Building Friendship In Marriage.

Just like any friendship and relationship, marriage needs nourishment to grow. Integrating friendship in marriage requires practice and intentionality. If you are not intentional about it, it will not just happen.

Relationship expert John Gottman, a professor at the University of Washington, says, “Happy marriages are based on a deep friendship.”  Gottman’s research shows that a high-quality friendship in a marriage is an important predictor of romantic and physical satisfaction.

Also, Paul Coleman, Psy.D., author of The 30 Secrets of Happily Married Couples, says, “Friendship is a form of intimacy. It represents a sharing, an openness, a willingness to be vulnerable. It requires a degree of trust. Friends show caring to one another by their availability, their thoughtfulness.”

Building and nurturing friendships strengthen a marriage because friendship establishes emotional and physical intimacy in marriage. Friendship helps married couples feel safe and more open with one another without worrying about being judged or feeling insecure. 

Nurturing and building friendships in marriage requires practice, time and effort. Work hard to establish a great friendship and become your spouse's best friend in your marriage. Friendship promotes healthy, happy, and lasting marriages.

Ways to foster and build friendship in your marriage:

Effective Communication:

Open and honest communication is the foundation of any strong friendship. Endeavour to actively listen to your partner and respectfully express your thoughts and feelings.

Talk and share your everyday life and experiences, highs and lows, to create a sense of connection. It helps to build emotional intimacy.

Frequently talk with your partner. Silence in marriage builds resentment, but communication can resolve this problem. Communicate over everything – your friends, relatives, workmates, goals, children, money, responsibilities, etc. 

Excellent communication is a key to building a good friendship with your spouse. Marriages that speak honestly about challenging matters, build stronger connections.

Also, communication helps with conflict resolution. If you want friendship and romance to grow in your marriage, you must communicate to resolve your conflicts.

Spend Quality Time Together:

Dedicate time to be with your spouse without distractions. This could be a night date, a weekend getaway, or even simple activities like cooking together or walking.

The fact that you make time out of your busy schedule to spend time with your partner shows you value them and care for their happiness. Take some time every day when you can reconnect with one another. If it is at the end of a busy day, find out how your partner spent the day. 

Also, as you begin your day, share your plans. Praying together is a shared activity that keeps couples together. 

Shared Interests:

Find common interests. Have fun with one another. Laugh together. Make lasting memories through shared activities. Engaging in activities you both enjoy strengthens your bond and creates shared memories.

Do and try new things together. Cultivate shared hobbies or interests. Finding common ground can bring you closer and provide opportunities for bonding.

Explore each other’s interests. Intentionally study the things that interest your husband or wife and enthusiastically join them, even if they do not interest you. It may take some sacrifice, but the results are worth it because they demonstrate a willingness to invest in your relationship. 

Establish daily habits,  like praying together, cooking, walking or working out.

Shared interests and values are keys to building a friendship with your spouse.

Support Each Other:

Be supportive during good moments and times of challenges. Offer encouragement and celebrate each other's successes.

During tough times, provide a listening ear and be a source of comfort. Knowing that your partner has your back fosters a deep sense of trust and friendship.

Encourage each other. Help one another excel. Also, nudge or boot each other along.

Laughter and Playfulness:

What fun things do you do together regularly that would encourage friendship with your spouse? Do you make the time to be together or have your other priorities pushed your spouse to the bottom of the list of important things in your life? Making your spouse feel like a top priority and engaging in an activity together are sure ways to build friendship into your marriage. 

Maintain a sense of humour in your relationship. Laughter can lighten the mood and strengthen your connection. Laughter and fun are keys to building a friendship with your spouse.   

Incorporate playfulness into your interactions. Play games, tease each other affectionately, and don't take yourselves too seriously.

Make fun of one another as you remember some sweet memories to enhance the bond. Be humorous with no malice or offence. It is a great way to strengthen companionship in your marriage.

Respect and Empathy:

Treat your partner with respect. Understand and appreciate their perspective, even if you don't always agree.

Practice empathy by trying to understand and validate your partner's feelings. It creates a safe space for open communication.

Celebrate each other’s differences, accept and allow each other to be themselves without judgment.

Promote openness and forgiveness in your relationship. It helps build trust between you and your partner. Trust gives you the freedom to share your challenges and achievements with your spouse. Trust is the foundation of friendship in marriage.

