Relationship Advice:Life Lesson Articles.

The search for intimacy

"The lives of most people are histories of their search for intimacy, of their attempts to be socially, physically, and emotionally close to others. It includes the total offering and the total acceptance of whole people, not just the superficial interaction of fragments, whether in a sexual encounter or in intellectual 'small talk.' ... Intimacy is an enduring relationship between two whole people. It includes communion with one's innermost self and union with another in emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual ways. ... Lasting, rewarding intimacy with self and others is the result of wise and disciplined living, not the blind pursuit of quick and easy indulgence of appetite."
-- Victor L. Brown, Jr., Human Intimacy, Illusion & Reality

This rings so true for me in my own history. I remember thinking (but never saying) that the world's purpose and my education was to learn how to satisfy my needs for freedom and fun, which I thought would be delivered by money, power, and sex. The idea of being really close to another human being, of being intimate, was totally foreign to me. I didn't see at the time that that was because I was seeking those things to give me a feeling of wholeness I didn't have, because I felt fundamentally broken. I work with many couples today who are at an impasse, considering divorce because one is not getting enough power, the other is not getting enough sex, or there's never enough money. I can see where I failed before, and where I still have room to grow.

hearts

This pursuit of our own wholeness "at the expense of" another is "not it" in marriage. We stay distracted from our own task by constantly finding fault with our partner's approach. If marriage is designed for two whole human beings, how many of those are out there? Check in with me please. Knowing that we all feel broken to some extent, marriage can become a place where we share our journey toward wholeness, and then share that wholeness once we gain more frequent glimpses of it. Once again, we can love life as a pursuit of a grand vision rather than measuring ourselves harshly against an illusion.