needs, the greater the intimacy, the greater the potential is for love to be demonstrated.
This is not to say that love is going to be expressed simply because intimacy is present. Intimacy provides the opportunity for love but not the assurance of it. Many people have gotten themselves into destructive relationships and have been hurt by being too intimate with the wrong person. So while intimacy does not promise love, it opens the door for healthy love to express itself.
As Christians, we are commanded to love God and one another. The agape love that Jesus commands us to live has nothing to do with how we feel. We act loving toward God and others because that is the purpose given to us by our Creator. We are to love as a way of life, not just when it is safe. At times it may be painful to be loving. Nevertheless, an attitude of love should motivate our actions. God never allows pain to be an excuse for not loving. We are called to demonstrate our love regardless of how we feel or how much we are hurting. Even if we have to flee for our lives or leave our spouse to find safety from his or her loss of self-control, we are still exhorted to forgive and be concerned for our mate's emotional and spiritual recovery.
Our personal fulfillment in this life comes primarily in loving God and each other. This is the purpose for which we were created. This is the frame of reference Jesus taught and lived
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throughout his life on earth. This is the touchpoint which can give our life meaning and direct us in making decisions in our daily lives.
Marital intimacy is a wonderful opportunity for us to fulfill God's purposes in our lives. It is our chance to sing a love song to our mate as well as to God.
OBSTACLES TO INTIMACY
As important as intimacy is to a marriage, it is not always easily achieved. There are several reasons why intimacy can be elusive.
Some of us are afraid to let our spouse know too much about ourselves. We may be afraid something we say may be used against us in the future. Or maybe we don't care for our mate's immediate response. But protecting ourselves from potential hurt and disappointment only sets us up for the pain of loneliness and loss of intimacy. By hiding, we undermine the possibility of closeness because we are not giving our mate anything of ourselves to know and love. This creates a dissatisfied spouse and produces the very thing we fear in the first place: criticism and lack of appreciation.
Fear of being hurt is the main risk of intimacy. Those of us who are afraid to be known usually have a good reason. At some point in our personal history we were hurt. So we protect ourselves by hiding, but only end up being lonely.
Some people respond to their fear by trying to control everything. They feel a need for power in a relationship because they have not been free in previous relationships. We easily confuse power and freedom. We are mistaken to think that to insure our freedom we have to control others. We do not need to control others in order to not be controlled by them. We can set boundaries regarding how we are affected by our mate without becoming a dictator. When one spouse tries to control the other, it develops into a never-ending power struggle. Power
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over another only creates distrust and resentment. Marital intimacy requires reciprocal freedom rather than one-sided mastery. Power plays will mute any love song.
Actually there is more personal power in not controlling our mate. Control undermines the other's loving initiative. But the power of patience opens the door for love to enter on its own. What greater experience is there than to be loved by another's free choice?
Ron is a very high-energy person. Since his wife's illness she has become a very low-energy person. His irritation over this causes him to act impatiently and pushy with her. He believes she should be over her illness by now and should push herself harder to play tennis and go places with him. But love cannot be mandated!
He cheats himself with his demands. Ron's need to be in control interferes with whatever love songs his wife might have been inclined to sing. Even if he succeeds in persuading her to go boating with him, the outing will not satisfy him because the decision did not come from her heart.
We are motivated in our efforts to control our mate by our insecurity about our own lovableness. The irony is that trying to make our spouse love us on our terms causes the other person to withdraw. If we would just accept our lovability as a fact (regardless of how we feel) we would be in a better place to receive the love we want and need.
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In this chapter we have considered that marital intimacy is a process of mutual self-disclosure between a husband and wife. It requires time to develop, and it must be reciprocal, involving our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. True intimacy is an oft-repeated, present experience, not a distant memory. Intimacy is sharing our uniqueness rather than being enmeshed with each other at the expense of our own personal identity. Intimacy opens the door for loving by revealing mutual needs for each other's loving response. Although there are reasons why intimacy
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is difficult to achieve, it is a significant ingredient in a marriage relationship.
Let us now return to the very important foundational building block for marital intimacy—personal autonomy. Each of us must first know how to sing a solo before trying a duet.