Shared Goals and Values:

Identify common goals and values. It could include career aspirations, family planning, or personal growth. Let it be something you both enjoy because if you aren’t excited about the activity, you won’t continue. Working together toward shared objectives can deepen your connection and create a sense of unity and friendship.

Continual Growth:

Set and work towards life goals with one another. Dream together. Plan together.

Encourage each other's personal development. Support your partner's goals and aspirations, and take an interest in their growth.

As individuals evolve, adapt and grow together as a couple. Embrace change and see it as an opportunity for mutual development.

Express Gratitude:

Respect each other and treat one another equally. Cheer on each other’s successes. Lean on one another in times of need. Appreciate your spouse. Be considerate of each other. Be forgiving of one another- don’t hold grudges.

Regularly express gratitude for the positive aspects of your partner and your relationship. Acknowledge the little things that make your connection special.

 Appreciate Each Other:

You feel appreciated when your spouse makes it a habit to consult you before making any major decision. It means your opinion counts in their lives. Besides, it gives you a sense of responsibility in case of any plan failure.

Feeling appreciated and valued enhances friendship within a marriage.

Marital success is the work of two friends who have unconditional love for one another and are willing to sacrifice for their marriage. Being there for each other, being in constant touch, enjoying the relationship, being honest, making each other a part of one’s future, and making them a priority, form a strong bond of friendship with a spouse. 

Building friendship in a marriage is an ongoing process which requires both partners' effort. By consistently investing time, energy, and emotional support into your relationship, you are creating a strong foundation of friendship that will contribute to the long-term success of your marriage. Friends share the joys and sorrows of life. Having your spouse as your best friend is a great benefit to your marriage. 

Friendship is one of the characteristics of a happy and lasting marriage, as well as the foundation of a healthy marriage. Couples who are genuinely friends look forward to spending time together. Their activities and interests are enhanced because their spouse is their favourite person who shares life experiences with them.

The friendship between a couple can make the bonds of marriage stronger. They can share things with each other while feeling no fear of judgment from their partner. Their relationship will flourish because of this and grow stronger over time.

Friendship in marriage is cultivated and nurtured through years of married life. If you feel emotionally and physically apart, you can still nurture your friendship to desired levels. 

The benefits of cultivating friendship in marriage?

1. Increased marital satisfaction

Research shows that having your partner as a great friend in marriage significantly increases marital satisfaction.

The benefits of marital friendship are long-term and last well into the mature years.

2. Improved intimate communication.

Being a good listener promotes intimacy in relationships helps build clarity and avoids marital conflicts.

3. Increased emotional and physical intimacy.

You build intimacy through the sharing of personal information.

You achieve intimacy when you open up to the other person and let them into your life.

The key to achieving intimacy is trust– you must be comfortable with the other person to share intimate information.

Intimate relationships are more fulfilling when built upon a strong friendship. Great relationships enhance physical connection and emotional intimacy.

4. Increased forgiveness for your mistakes.

Being mindful of your manners can help to promote peace in your relationship.

As humans, making mistakes is in our DNA. The important thing is to apologise and make amends sincerely when you make mistakes. It shows you’re taking responsibility for your actions and are willing to change.

Have a  forgiving heart to accept apologies from your spouse in your relationship.

5. Increased trust in your marriage.

Building a friendship with your partner helps to build trust and respect.

Friendships in marriages help couples discover each other’s personality and interests, fostering a strong connection. It also allows spouses to weather their difficult seasons together.

You build a healthy marriage on mutual trust and respect. Couples who cultivate these qualities in their relationship have a better chance for happiness and longevity.

Review of Building Intimacy By John Chinaka Onyeche

Romantic love has a hidden desire and is possessive. With time, feelings such as jealousy, impatience, misunderstanding, lust, discord, and strife rock the relationship. Because physical qualities and desires are the foundation, it topples. When the chemistry and attraction dry up, love shrinks, and we notice and point out negative things and hold grudges." - Ngozi Ebubedike. Building Intimacy. 

Picking up this book written for Love, I have often asked myself a thousand and one questions as to know if I should read the book or just let it be because it is for love/lovers which I can only see myself out of the entire story of love/loving to an extent. 

Ngozi's insights on love and intimacy expanded my understanding of what love should be. Each chapter prompts introspection and provides answers that come like a powerful gust of wind.

