How to build emotional intimacy with your partner — starting tonight

When we discuss intimacy in a romantic partnership, what usually comes to mind are physical acts, such as holding hands, cuddling, kissing and even sex. While physical intimacy is integral in any romantic partnership — it’s one of the primary factors that sets it apart from any other type of relationship — fostering emotional intimacy is just as, if not more, important.

What is emotional intimacy and why does it matter?

“Emotional intimacy could be defined as allowing yourself to connect more deeply with your partner through actions that express feelings, vulnerabilities and trust,” says Sanam Hafeez, a neuropsychologist in New York City and faculty member in Columbia University’s clinical psychology Ph.D. program. “Part of a relationship is sharing your secrets, talking about your relationship, and telling your partner important news. A couple is generally happier when both parties can share and understand each other’s feelings. ”

Ultimately, emotional intimacy creates a deep sense of security within your relationship and an ability to be wholly yourself — warts and all — without feeling as if you risk the relationship itself. Without this intimacy, a relationship struggles in many ways. For example, you might feel bitter or resentful, experience hypersensitivity, have fears regarding your partner’s loyalty to you, or experience feelings of isolation or loneliness.

It’s not sustainable long-term to have a romantic relationship without emotional intimacy.

“If emotional intimacy is lacking, [one or both of you] may feel a lack of safety, love, support, overall connection, and it also will most likely affect the physical intimacy in a romantic relationship. It’s not sustainable long-term to have a romantic relationship without emotional intimacy,” says Rachel Wright, a marriage counselor and licensed psychotherapist. “If you think about emotional intimacy as the foundation of any relationship, it really becomes a no-brainer to invest your resources (time, money and energy) into building it and continuing to nurture it. ”

4 immediate ways to improve emotional intimacy

Fostering emotional intimacy is an ongoing practice and, like many things, may take some time to master. However, there are a few things you can do — starting tonight — to improve the emotional connection you have with your partner.

Be strategically vulnerable to earn their trust

Even if we’ve spent an enormous amount of time with someone, it’s sometimes difficult to break down our personal walls. Though you cannot force another to become vulnerable, you can go out of your way to be vulnerable yourself.

“The practice of strategic vulnerability is critically important. Instead of trying to be vulnerable in every area of your life, pick one place to start,” says Paul Hokemeyer, a psychotherapist and author of “Fragile Power: Why Having Everything Is Never Enough”. This might translate to sharing something that happened at work you might not have otherwise discussed, expressing a feeling you’ve had in the past that’s been hard to share, or revealing a fact about yourself that you’ve been holding onto.

Give your partner daily affirmations and compliments

Whether you’re six months into a relationship or 60 years deep, it’s easy to take our partner’s positive attributes for granted and sometimes difficult to express how much we cherish them.

“Making a habit of giving specific compliments and affirmations to your partner can help you keep perspective as to why this person is special to you, and it can help them know you see them. You never want your partner to feel invisible because you forgot to share your appreciation,” says Hafeez.

These verbal affirmations can be as simple as saying, “I want you to know how deeply I love you” or “I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to do x, y or z.”

Prioritize sexual satisfaction

A study published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found that couples reported having a greater emotional connection when they were sexually satisfied. In that sense, the two are inextricably linked. While having sex itself isn’t a cure-all for improving your emotional bond, taking the time to learn and explore your partner’s desires — and having the same reciprocated — can lead to greater feelings of emotional connection in and out of the bedroom, says Hafeez.

Make an effort to break out of your day-to-day routine

With how busy life gets, it’s easy to hit a comfort zone plateau in which we move past each other simply trying to scratch items off our to-do lists. This is in stark contrast to the beginning of a relationship, when everything we do seems new and exciting, and when we go above and beyond.

“This can mean that we have lost sight of the value of doing things for each other that generate joy or intimacy in the other person. We stop trying to impress, we stop trying to understand, and in such environments, vulnerability and feelings can get lost to the routine of the everyday,” says Hafeez. “It is incredibly important that we make time for each other in a more profound way than just dinner or bedtime together.”

