You and your spouse have a good marriage–great, even–but you’re ready to take it to the next level. Maybe you’re physically intimate, but you want more of that intimacy to extend to your emotional life.
In today’s post, we’re sharing five tips for increasing the emotional intimacy in your relationship. Each of these tips builds on the next to help you create the deep, fulfilling connection you’re craving.
Nurture Trust
In order for your marriage to be as emotionally intimate as possible, you and your spouse must be able to trust one another implicitly. This means that both of you must commit to always being honest with one another, speaking the truth in love.
It also means that you should model trustworthiness for your spouse. If your husband or wife observes you being dishonest with a third party–for any reason–you’ve planted a seed of doubt in their heart. It’s very difficult to overcome breaches in trust, so do your best to avoid creating unnecessary problems.
Ensure Emotional Safety
In addition to being trustworthy, you and your spouse can increase your intimacy by guaranteeing one another emotional safety in your relationship. Lovingly accepting your spouse, warts and all, is the ultimate display of love–and an offering of safety.
If neither of you has to worry about being wrongly judged, criticized, or cut down, you will both thrive!
Encourage Vulnerability
With the gift of emotional safety comes the invitation to be vulnerable. Allowing yourselves to be authentic with one another will add a deeper layer of intimacy to your marriage. As you take the time to not only accept your spouse’s vulnerabilities, but also expose your own, your love for one another will grow deeper.
No one on earth will know you the way your spouse knows you. And no one will know your spouse like you do. The best way to get there is to be who you are with one another–without pretense.
Cultivate Closeness
Spending time together and sharing activities will give you the physical proximity you need to nurture your romance, as well as your friendship. Even if you’re short on free time, make sure to invest at least a few minutes a day face-to-face, enjoying one another’s company. The more connected you feel, the more intimate your marriage will be!
Foster Deep Connection
Feeling profoundly connected to your spouse can affect both of you (positively!) on a spiritual level, in addition to the benefits you’ll feel emotionally and physically. Take time to learn more about one another. If there’s something your spouse feels passionately about, ask questions to learn more. Or if they love or enjoy something deeply, show curiosity about it.
Connect where you are able, regardless of whether you have the same set of interests. Finding common ground together and reveling in that–instead of focusing on areas where you don’t agree or resonate with one another–will skyrocket your emotional intimacy.
How have you and your spouse increased the emotional intimacy in your marriage? We’d love to hear your stories about how it has positively affected your relationship! Share below in the comments section.
We’ve learned over the years how to divide up jobs to respect each other’s strengths. In our current basement remodel, my husband (who has mechanical intelligence, craftsmanship, and tremendous logic) has done the construction aspects like plumbing, custom built-ins, and an amazing art desk for our daughter; I’m creative and artistic, so I’m the one who does design, color selections, & finish work. When there are gray areas (tiling) we each learn or trade off.
A second HUGE help for us is using a number line, like doctor’s office does to rate pain. If my husband wants to do something and I don’t, he might say it’s a 5 out of 10 for him. If I _really_ don’t want to, it might be a 7 or 8 out of 10 for me. If either of us is an 8 or above, we have a consistent track record of giving that person precedence. There’s never been a single time we had opposing feelings that were both a 10 in importance! We’ve found this is an excellent way to communicate the strength of emotion. We use it in marriage as well as with our kids (parenting, helping them assess their own emotions, etc.).
Great article! Also Thanks Susan for sharing! I will apply the 10 rate rule.
Really enjoyed this article. In a marriage where we are not on the same page in regards to our relationship with Jesus. Major struggle. These are all great suggestions to keep the communication open!!
What about in a marriage where one spouse is very emotionally immature and seems to be unable or unwilling to do these things alongside a willing spouse? And that’s not trying to be critical. But based on early relationships and recurrent problems with rejection and shame they are just very guarded and emotionally underdeveloped.
Pray! A good book to get you started is Stormie Omartian’s “The Power of a Praying Wife/Husband”.
I would love it if we could print out these articles on a “printer-friendly” version. They can be passed on in an intentional way and shared within our own marriage.
Great article and comments………….
Spicing things up in the bedroom and making your partner uncomfortable are two absolutely different things. Physical intimacy in the bedroom is a two-way street! You get what you give. You can ask him why you want to role play this situations. People like have all kind of new ways and find new ways for physical intimacy spicing up in bedroom. Depend on you if your comfortable and if your not tell them. Because Physical intimacy in the bedroom is a two-way and both should enjoy it.