How else should a work of art hold you bound, I leave such a question from this wonderful book for you to answer after reading it. 

Starting from the first chapter to the last, Ngozi held her readers with care and helped them walk through the lanes and lens of a retrospective moment to know from where they have fallen from this emotion called love/loving. 

I - intentionally

N - nurture 

T - traits 

I - inclined to 

M - motivate 

A - affectionate 

C - comradeship 

Y - your partner 

This is her definition of intimacy and if you truly go through it, you will believe me that many of us are nowhere to be found in this thing called love/loving. 

I think I should be using "Loving", instead of love. 

From its forward, there was this scenario that was created to depict what most of us call intimacy or love in short. 

'The sales girl gave us a different taste of each with disposable plastic mini cups to help us choose. We sipped, trashed the cup, and waited to sample the next one. That is how modern-day relationships have reduced the integrity of love.' 

Pictures upon pictures of what deplorable condition our human world has left love to and the aftermath of this negative impact of everyone tasting and not for the sake of maintenance but 'since it is plenty in the market, let me see the next one' mindset is wracking havocs already. 

"in today's world, genuine love is in short supply, and intimacy is a lesser travelled route. People no longer have long-term plans for relationships. They are after the here-and-now thrills."  

For me, this is a must-come-back-to-read book of all time and I will be glad to recommend it to you if you have anything to do with finding and maintaining an intimate relationship with anyone. Add this book to your shelf and thank me later. 

Finally, in her exact words, "We put much stock in finding a partner for a relationship. But after a short while, we forget why we are in a relationship and discard all the show of care and affection exhibited at the beginning." 

Go get your copy of this book today and find out more than I can write here. 

https://selar.co/16i3w0

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CD125J4L

One-sided relationship

What Is a One-Sided Relationship?

Are you putting more effort into your relationship than your partner? Are you investing more energy and time into making the relationship work? Are you always the one reaching out, doing all the texting, calling, and planning of dates? If the answer is yes, you're probably in a one-sided relationship. 

A one-sided relationship is a situation where one partner is carrying most of the responsibilities; financially, physically, emotionally, and mentally. It is also a situation where one partner has strong feelings or affection for someone who does not share those feelings with them. 

An imbalance in action, emotional investment, and mutuality of feelings between partners characterised a one-sided relationship. 

It is emotionally challenging and potentially toxic for one partner in a romantic relationship to shoulder most of the shared activities, or take care of most of the duties the couple should share equally. For a relationship to be healthy and balanced it requires effort from both partners. 

Because of this imbalance, the person doing all the work often feels resentful, which can be emotionally and physically draining. 

A mutual, and satisfying relationship provides stability and security. But a one-sided relationship lacks the healthy balance required for stability. 

When one partner works harder than the other to keep the relationship afloat, with time the connection, the amount of effort, energy, communication, emotional, or financially input will dissolve because the imbalance is only sustainable for a while. Loneliness, frustration, resentment, anger, insecurity and other emotions will surface with time.

Twelve signs that show you're in a one-sided relationship:

Unequal Effort: One partner always puts in more effort, starts contact, plans activities, or shows more affection, while the other partner shows little emotion and put no effort to make the relationship vibrate. When the other person doesn’t seem to care or doesn't put in much effort, you feel you're forcing a connection. It leaves you doubting their intentions, commitment, and investment in the relationship. 

Lopsided Communication: One partner dominates conversations, and always dismisses or ignores the other's opinions, feelings, and interests. Or one partner is constantly initiating activities and communication because the other partner expects you to start interactions, and make plans for what you do together. Though some people are better at communicating and planning than others it doesn’t mean you should be the only one putting effort to keep the relationship alive. Your partner should at least put in some effort and show commitment.

Lack of Reciprocity: One partner consistently seeks emotional or practical support, but rarely provides the same level of support when the other partner needs such. Also, when affection, care, or support is mostly or entirely one-sided, with little or no reciprocation from the other partner. When you constantly crave their attention and care and never get it. 

In a balanced relationship, you don’t need to work for time and attention from your partner. Instead, both should want to connect physically and emotionally if the interest is mutual. 

