INTIMACY in Your Marriage?

Once again, I am joining Courtney from Women Living Well for her Be My Valentine Marriage Challenge.
The challenge for our readers this week is to pursue INTIMACY in your marriage! While true intimacy encompasses so many things--my focus this week is TOUCH...

We live in a touch starved world. People are so busy that they rarely take a moment to take a breath and live in the moment. We think the faster we move and the more we accomplish in a day, the more worthy we are in society. Perhaps part of the frenzy is just trying to make our way in a very competitive job market and to support our family financially.

One of the ways to cultivate and keep romance alive in a marriage is to pursue intimacy through touch, making it a point to touch your significant other throughout the day. Sometimes this does not come naturally, as we have so many other things going on throughout the day that we become distracted from that which really matters--relationships with those whom we share our lives--our stories--our beds...

We are only going to "touch" on the basics here, but touch can be a gateway to sharing your most intimate needs. Touch opens the door of communication-allowing us the opportunity to tell our significant other what we need--physically and emotionally.

 

If the two of you are exhausted when you go to bed and curl up in your own corner facing opposite directions, roll over and hug your spouse. This would be a good time to kiss him goodnight too, if you have not already done so. xoxo

Something we do in our marriage--always kiss goodnight and always kiss good morning. It sound so cheezy, but it is a small way of connecting and saying "you matter"....also, acknowledge the coming and going of your spouse. Sometimes I will be upstairs when my husband comes home--be it from work, the store, the gym, etc...but we always call out to each other. Little things mean alot...they help us develop the bond we call INTIMACY. Intimacy doesn't just miraculously happen...it is something we develop with time and a learned skill set.  Marriages that go the distance of many years are grounded in some level of intimacy and learned communication skill sets. These things are not something that we are taught in school or verbally by our parents, but perhaps your parents modeled them for you, and the best thing we can do for our children is model these skill sets for them--as well as communicating the importance of them so that our children will have the skills they need to develop long lasting relationships.

So, the challenge Courtney posted this week is to KISS your spouse....

My challenge is to touch your spouse....make a mental note to yourself to reach out and hold his hand, be near enough to him that you can touch his arm, smooth his hair, etc. 

My bet is that it will lead to a KISS! Perhaps one of those really good kisses, Courtney video blogged about!

I mentioned a resource in a previous post that I think is a healthy starting point to understand the unique needs of our spouse or significant other, "The 5 Love Languages", and start you on the road to some solid communication skill sets.