Intimacy vs. kissing, revisited

In a previous post I talked about intimacy as being much more than just physical romance, with a focus on the ways misconceptions about intimacy can hurt relationships. However, there's another angle I didn't consider at the time: cultivating (accidentally or otherwise) any form of intimacy with someone other than your spouse.

I recently learned of several heartbreaking and marriage-crushing affairs involving people who seemed above reproach. In every case, the parties involved started out with full intentions to remain faithful to their spouse, and did not consider their marriage to be weak or dissatisfying, nor consider themselves attracted to the other person. However, in the process of spending time around someone of the opposite sex---for legitimate or even admirable reasons---all made the fatal mistake of allowing themselves to become intimately connected with that other person: deep personal conversations, long outings alone together, sharing of hopes, desires, and secrets, etc. In keeping with their pure intentions, they studiously avoided pursuing anything like physical romance, thinking that was the danger to avoid, but in all cases romance erupted suddenly and irreversibly once the intimate relationship had matured. Most of them became so attached to their new partner they felt no remorse after betraying their spouse and other loved ones. This is something to be avoided at all costs, even if it means a bit of inconvenience to you or another person.

The importance of touch

Too many couples overlook the power of touch in building and maintaining a close relationship. We're talking about the little things here: holding hands while walking, shoulder or foot rubs after a long day, hugs on the way out the door, a caress to go with that "I love you."

In his book, Twelve traps in today's marriage---and how to avoid them, marriage counselor Dr. Brent Barlow states:

If I could encourage married couples to do just one thing to maintain or improve their relationships, I think I would suggest developing the skill of touch. Touch is one of the most significant forms of communication we have... [and] the absence of touch often communicates disinterest or lack of caring. Many studies have observed that young infants in institutions can actually die from lack of touch. The phenomenon is known as marasmus. As adults, touching continues to be a primary means of communicating with those we love, whether we are conscious of it or not. Our need for caring touch is normal and healthy, and we will never outgrow it.

His conclusion: "marital marasmus can be deadly." 

(photos courtesy of lds.org)

There's (a lot) more to intimacy than kissing...

Too often, we make the mistake of thinking that physical relationships define the intimacy that comes in marriage. This misconception manifests in a lot of ways. Shallow relationships, based only on physical attraction, invariably implode unless they develop into something more in time. People think their marriage is in trouble if they're no longer "satisfied" with their partner, not realizing that the real trouble runs much deeper than a lack of exciting romance. People choose not to marry in the first place, thinking that the physical relationship is the important part anyway. Or they believe some physical relationship can replace the traditional one.

The marriage relationship is really about being intimate, in the Victorian sense of the word. It's about building an enduring friendship, acquiring a deep empathy for someone, leaving your own worries to her and taking on her burdens as your own. It's about magnifying each others' best traits and overlooking weaknesses, of making a safe place for each other. It's about sharing a lot of secrets between you and keeping very few secrets with others. A successful marriage intertwines two lives so tightly that you can't imagine being apart, and your plans always involve your other half.

And yes, the kisses are fun, too.

Lovely LipSense Lips pictured above.

Fire and Ice

We studied the words from this talk before we got married. It helped us to really understand the importance of sexual purity before and within marriage.  I'll share a tiny bit of his talk. It's worth a full read or making time for the video.


Click here for full text

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice,
From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. by Robert Frost"

"Why is this matter of sexual relationships so severe that fire is almost always the metaphor, with passion pictured vividly in flames? What is there in the potentially hurtful heat of this that leaves one's soul- or perhaps the whole world, according to Frost- destroyed, if that flame is left unchecked and those passions unrestrained?"

Holland goes on to state that "God's greatest concerns regarding mortality are how one gets into this world and how one gets out of it." He notes that people are generally quite responsible and cautious when it comes to the taking of life, but the same cannot be said of the giving of life.