Being Intimate turns out to be a huge part of your vow life. Intimacy is often thought of in the more sexual sense, and when that goes away or starts to disappear completely, couples are left lost, hurt, or feeling distant. If you were still in a relationship where intimacy was phasing out, would you be concerned that things were deeply wrong with the marriage?
We get it: intimacy is one of the first things to go when we struggle in a relationship, so it might be tempting to point to this lapse and lack as the source of your problems but know that intimacy is oftentimes a symptom, not the issue. Usually a lack of intimacy is an indication that something deeper in the relationship has not been dealt with. These foundational issues can be emotional, psychological, or related to communication that stands between partners when it comes to feeling bonded and loved.
Identify the deeper reasons behind intimacy issues: Fixing intimacy problems requires a deep understanding of what is making you and your partner feel disconnected. In this article, we will discuss what might underly intimacy problems within marriage, how they can be linked to deeper relationship insecurities, and explain the role of therapy in rehabilitating both intimacy and emotional closeness for you as a couple.
The Impact of Unresolved Conflict on Intimacy
Nothing robs a marriage of intimacy more than conflict that has not been resolved. Emotional distance is an outcome that often come when couples argue or simply have disagreements without resolution over time. And, eventually, these conflicts can lead to isolation both emotionally and physically. This Normalized pattern leads to intimacy taking a backseat or partners feeling like they are growing apart.
And that emotional shutting down creates misunderstandings, resentment and frustration and these further compound the very problem it initially caused. When couples stop communicating, and about anything, intimacy if not the first thing to go is among the first–emotional or physical.
How therapy can help: Relationship counseling allows both you and your partner to get to the root of the unresolved conflict. A therapist can show you how to share feelings nonjudgmentally, and resolve conflicts without digging a deeper divide – one that turns your partner into an enemy rather than someone you need to understand.
Emotional Disconnect and Lack of Trust
The other major contributor to decreased intimacy is a lack of emotional connection. Once trust has been violated—whether due to infidelity, dishonesty or other forms of emotional betrayal it can feel almost impossible for partners to be able to allow themselves to be naked and vulnerable with one another. When there is no emotional connection with a partner, it often creates trust issues between the two partners which kills the intimacy between them.
Despite no overt treachery, tiny damaged emotions can fester like wound up steam over time murdering the basis of dependency and affection everyone needs from each other. Both partners will no longer desire physical intimacy, when they do not feel their intimate emotional needs being fulfilled.
Role of therapy: Therapy is a powerful part of the healing process for rebuilding emotional trust in a relationship. They can take you and your partner through exercises to reestablish emotional safety and communication. This can be an important part of restoring intimacy, because without trust and emotional intimacy restored, any sexual act will not lead to true intimacy at this stage.
Stress, Burnout, and Relationship Fatigue
As we live in modern fast-paced world Stress and burnout became our day to day challenges. All of these — work pressures, family responsibilities, financial concerns and societal expectations can lead to emotional fatigue. If the both partners is overwhelmed, he/she may forget to care for the relationship which creates an absence of intimacy.
That exhaustion means you may not have the emotional or physical energy needed to create intimacy in your marriage. As the couple gets busy in day to day activities, they stop investing time with one another and all this leads to isolation.
What therapy does: Therapy offers a safe environment where partners can explore how outside stress factors are affecting their relationship. Additionally, a therapist can help identify stressors that may contribute to emotional exhaustion and provide techniques to cope with stress while increasing emotional intimacy.
Childhood Trauma and Past Experiences
In some cases, a marriage with little sex, or no sexual intimacy at all, is rooted in pre-existing trauma or bad experiences sustained during formative years of childhood and adolescent development or past relationships. People with a history of emotional neglect, abuse or other trauma, may struggle to connect wholly emotionally with others including their marriages.
Such a history often leaves individuals with feelings of shame, insecurity or fear of vulnerability which proves to be obstacles in intimacy. This eventually results in emotional detachment from their partners by steering clear of intimacy as a means of shielding themselves from emotional suffering.
How it can help: While therapy takes the time to deal with these deeper-lying and emotional issues, treating you instead as an individual so that your past trauma can begin to heal. Processing and understanding what they have gone through helps people move past the trauma that may impact their marriage, as well as intimacy issues. This can in turn allow for more emotional connection & a more functional relationship.
Differences in Emotional and Physical Needs
In a relationship, each person in a couple has varying emotional and physical needs. A step further, when partners do not communicate their needs in terms of being together, they may grow apart because that just cannot be read intuitively by the other. Perhaps one partner is starved for affection or quality time and the other partner becomes overwhelmed by these requests until he/she feels frustrated emotionally withdrawn.
The absence of that becomes empty space, and over time, most people have the experience —either one or both— start to feel they are not “compatible,” and their lovers become nothing more than a pairing line дог.
How therapy can help: For a couple to be able to identify what their emotional and physical needs are at any given time is important. Partner A can take the time to explore how much partner B wants with guided communication, and partner B is able to better understand the feelings of partner A, providing both partners a pathway towards compromise. A therapist can also help with how you both can meet each other needs while still being emotionally close.
Communication Breakdown
If you are asking how to save your marriage and feeling stuck where the talk seems never-ending, here is something I can tell you!!! Effective communication tops the list of any successful marriage. If communication shuts down, couples will struggle to see things from one another’s perspective or relate on an emotional level. There are barriers that can avoid emotional closeness and physical intimacy like misunderstanding, a nasty word here or there, or withdrawal.
Couples that do not communicate openly may never confront the elements causing them to experience a lack of intimacy with one another. As time passes, the problems can fester and be neglected, only compounding the need for reliance on these techniques – thus creating a vicious cycle.
How therapy helps: Therapy usually focuses on one element; communication. A qualified therapist can teach couples the skills they need to communicate, listen and talk about their feelings and needs without being judged or criticized. Even resolving deeper relationship problems requires heightened communication skills.
Reconnecting and Rebuilding Intimacy
It takes time and effort for both spouse to be committed to rebuild intimacy in a marriage. It is not something that can occur overnight, but it certainly can happen with proper assistance. The first step to fixing that is dealing with whatever underlying relationship issues may exist and are causing the intimacy to fade. After the problems are addressed, they can start to re-establish emotional and bodily intimacy again.
How therapy could help: You are not sure why you fell off so much intimacy in your marriage but you want to know especially if he is not aware it needs addressing. Determine unresolved conflict, emotional disconnection, stress or trauma affecting your relationship therapy can help you rebuild from the inside out.
Therapists can help couples to regain the emotional contact intimacy needs. Re-building intimacy may take some time and effort however, it is not impossible and your relationship can come out stronger than before making you truly happy and fulfilled.
Conclusion
Not only is a lack of intimacy in your marriage a band-aid fix, but it also surfaces deeper things that cannot be fixed without repairing the underlying problem first. Whether the core component of intimacy is buried beneath unresolved conflict, emotional distance or past trauma; until simply its root persuasion over intimate relations are tackled the issue isn’t truly corrupt born. This is exactly why therapy can provide individuals and couples with a supported space in order to talk about these areas and get back the emotional and physical connection so important to a healthy relationship.
However, if you are lacking intimacy and need to rebuild both emotional closeness as well as intimate connection in your marriage, therapy may be one positive first step towards healing. A couple therapist can assist you and your partner resolve this conflict while steering back toward a healthy, intimate bond.
To find out more about how therapy can help bring intimacy back to your marriage, check out All in the Family Counselling
