Managing Emotional Intimacy

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All relationships are based on agreements, and most agreements, especially in romantic relationships, are unconscious and unspoken.

A particularly well hidden and unconscious agreement about emotional intimacy occurs in most couples. It is usually part of the mating and courtship ritual because that is when those agreements need to be made, and then continues throughout the relationship. Almost everyone judges themselves about something, and usually many things. They reject themselves for who and what they are, what they need, what they think, what they want, what they are afraid of -- mostly according to the judgments and rejections of childhood. We are afraid of those parts of us being seen by another, because we know we will be rejected. After all, we already reject ourselves for them.

So, we have to hide them. We cannot allow another person, especially someone whose love we need or want to capture, see those parts of ourselves we reject. We wear masks, develop strategies, and drop into roles instead of being present. If someone who has lots to hide tries to mate with someone who is willing to show up to see and be seen, fear arises in the hider, and many excuses and stories will develop to discount and end the relationship. The one who doesn't need to hide can see too clearly, which is a danger to the one hiding.

So the agreement to manage intimacy needs to be between people with similar degrees of vulnerability. If a woman, for instance, has a level of fear about being truly seen, she will need to mate with a man who is equally afraid. She might complain about him not spending "quality time" with her, or tell her girlfriends she is lonely in the relationship. But if he goes off to a men's weekend workshop and comes back all opened up and wanting to look deeply into her soul, she will do whatever she can to sabotage his new-found openness. He is breaking their agreement.

My definition of intimacy includes the willingness to be vulnerable-- to allow someone to see past our masks and strategies and directly into the truth of who we are. If we are not intimate with ourselves, if we have not accepted and loved the truth of who we are as a unique expression of the divine force of Life itself, then we cannot be intimate with others at the deep level of true connection.

People who are open and willing/eager to be intimate in this way will also seek out people with a similar desire for that level of intimacy, and make the same agreements -- although theirs might be more conscious. It is really an agreement to manage the level of vulnerability and intimacy in the relationship.

So, needing to hide to whatever degree we do, we have to choose partners with a similar level of willingness. This is true for one of the couples that sought my guidance recently. While he and she were very different from each other, they were both wounded and hiding to the same degree. She was comfortable with his lack of connection (although she complained about it), his working all the time, and his extreme physical lifestyle, because it suited her fear of being seen and rejected. He was hiding in his work and perfectionism to avoid the same thing. It worked for many years until her desire to be more connected with life brought them into an apprenticeship with me.

As they learned to accept themselves as they are, they found a mutual love and companionship that transcends their rather different personalities. What joins them is a love for loving... loving and accepting themselves and each other and the world they live in. They really do enjoy each other now, and have a lot of fun together. They have a new agreement about intimacy, and it serves them well.

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