One-Way Sacrifices: One partner consistently makes sacrifices or compromises to accommodate the other's needs or desires, while the other is indifferent. You sacrifice everything to make your partner happy; you ignored your wants and needs just to hold up the relationship and you make excuses all the time to exonerate your partner’s behaviour. That's a sign you are compromising and sacrificing too much for someone who doesn't value you or the relationship as much as you do. 

Emotional Unavailability: One partner is emotionally distant, avoids sharing feelings, or minimises the importance of the relationship, leaving the other partner feeling unsupported. Or where your partner uses your emotions or feelings to manipulate you to their advantage, without genuine care or commitment. They are never emotionally available.

Self-Centeredness: One partner primarily focuses on their own needs, goals, and interests, while disregarding or undermining the other partner's aspirations. They rarely initiate anything that would be to your benefit. If the other partner is insecure, they try to control the other by limiting their contact with family and friends and dictating how they should live their life.

Limited Time and Attention: Your partner consistently prioritises other activities, hobbies, or friendships over spending quality time with you, making you feel unimportant and unwanted in the relationship. They never have time enough for you or pay attention to your feelings and moods.

Lack of Appreciation: Your partner rarely acknowledges or expresses gratitude for the efforts and contributions you made in the relationship. They show a lack of interest, disinterest, or indifference toward your feelings or well-being.

Decision-Making Disparities: Your partner consistently makes important decisions without consulting or considering your opinions, leading to feelings of exclusion. This often leads to emotional distress, insecurity, and frequent fluctuations between hope and disappointment. Or maybe you are the one to make most major relationship decisions while your partner doesn’t care either way or shrug off the responsibility of making important decisions altogether. So you carry the weight of almost all the important decisions on your shoulder with little or no input from your partner.

Weaponised Incompetence: Your partner intentionally put up actions designed to burden you with responsibilities they don’t want to deal with. It is a situation where your partner feigns an inability to perform basic tasks and so shifts the burden of responsibility to you and conveniently gets out of contributing or investing their time and effort in the relationship.

Making Excuses: You are the one to apologise, whether or not you are at fault, after a conflict or argument, in other to keep the relationship going without your partner taking responsibility for their actions. If your partner is always twisting your words or making you feel guilty for expressing your feelings or resentment, you're most likely in a toxic, one-sided relationship. 

You should never have to apologise or feel ashamed for seeking support, especially from your partner.

Lack of Intimacy. How do you connect intimately with your partner? Does your partner shower you with physical affection like cuddling or holding hands? Do you share an intellectual connection over books or movies? Intimacy is not just sexual. If your partner is not interested in sharing intimate moments with you, it means the relationship is probably a one-sided one.

Causes Of One-Sided Relationships

Sometimes relationships are one-sided because one partner is manipulative or toxic. In other cases, however, a variety of factors can contribute to a relationship becoming one-sided.

Poor Communication Skills

One or both partners struggle with sharing their feelings, needs, and preferences. Practising and improving communication skills can help increase clarity, and proffer solutions, responses, and opportunities to repair and rebuild the relationship if that is the desire of both partners.

Insecurity

One partner is afraid of losing the relationship if they don't take care of everything themselves. This leads to them taking on an imbalanced share of responsibility in the relationship.

Conflicting Expectations

Each partner has a set of ideas about what a relationship means and what they hope to get out of it. If you are more committed and dedicated to the relationship than your partner is, it is bound to feel one-sided. Sometimes one-sided relationships occur because of a lack of communication and clarity about expectations, hopes, and feelings.

Personal Problems

If one partner is dealing with stress or battling symptoms of a mental health condition, it can play a role in how they act in a relationship. They may not give their partners the attention they need because they are grappling with personal issues.

Attachment Syndrome

Attachment syndrome can play a role in how people behave in romantic relationships. Someone with a serious attachment problem may worry that the other person does not feel as strongly as they do.

This can lead to one partner becoming clingy and enmeshed in the relationship while the other tries to get away from it as best as possible. In romantic relationships, this type of behaviour often leads one partner to become emotionally dependent on the other.

Impact of One-Sided Relationship

One-sided relationships are toxic, especially when one partner is intentionally taking advantage of the other. Some of the damaging effects of this type of relationship include:

Increased stress: The stress of being in this type of relationship takes a toll on both your physical and mental health. While healthy relationships act as protective buffers against stress, research has found that some relationships create stress that is harmful to your health. Issues like insomnia, anxiety, depression, and decreased immunity are a few of the potentially detrimental effects of excessive stress. 