Garner inspiration from those early courting days in a relationship. Maybe you plan a spontaneous beginners square dancing date night, you decide to go for ice cream and a stroll, you show up with “just because” flowers, or you sit down together and plan a weekend getaway.

More relationship advice

• How the ‘5-5-5 method’ helps this married couple work through conflict
• Relationship in a slump? Here’s what to say to your partner
• What to do after a fight with your partner, according to a relationship coach
• What is maintenance sex? It may help strengthen your marriage
• How redesigning our master bedroom gave my marriage a boost

Want more tips like these? NBC News BETTER is obsessed with finding easier, healthier and smarter ways to live. Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

12 Ways to Get and Give More of It

Humans are hardwired for social connection. Without the ease of electricity, running water, or Starbucks drive-throughs, the collective survival of our early ancestors depended on being able to work together; to trust one another.

Emotional intimacy — a closeness between two people who feel safe and secure with each other — is one of the ways we form that trust.

Unfortunately, many of us have built-in barriers that make it difficult to build emotional connections.

For example, depression has been shown to strain romantic relationships while some personality disorders make it hard to get close to other people. Or, if you were raised to hide your emotions, being open and vulnerable in relationships might feel super uncomfortable.

But if emotional intimacy is a mountain in your path, know there are routes to the summit — even if you can’t see them clearly yet. This article will cover what emotional intimacy looks like and how you can cultivate more of it in your life.

We often define relationships as being high in emotional intimacy when there’s trust, good communication, and closeness, says Dr. Joti Samra, a registered psychologist and CEO and founder of MyWorkPlaceHealth.

By no means does the relationship need to be sexual in nature, she adds. While emotional intimacy helps hold romantic relationships together, you can be just as emotionally intimate with a platonic friend as with your significant other, she says.

Here are some examples of how emotional intimacy might be expressed and formed:

• A close friend confides to you that they were bullied as a child. You offer emotional support and listen nonjudgmentally to their experiences.
• You and your S.O. have a hard conversation over where your relationship is headed. After working through difficulties, you emerge with a healthier bond.
• You tell your parents about a behavior of theirs that has distressed you. They listen carefully to your complaints and seriously discuss how to improve.
• After a stressful day at work, you tell a friend that you’re unhappy in your career. They validate your feelings and support you in reaching your own decision.

Don’t confuse emotional intimacy with harmful relationship habits

Emotional intimacy is built on equal communication and trust. If your relationship is one-sided, it may be time to reconsider how that connection is going, says Samra.

For example, unloading your emotional burden on someone to get pity or cause guilt is not being emotionally intimate. Neither is trauma bonding, a term used to describe the bond that forms between a victim and their abuser.

Similarly, depending on another person to the point where it blurs personal boundaries is not emotional intimacy and may be a sign of a codependent relationship.

How to know if there’s a lack of emotional intimacy

According to Samra, if you’re not getting emotional intimacy in a relationship, you might feel:

• unsafe or that the other person doesn’t have your back
• on edge and apprehensive when the other person is around
• unfulfilled by the relationship
• unheard, unacknowledged, or misunderstood
• like communication between the two of you is ineffective

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Building emotional intimacy isn’t like baking bread — there’s no set formula. Everyone develops it differently and has differing levels of comfort around it, said Samra.

But you can get the ball rolling by applying some of the following advice.

Work on being an engaged listener

According to Samra, communication is the bedrock of building trust. And real communication happens when people actually hear one another. “It’s being able to hear someone, listen to someone, understand them, and then, behaviorally, to be able to execute and [act] based on what those needs are,” she said.

Problem-solve difficult feelings

If you have high emotional intelligence, identifying and communicating emotions — in yourself or in others — might feel second nature. But know that it might not be so easy for your partner. So when things get tense or hard, start by asking broad questions.

“If someone says they’re upset, [ask] what does that mean? Is it anger? Is it sad? Is it fearful?” says Samra.

If you have trouble putting labels on your emotions, you might find emotion wheels help you get specific.

Leave your comfort zone

Inside each of us is an internal fortress that safeguards all deepest truths, the pieces of ourselves we’ve decided need protecting.

