What is relationship intimacy?
Relationship intimacy is a feeling of being close, emotionally connected and supported by your partner. It’s sharing your thoughts, feeling and experiences. Its being open and honest. It’s showing how you feel and what your hopes and dreams are.
BUILDING INTIMACY
Intimacy is built up over time, and requires patience and effort from both partners to create and maintain. Discovering intimacy with someone you love can be one of the most rewarding aspects of a relationship. Often, the harder you work at developing intimacy in your relationship, the more rewarding it is.
Six Tips
If you both agree your relationship could be more intimate, why not try some of these ideas for developing intimacy in your relationship:
Celebrate the good things in your relationship. Tell your partner, in words and actions, how much you love and appreciate them. Let your partner know what you value about them and about the relationship. Put it into words and don’t assume they already know. Everybody likes to be told that they are appreciated and loved.
Talk openly about your feelings and what you need from the relationship.
Create opportunities for intimacy. Take time out to be together as a couple when you can focus on each other and on your relationship. The harder it is to do this because of children, work or other commitments, the more important it is that you do it. Try to plan a regular evening, day or weekend for the two of you to be alone.
Explore Every relationship has highs and lows. Continue to explore new ways of finding a deeper level of intimacy. These moments don’t need to be grand gestures of love. Taking time, even small moments, together is just as important as going on a date together.
Be positive and grateful about what you have in your relationship.
Show initiative. Both parties in a relationship need to find opportunities for creating intimacy.
Some couples find it difficult to achieve intimacy in their relationship. Others can find that after achieving intimacy it seems to slip away. Please get in touch if you think that our counsellors can help you to establish or get back that feeling of intimacy in your relationship.