Feelings of loneliness: Besides the stress of doing most of the work in the relationship, the lack of mutual effort can leave one partner feeling isolated. They might not be able to talk to the other partner about their feelings or the problem they are dealing with.

Low self-esteem: The disappointment one partner experiences in a one-sided relationship leaves them feeling rejected, unsupported, and unloved. This can make it hard for them to feel confident and secure in the relationship. Constantly pursuing someone who does not reciprocate your feelings can take a toll on your self-esteem, leading to feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness.

Unhealthy Obsession: Disproportionate preoccupation, and investing a significant amount of time and energy into someone who does not feel the same can be detrimental to your well-being. You may unintentionally neglect other relationships or essential aspects of your life while obsessing over unrequited love.

Frequently worrying about the relationship, and craving more connection but accepting the crumbs of affection your partner offers, diminishes your worth in the relationship.

Inability to Move On: Finding it hard to let move on from the person, even when it is clear they do not share the same feelings, shows a toxic attachment.

Emotional Dependency: Relying heavily on your partner for happiness or emotional fulfilment, rather than finding it within yourself contributes to a one-sided relationship. If you find yourself in a toxic one-sided love situation, prioritise your well-being by distancing yourself from the person and focusing on your growth and happiness.

How your relationship makes you feel is the most important red flag. In one-sided relationships, you’re likely to feel anxious, empty, lonely, misunderstood, insecure, or resentful. If you feel you are more committed to your relationship or investing more time, energy, or effort, do an honest assessment of the situation, look at your options, and decide if the relationship is worth saving or moving on with your life. A one-sided relationship isn't healthy for either partner. 

Relationships require give and take and compromise to achieve balance and function correctly. 

Everything mustn't be shared equally to create a balance in the relationship, but if you are striving harder to make your relationship work, you need to address the issues with open communication or seek professional guidance to determine the best course of action. A lack of communication and clarity about expectations hopes, and feelings sometimes foster one-sided relationships. Open communication also allows you to work through barriers or conflicts to grow stronger as a team. A loving relationship with shared values and commitment makes you feel safe, loved, confident, connected, understood, and secure. 

Transparency in relationships.

Relationships are crashing faster these days than before. We are shocked at stories flying around, the outrageous things people endure, and the unimaginable experiences they go through in each other’s hands, all for the sake of being in a committed relationship. 

If you must be in a relationship, create a toxic-free environment through transparency to enjoy the benefits of a healthy union. Most causes of mistrust and insincerity are due to a lack of transparency. When people are not outrightly sincere and forthcoming with their emotions, feelings and actions from the onset, their relationships get immersed in games and intrigues that undermine their sustainability.

Transparency in relationships is when partners willingly share feelings, fears, concerns, ideas, thoughts, hopes, ambitions, aspirations and expectations with each other. The keyword is a willingness to share and communicate openly, even when they find it uncomfortable. It also means being honest about your actions, even when you make mistakes or have disagreements. Transparency is vital to the growth of every relationship, whether romantic, friendship or professional.

The Importance of Transparency In Relationships.

Transparency builds trust and credibility, especially in romantic relationships. Being transparent about your actions, decisions, and processes can foster dependability, a feeling of believability and acceptance from your partner. And where both partners practice transparency in their communication and actions, it creates a safe environment where they can feel secure. Being transparent about your experiences, feelings, and goals can help your partner understand you better and build a stronger connection and support system for both of you. 

Honesty is an integral part of transparency, but there is a difference between the two. Honesty simply means you’re not dishonest or lying to your partner. It does not come willingly, like transparency, which requires a willingness to be open and not withhold information or thoughts from your partner to make them suspicious of your intention. Trust and transparency complement and supplement one another in a romantic relationship.

The secret to having a successful relationship is transparency, and it creates stronger bonds. For instance, being open about your feelings and intentions prevents misunderstandings and miscommunications with your partner. Transparency builds intimacy. When partners are transparent, it enhances intimacy and understanding and strengthens their emotional connections. 

Transparency in relationships shows how much you trust your partner. How transparent you are with your partner is proportionate to your trust quotient with them. Partners who trust each other feel safe enough to share things about themselves. They will share their deepest fears, secrets, darkest thoughts and feelings, knowing their partners will not judge them or their actions. If you don’t trust your partner entirely and they don’t trust you, that willingness, desire or sense of security to be open will not be there.