Being vulnerable is like opening up a side door in the castle wall and letting someone else in. It’s a way of signaling that you trust them, and usually it helps the other person feel like they can trust you in return.

Couples, have more (healthy) sex!

If you’re in a partnership, being physically intimate can go a long way in making you feel close to your partner. One study found being sexually satisfied significantly predicted the level of emotional intimacy between married people.

If you want to improve your sex life, a good place to start is working on having emotionally healthy sex.

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Create a safe space

Fundamental to building emotional intimacy is asking: What does the other person require for safety and trust? says Samra. In order for the other person to let their guard down and be vulnerable, they first need to feel safe doing so.

Don’t rush the process

Building trust can take time. We shouldn’t expect the other person — nor ourselves — to immediately be comfortable with vulnerability, says Samra.

Check-in questions after an intimate moment

If you want to get a better understanding of an intimate encounter, ask yourself these questions about how it went.

• Did you feel safe and supported during the interaction?
• Did you feel like you could have said anything without being judged?
• Were they invested in what you said, rather than just waiting for their chance to speak?

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Unfortunately, emotional intimacy can also be lost. This can feel devastating and sometimes intensely painful. However, there may be a path toward rebuilding what you lost, if the other person is willing.

• Take accountability. Own up to what you did, however painful it might be.
• Apologize (sincerely). It’s important that you really are sorry for what you did; it’s not enough to only say the words. Whether they accept your apology is up to them.
• Be patient. To rebuild trust, it’s important to give the other person the time and space they need to heal and process.
• Accept that the relationship will be different now. Although it may be painful, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to return to the relationship as it once was; be prepared to start over from square one, or somewhere close to it.
• Commit to changing problematic behaviors. You can’t expect to get different results if you keep acting the same way. It’s going to take effort — and maybe professional help — but it’s worth it if you really care about maintaining the relationship.
• Respect their wishes. The ball is now in their court. You can try your best to rebuild that emotional bond, but if they’re not comfortable trusting you, you have to let them go.

What to do if you’ve been hurt

If someone has hurt you, you might be scared as hell to let them back in. That totally makes sense. Your situation is unique to you but one thing is for sure: you need to get real about how this person affects your life. To help you understand if it’s time to put some distance between you and this person, ask yourself these questions:

• Do they cause you regular stress and anxiety?
• Have they broken your trust before?
• Do they seem genuinely invested in your happiness or are they always focused on themself?
• Do they put effort into changing problematic behavior?

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One of the downfalls of modern day partnerships is that we expect to get all of our needs met by our significant other. Not only is this taxing on both people, it’s pretty limiting to rely on one person’s perspective and advice.

Plus, relationships end. You don’t want to get yourself into a situation where the end of a relationship means the end of your emotional support system.

So in parting, we encourage you to keep up with your platonic relationships, too. Give your best friend — or maybe your mom! — a call tonight. They’ll be happy to hear from you.

8 tips to help you develop an emotional connection with a partner

When this happens, we suddenly notice that next to us is not an ideal at all, but just an ordinary person who, in addition to undoubted advantages, probably has a lot of annoying us shortcomings.

“Physical attraction cannot be the foundation of a long-term relationship if there is no real emotional intimacy between the partners,” says family therapist and sexologist Teresa Maples-Zuvela. A deep emotional connection between partners creates an atmosphere of trust, reliability and security in a relationship.

Here are 8 tips to help develop and strengthen this connection.

1. Identify your feelings and describe them

The first thing to do is to realize that you are feeling something at all. “Most often, problems with understanding their own emotions occur in men, but some women are also subject to them. To the question “How do you feel?” they answer: “I don’t know.” But any living person always feels something – without exception, ”explains Teresa Maples-Zuvela.

One should not limit oneself to a superficial awareness of one’s experiences. For example, if you are “angry” or “angry”, what does that mean? What is the real reason for your anger? It can be, for example, disappointment, a feeling of betrayal by a partner, a feeling of rejection, loneliness, or something else.

2. Tell your partner about your feelings

True intimacy is impossible without understanding each other’s experiences. If you are unhappy about something in your partner’s behavior, you can say: “When you do [something], I feel [describe your experiences]. I think it would be better [offer your option].” Then give your partner the opportunity to explain how he sees this situation and offer his solution.

