Intimacy

I know that I am victim to believing that intimacy is strictly sexual. While that is one of the facets of intimacy, it’s not the only. To have a healthy marriage both partners need to strive to find balance in their emotional, physical and spiritual intimacy.

Intimacy by Londrelle is a powerful poem that I feel beautifully describes what it means to have and be in the space of intimacy.

"Intimacy is silent communication between two hearts.

The unutterable vibration of the souls desire to share its boundless love.

It is not a pleasure seeking pleasure, it seeks nothing. Intimacy is without the pervasions of lust and want of personal gratification.

Intimacy is gratitude and joyful soul appreciation.

Intimacy exist without sexual connotations and its implications.

It feels not a desire to possess or have or even give, but rather it finds satisfaction in sharing.  

Intimacy is subtle, not overbearing.

Intimacy is love.

Intimacy is caring.

Intimacy."

I’d like to share a personal story about my experience with intimacy in marriage.

I was married in 2014 in the Temple to my high school sweetheart. I was thrilled to be marrying my best friend that I have been connected with since 2008! We had both returned from serving missions for our church and the timing felt right. My wedding day was the happiest day of my life. Truly everything I had dreamed about since I was a little girl.

But within 2 months of marriage things changed.

I didn’t understand why I felt so lonely. I didn’t understand why my best friend felt so distant. I didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle and so I blamed myself.

Two years went by of me trying in many ways to connect with my husband whether physically, emotionally or spiritually but it rarely ended in a satisfying connection. I began to believe that marriage was actually a really lonely union and it was something that I just needed to get used to. I needed to suck it up and be a good wife and mother.

Well it came out shortly after having our daughter that my husband was involved heavily in a sexual addiction that began about 2 months into marriage. He had been lying about his pornography use this led to chat rooms and eventually to meeting up with women. Secrecy is the life-blood of addiction. He wasn’t being honest and transparent with me and as a result his addiction grew worse. All the while I was at home feeling the abuse of his disconnection yet never being able to put my finger on what was wrong.

I believe that we are made of energy and we know that energy is intelligent. God created intelligences. Because we are an intelligence our body knows when energy is wrong or off. My body for 2 years knew that something wasn’t right but my mind had no knowledge of what it could be.

Intimacy needs to be genuine and pure otherwise it cannot be satisfying. You cannot counterfeit intimacy.

Intimacy is love.

Intimacy is caring.

Intimacy.