Benefits of transparency in a relationship

1. Emotional intimacy:

The more emotionally intimate two people are, the more likely transparency will occur. Emotional intimacy involves sharing personal thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

When partners build trust and non-judgmental, positive affirmation of each other, they experience a deep comforting sense of support and security. When there is a deep, intimate bond, you find it easy to share everything about your personality, the good, dark, and bad sides, with your partner.

2. Open communication:

We build healthy romantic relationships on mutual respect, trust, and open communication. When partners openly communicate with each other, it ushers in transparency, and this will strengthen the relationship. 

Trust leads to acceptance, non-judgmental behaviour, and understanding. It also reduces the potential and opportunities for miscommunication and misunderstanding.

3. Strengthens trust:

Transparency strengthens trust and reduces misconduct or suspicious attitude or behaviour in the relationship. Having a non-judgmental attitude towards your partner also strengthens confidence, builds intimacy and makes them feel secure. 

4. Spiritual intimacy:

Transparency in romantic relationships paves the way for spiritual intimacy with your partner. It creates an enabling environment for you to share everything with your partner willingly. It will include all those overwhelming or deep emotions you try to suppress and those disturbing memories or thoughts you are afraid to share with someone.

5. Kills fear of vulnerability:

It is instinctual to have one’s guard up, especially at the beginning of a relationship because of the fear of appearing vulnerable. But when you establish healthy boundaries and build trust, open communication, understanding, and respect will bring transparency. So, lowering your guard becomes possible, and the fear of vulnerability will vanish.

How to improve transparency in a romantic relationship?

Openness in relationships is necessary because the lack of transparency in a relationship can have unfavourable outcomes that may affect the sustainability of your relationship.

Building transparency in a relationship is one of the most effective ways to have a secure, supportive, healthy, and fulfilling romantic relationship.

To improve transparency in your relationship, start by building emotional intimacy with your partner. It involves sharing personal stories, discussing feelings and desires that will deepen your emotional connection.

Transparency doesn’t mean you should share everything with your partner without a filter. You don’t just blurt out anything and everything you feel or think in its raw form. Although transparency entails openness and accessible communication, how you frame the words and how you express them to your partner is important. Using discretion is essential for transparency to thrive in a relationship. 

Practical ways to cultivate transparency in a relationship:

Start by sharing feelings, ideas, and thoughts that are easy to share and try to be honest with your partner.

Work on establishing healthy boundaries with your partner from the start so that the standards for transparency become clear.

Cultivate emotional intimacy by sharing your feelings, both pleasant and unpleasant.

Remember to use discretion when you’re open and do not hide or withhold information from your partner.

6-DEADLY-FEARS-THAT-HINDER-EMOTIONAL-INTIMACY

Intimacy is from the Latin word “Intimus”, meaning to have personal knowledge or to reach into the inmost parts of a person. Intimacy is a contact that explores deeply the very core of a person, resulting in extra-ordinary closeness and understanding.

Intimacy is of two types, physical intimacy and emotional intimacy, which is our focus here. It is better to establish emotional intimacy before the physical will be meaningful. In a relationship, it’s far easier to de-nude yourself physically than emotionally. And physical intimacy doesn’t give birth to emotional intimacy. To achieve this, you have to work at it.

Emotional intimacy involves being confident enough to share yourself, your heart, your fears, your aspirations, and your desires with your partner. A complete sharing and caring without reservation or hindrance. An unconditional and unrestrained giving of yourself, heart, body and soul to another.

However, emotional intimacy exposes you, makes you transparent, defenceless and vulnerable before another. It is for these reasons that getting real intimate is a tough ordeal for most people. They find it very hard and uneasy to let go of their core belief. They are afraid to expose the very centre of their being to another.

At the beginning of a relationship, it is usually better to give a little of yourself per time. It’s a budding romance and like a blooming bud, you unfold your layers gradually. Getting involved in a relationship is like travelling to an unknown territory. You put your foot forward one at a time because you’re unsure of the ground you’re treading upon.

At the onset of a relationship, there is that tendency to please, to give and to care for each other because each is trying to put up a good front, each is trying hard to make the other feel wanted and accepted, but that’s not intimacy yet, you’re still test driving the union, by the time you’re on full motion, the struggle to achieve real intimacy begins.