3. Practice sharing and listening to each other

This simple exercise will help. One of the partners talks about something important or painful, and the second listens and then tries to repeat what was said in his own words. If he succeeds, the partners switch roles, if not, they try again.

4. When spending time together, do not be distracted by extraneous things

When you spend time together, try to focus as much as possible on the current moment. “When you are together, it is important to“ be here and now ”at all levels: physically, emotionally, spiritually,” the expert emphasizes.

5. Keep your promises

“If you promised to do something around the house or go somewhere together, keep your word. If you know deep down that you will not do this, you should not scatter empty promises, ”says Teresa Maples-Zuvela.

6. Accept your partner with all his shortcomings

Try not to focus on his weaknesses. “It is important to accept the person you love as a whole — with all its petty oddities and eccentricities. After all, no one is perfect – including ourselves, ”recalls Maples-Zuvela.

7. Remember that your relationship is more important than the desires of each of the partners

Couples for whom relationships are more important than personal interests are stronger and more durable. Those who are primarily focused on their own desires usually sooner or later become disappointed in their partner. If you first of all think about the needs of a loved one, he will surely answer you in the same way.

8. Create a safe environment for your partner

“Ideally, a relationship should be a safe space, completely free from physical or verbal aggression,” Maples-Zuvela emphasizes. It is important to refuse any insults and accusations against a partner, as well as be able to admit your mistakes and ask for forgiveness.

Five ways to connect emotionally with the team

Stories

April 22, 2022

Stories

April 22, 2022

Daria Sidorova

Editor of the History Department.

Darya Sidorova

The responsibility of a leader is to control the hearts and minds of his subordinates – and this is not an easy task. Even seemingly insignificant actions can break the emotional connection in the team. For example, if you asked one of the team members to organize a colleague’s birthday instead of doing it yourself. Subordinates may think that you do not care, because of which their motivation will decrease, and consequently, the quality of work. These five ways will help you connect emotionally.

Daria Sidorova

Listen and give thanks

Even small steps like this make a big difference

Team members need motivation and the feeling that their ideas are being listened to. To do this, ask them for their opinion on current projects during meetings, as well as provide positive feedback about their work in person, not through technology. Feedback given via Slack or any similar platform seems impersonal and lacks warmth to convey.

Analyze how you interact with the team and think about what needs to be improved. Small changes like these will help boost their morale and build a more friendly relationship.

Express your emotions

Openness is the key to healthy team dynamics

Subordinates can’t read your mind and therefore often make up what they see. For example, if you do not smile during a meeting, then the employee may feel that you do not approve of his recommendations.

Straightness will help fix this. If you are stressed, then tell the team about it, explain the reasons and show that you understand their needs. For example: “Soon I will need to submit budget ideas to the board of directors. I’m very worried, so I won’t be able to do other tasks until Friday.”

Seek help from mentors and team members

To learn how to manage emotions and free up time to express them

Think of the mentors you have worked with. How do they express their emotions? Which of them do you admire in this regard? Contact this person and ask questions – this will help to look at the problem in a new way.

In addition, you can ask a subordinate for help. Delegate small day-to-day tasks like scheduling out-of-office events to free up more time to interact with and connect with your team.

Sorry

Be honest and address a specific issue

All leaders make mistakes. There is a risk that at least once you will have a misunderstanding with one of the team members. In this case, address him directly like this: “I’m sorry that in today’s meeting I did not celebrate the excellent project that you did with the team. I know that you put a lot of effort into it, and I will definitely tell you about it at the next meeting.”

Put technology aside

Stop “multitasking”

One of the easiest ways to strengthen emotional connection is to put away all devices and listen to team members. If your eyes are constantly focused on the smartphone screen during a conversation, then they may think that you do not care about what they are saying.

If you feel like you’re at odds with your subordinates, these small steps can help make things right. Be honest, don’t be afraid to express your emotions, and prioritize communication so you and your team can achieve better results.

Source.

Cover photo: fizkes / Shutterstock

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