Are you struggling with the lack of emotional intimacy in your marriage?
In numerous cases of divorce, a huge number of spouses like to place blame on a common issue – the lack of emotional intimacy in marriage.
Do you also struggle to stay emotionally intimate with your spouse? Or do you sense that you and your spouse seldom focus on emotional intimacy now? Emotional intimacy in marriage can silently fade away if couples do not make a conscious effort to maintain it; no doubt, in any long-term relationship, love needs constant connection physically and emotionally. And you may have to admit that lack of emotional intimacy has become a big defect in your marriage.
Is it possible to get back emotional intimacy in marriage?
If you have no idea what to do, here are some practical tips:
(1) Keep face-to-face interaction:
The meaningful and deep emotional intimacy hinges on the quality of the close face-to-face interaction. Surely, emailing and texting are both important, but without a face-to-face interaction, couples will be deprived of real emotional intimacy in marriage. As we all know, eyes are the windows to the soul, looking straight in the eye is a sign of honest communication, and it helps increase emotional intimacy; so when you stay together and spend time talking and sharing, it is advisable to temporarily turn off all the electronic devices beside you, such as your computer, cell phone, tablet, and video game console; and if possible, you two should make it a rule to silence cell phones during conversations.
(2) Find alone time with your spouse:
After marriage, inevitably your life becomes busier and busier, it seems hard to get some alone time with your spouse; especially if you have to raise children at home, the chances of finding uninterrupted time can be reduced further; but even if you are in such a situation, actually you still can find some chances by making use of every bit of time, for example, you may commit several minutes of staying together each evening after your children have fallen into sleep, or you may wash dishes together after dinner so that you can keep yourself close to your spouse. In a nutshell, to maintain emotional intimacy in marriage, you should seek ways to get alone time with your spouse from time to time, in spite of work, household chores, or other distractions.
(3) Work together on something that you both feel passionate about:
Different people have different particular aspirations. But mutual goals are a relationship necessity in a marriage relationship; the more you combine you and your spouse’s dreams to move toward a mutual goal, the more you strengthen your marriage. For example, if you know your spouse feels passionate about environment protection activities but you are busy with looking after your kids, you might make joint efforts to educate your kids about the importance of cleaning and recycling; through doing something that you can both devote time and energy to, you can get more chances to improve emotional intimacy in marriage.
Surely, in addition to raising a child, there are many other things that you both deeply care about. When you are both passionate about something, you two will be devoted to it, naturally, emotional intimacy in marriage will develop during the process.
(4) Give the gift of your attention during a conversation:
Whatever your spouse is talking with you, make sure to give the full attention to him/her; your spouse is more likely to exactly read your inner feelings when your attention is fully and intensely in the present; hence, he/she can sense that you seriously treat him/her as an important person in the world. After you have already stayed together with your spouse for a long time, you should develop a set of your particular communication skills to maintain emotional intimacy in marriage. To be an excellent communicator in your married life, you should not only learn to express yourself emotionally but also should learn to intently listen to your spouse.
Furthermore, you should learn to be perceptive of your spouse’s emotions when they are unspoken; in particular, pay enough attention to all sorts of non-verbal communication that your spouse may use during conversation. For example, be attentive to your spouse’s tone, facial expression, body language, and gestures. As you do that way, unconsciously the emotional intimacy in marriage may have been enhanced.
(5) Don’t try too hard:
Building emotional intimacy is a process of making and sharing connections on an emotional level. Disclosures need to be mutually exchanged; but rather than grill your spouse and make him/her feel defensive (e.g. directly saying to your spouse, “What are you thinking?” or “How was your day?”), you should allow your spouse some space in which emotional intimacy can work.
Understandably, you crave emotional intimacy, but don’t demand too much. Just like love, you can’t force emotional intimacy to happen; you can only promote it by creating an advantaged condition for it. Any attempt to force emotional intimacy will only cause your spouse to move further away from you. Healthy emotional intimacy in marriage is about couples getting close because they want to, and it should be by choice. In other words, emotional intimacy requires each other’s consent, in this aspect, it is as same as sexual intimacy.
Trying too hard only drives emotional intimacy away. Being emotionally intimate is also sort of like a dance between you and your spouse. As long as the two of you do not deviate from the track, sometimes you need to be close together, and sometimes you need to keep some space between each other.
(6) Increase physical intimacy bit by bit:
Behaving differently can make you feel differently. Even if you don’t’ feel relaxed and intimate when getting along with your spouse, you may keep making some small changes gradually. For example, perhaps you wouldn’t like to hug your spouse except during sex; from now on, you may try to give your spouse a gentle hug when he/she comes back home or just before he/she goes to work.
For most couples in emotionally disconnected marriages, they are lack of physical intimacy in their married life; if you are also a member of this group, you are supposed to consciously have more sexual or non-sexual touch with your spouse; as the close physical contact with your spouse increases, especially when getting closing to your spouse becomes your second nature, you will be more likely to feel closer to your significant half; increased holding hands and hugging may not feel natural at first, but sooner or later you will realize a sudden change as you do it regularly; that is based on a fact – emotional and physical intimacy go hand in hand, and increased physical intimacy helps foster emotional intimacy.
Remember, in a love relationship, the connection can broaden and deepen, leading to more connection.
(7) Improve trust and communication:
Emotional intimacy thrives on trust and communication. When the two of you become willing to meet each other’s emotional needs and protect each other’s vulnerability, you establish an environment of trust, allowing each other to feel emotionally safe to share more.
To a large extent, emotional intimacy can be described as unbridled mutual self-disclosure. As we know, when a person’s insecurities are exposed without defense in the presence of other people, they may choose to exploit the vulnerability to hurt him/her or give him/her comfort by empathizing with him/her. In a marriage, once a spouse’s vulnerability is met with pain and rejection, the spouse will naturally move away from sharing, and instead move toward self-protection. In other words, when one or both of you doesn’t feel emotionally safe in the relationship, the fear of rejection/abandonment/domination produces resistance to engage in open communication.
So you are supposed to develop a receptive and non-judgmental communication pattern to foster the mutual sharing of each other’s innermost selves.
Let each other open up in an atmosphere of safety; that means that you should try your best to resist the temptation to resort to unhelpful or highly reactive patterns of conflict, such as withdrawing, blaming, or getting angry. Whatever the issue is, make sure to share each other’s anxieties and concerns in an honest and peaceful manner.
The final word:
Married couples are wired for deep connection. And it is no exaggeration to say that emotional connection is the lifeblood of a love relationship. Disconnection tends to breed disconnection and thereby chips away at the love relationship if left unchecked. Restoring emotional intimacy in marriage is bound to be a slow process that takes a lot of time and effort. But as long as you are both willing to be receptive and open to each other, you can re-establish a tight emotional bond.
If you want to learn more about how to save a connection-starved marriage, you might go on to watch the video below to follow the comprehensive guidance that is offered by Brad Browning, a marriage coach with 12+ years of experience
Maybe, you are also interested in the posts below:
How to survive an emotionally disconnected marriage.
How to deal with emotional baggage in marriage.
How to keep intimacy in your marriage – Improve marital intimacy.
How to rekindle sexual intimacy when your wife becomes a roommate?
What to do when your husband rejects you sexually – What does it mean?