The one reason we don’t always realize real emotional intimacy in relationships is FEAR. We are being captivated, dominated, subjugated and intimidated by fear. And what is fear? False-Evidence-Against-Reality, a psychological state of the mind, a situation in which your mind holds court and puts up evidence that is more imagined than real; it tells you a thousand and one reasons why you should not take that bold step and surrender yourself completely to your partner.

Fear imprisoned us and makes us less committed in our relationships. Fear makes us put up facades and hold ourselves in check. What are these fears?

1. FEAR OF REJECTION:

At the beginning of a relationship, people strive for acceptance, so the fear of rejection will make a person hide his/her true self, especially the part they consider being the negative side of them or a defect in their personality.

This is because of the feeling that if you reveal yourself if you allow your partner to know you intimately too soon, it will diminish their love for you. Which is better, to face rejection at the beginning of a relationship or to struggle with it in the middle of it? It’s your take.

2. FEAR OF CRITICISM:

If it’s not rejection you’re afraid of, then it's criticism. Maybe if he/she knows the truth about you, then the person may be critical of what you have or have not. Some of us are not really good at taking criticism, especially from someone we love so much, but is it not those who love and care for us that will give us honest and unbiased critique about ourselves? If we are confident enough to open up to the person, however, we prefer not to risk the person’s disapproval, so we hide our thoughts and actions from the person, making achieving emotional intimacy an arduous task.

3. FEAR OF MISUNDERSTANDING:

Again, we keep our feelings and words in check because we are afraid to be misunderstood. Fear of misunderstanding makes us, at times, keep our opinion and thoughts to ourselves when we need to voice them out. We do this with the assumption that the person may not understand or appreciate the significance of what we will say.

It is better to say it and give the person the benefit of doubt. Being misunderstood isn’t the end of the world or a heinous offence, rather it will also give you an inkling of your partner’s reasoning ability. A healthy debt or argument draws out each person’s inner thoughts and strength of personality and also throws light on the person’s mental capabilities. If you didn’t say it out loud, you will never know how the other person will react.

4. FEAR OF RIDICULE:

We believe that if the other person doesn’t understand and appreciate your words or action, then you will look stupid before them. We are afraid to be ridiculed, which is humiliating, so because of fear of being humiliated, we are always conscious of our words and actions which work against complete openness about our feelings.

5. FEAR OF SUFFOCATION:

Most people see emotional intimacy as a threat to their self-identity and a complete loss of individuality. People want breathing space, so to say; they want to retain part of whom and what they believe they are. So because of fear of suffocation, of being taking over by another person, they cling to themselves by being aloof as a kind of psychological defence.

They don’t want to be dominated or feel sequestered in the relationship. They feel it’s threatening to allow someone else to take over your heart, your thoughts, and your emotions. Emotional intimacy calls for complete surrender and not partial involvement.

It only takes a mature mind to understand this sacrifice and not abuse it. More often, it is the abuse that holds people back.

6. FEAR OF VULNERABILITY:

It is assumed that if you let your defence down, if you’re completely honest and open with your partner, then you will be at the mercy of that person because he/she might use what they know about you as a weapon to hurt, to control, humiliate or even suppress you. Yes, fear of vulnerability makes people cringe from real intimacy. Vulnerability is susceptible to emotional manipulation.

All these fears make intimacy a very expensive venture.

Intimacy is a long-time process that is arrived at gradually but not without some emotional battle and fireworks. Achieving emotional intimacy is a struggle, a battle between you and yourself, your emotion and being, and also between you and your partner. This is because emotional intimacy calls for humility, honesty, trust and commitment towards one another.

Before you could achieve emotional intimacy, there is always a power tussle, or war of supremacy, which is nothing more than a testing of your emotional love boat to find firm anchorage. Mostly, the war is not always verbal but a silent acting out of emotions, where both parties are trying to find out things like does she/he really love and care for me? Can I trust him/her with my life? Can I depend on his/her love, understanding, and acceptance of who I am?

It is only when you assuage your fears that trust and understanding will be established. With a little give and take, intimacy will grow and flourish. You can only achieve complete surrender when you accept your relationship as a precious union, something worth compromising over, something that requires you to back down and surrender to your desires and emotions. But as said, it is not instant. It is a journey, and the distance depends on the individuals involved.