Getting the Intimacy of Your Dreams

In so many of my own intimate relationships, I can slip into doing what they need to get their needs met, leaving me feeling unfulfilled, empty, and used up. This is true for mental, emotional, and physical intimacy. For mental intimacy, we far too often listen the way they want us to listen and respond the way they want us to respond. This process rarely results in them doing the same for us, which creates the feeling of not being heard. For emotional intimacy, we hold the space they need and make sure they feel safe and can fully express. This rarely results in them knowing how to hold space for us, leaving us feeling like we have to bottle up our feelings and figure out how to get our emotional needs met on our own. This is an incredibly lonely feeling. For physical intimacy, we far too often do what they need or desire physically, whether it be a hug or sex. This usually means that we put in the effort to prepare ourselves and set the stage for physical intimacy, whether it be enticing our partner in preparation for sex or holding our arms open for a hug. All of the above is incredibly lonely, and if you are feeling this way I promise it is not your fault. I also want to assure you it is fixable.

I contend that we should not have to be the giving tree to get intimacy. We should get as much as we give at minimum, and as much as we want if we are in the relationships we deserve. I will own that, if there is an intimacy imbalance, this is a tricky dynamic to fix. If you’ve been the giving tree for an extended period of time in any relationship, it’s hard to stop. When you have been the giving tree, you are depleted and have given everything you have and most likely don’t even have the energy to conceive or conceptualize what change would look like. We often wait until we are spent and hopeless before we will acknowledge that we need a reset. I want to take a moment and say I am so sorry if this is your lived experience and promise that this does not have to be your forever.

A major complication to achieving a successful reset is our level of frustration and exasperation. If we are exasperated, not fighting and not being angry is really hard but essential if we are going to make meaningful and substantial changes. This is really hard to do when we are frustrated, emotionally and mentally depleted, and physically unsatisfied. An intimacy reset is never easy and requires a real understanding of yourself and how you have gotten to the level of deprivation you are currently at. I know that can feel like I’m blaming you for your deprivation. That is not the case.

It is important to understand how your behavioral patterns and self-worth allowed you to devalue yourself and ignore or devalue your needs to the extent that you accept less than you need to be fulfilled. This could have started at the beginning of the relationship or bit by bit over time. Looking at yourself and your choices can provide valuable insights into whether you can do what is necessary to get what you want. For some, the issue is that they do not believe they can prioritize themselves and keep the relationship afloat. I gently but directly assert that the relationship will fail without the reset. If you do not prioritize yourself, you will eventually leave or end the relationship. For others, it is the realization that the fix is a list of things they are not willing to do, and if that is the case for you, then you should consider how long you can tolerate this deprivation and whether it is time to leave the relationship whether it be a friendship or intimate relationship.