Emotional Intimacy: How To Connect on a Deeper Level

By Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott

You and your spouse have a good marriage–great, even–but you’re ready to take it to the next level. Maybe you’re physically intimate, but you want more of that intimacy to extend to your emotional life.

In today’s post, we’re sharing five tips for increasing the emotional intimacy in your relationship. Each of these tips builds on the next to help you create the deep, fulfilling connection you’re craving.

NURTURE TRUST

In order for your marriage to be as emotionally intimate as possible, you and your spouse must be able to trust one another implicitly. This means that both of you must commit to always being honest with one another, speaking the truth in love.

It also means that you should model trustworthiness for your spouse. If your husband or wife observes you being dishonest with a third party–for any reason–you’ve planted a seed of doubt in their heart. It’s very difficult to overcome breaches in trust, so do your best to avoid creating unnecessary problems.

ENSURE EMOTIONAL SAFETY

In addition to being trustworthy, you and your spouse can increase your intimacy by guaranteeing one another emotional safety in your relationship. Lovingly accepting your spouse, warts and all, is the ultimate display of love–and an offering of safety.

If neither of you has to worry about being wrongly judged, criticized, or cut down, you will both thrive!

ENCOURAGE VULNERABILITY

With the gift of emotional safety comes the invitation to be vulnerable. Allowing yourselves to be authentic with one another will add a deeper layer of intimacy to your marriage. As you take the time to not only accept your spouse’s vulnerabilities, but also expose your own, your love for one another will grow deeper.

No one on earth will know you the way your spouse knows you. And no one will know your spouse like you do. The best way to get there is to be who you are with one another–without pretense.

CULTIVATE CLOSENESS

Spending time together and sharing activities will give you the physical proximity you need to nurture your romance, as well as your friendship. Even if you’re short on free time, make sure to invest at least a few minutes a day face-to-face, enjoying one another’s company. The more connected you feel, the more intimate your marriage will be!

FOSTER DEEP CONNECTION

Feeling profoundly connected to your spouse can affect both of you (positively!) on a spiritual level, in addition to the benefits you’ll feel emotionally and physically. Take time to learn more about one another. If there’s something your spouse feels passionately about, ask questions to learn more. Or if they love or enjoy something deeply, show curiosity about it.

Connect where you are able, regardless of whether you have the same set of interests. Finding common ground together and reveling in that–instead of focusing on areas where you don’t agree or resonate with one another–will skyrocket your emotional intimacy.

Feeling disconnected from friends, family, and people in general? Feeling like your relationships skim the surface but never go deep?

Try turning off your phone and stowing it out of site.

MIT professor and researcher Sherry Turkle provides this insight from her book Reclaiming the Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age:

What phones do to in person conversation is a problem. Studies show that the mere presence of a phone on the table (even a phone turned off) changes what people talk about. If we think we might be interrupted, we keep conversations light, on topics of little controversy or consequence. And conversations with phones on the landscape block empathic connection. If two people are speaking and there is a phone on a nearby desk, each feels less connected to the other than when there is no phone present. Even a silent phone disconnects us.

So it is not surprising that in the past twenty years we have seen a 40 percent decline in the markers for empathy among college students, most of it within the past ten years. It is a trend that researchers link to the new presence of digital communications (p 21).

For more on the topic, listen to one of her podcasts on the book: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2015/11/13/podcast-155-reclaiming-conversation/

If you are feeling an interpersonal disconnect and would like to take steps to connecting in healthy ways, please contact CornerStone Family Services at 614-459-3003 to talk with a coach or counselor.