10 Ways to Increase Intimacy in Your Relationship
1. Think as a Team: When we enter into a relationship, we can often have trouble transitioning from an I or Me mentality to a team mentality. Couples that can take the ego out of conflict feel more connected and supported. Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?
Try it Out: Change the thought process you use. Instead of thinking, “I’m not budging on this, I know I’m right” try to reframe it as, “How can we come to a compromise?” or “How can we work together on this?” Life throws many challenges our way and one of the integral parts of being in a relationships is being able to deal with these problems together as a team-even if at first glance the problem may seem germane to only one of you-it never is!
2. Share your Fondness for your Partner: Verbalize your fondness and admiration for your partner. Your partner is awesome, that’s why you’re choosing to be with them!
Try it Out: If you are out tonight, or even at work today-- brag about your partner. Putting your partner in a positive light opens you up to feeling love for your partner and can warm you up to them. Extra points if you text your partner after and let them know you were bragging about them! You can also consciously try to conjure positive thoughts about your partner throughout your day to get more in that fondness and admiration habit!
3. Connect Daily: Connect every damn day-- life gets busy, and we're often spread too thin so sometimes our relationship falls down the priority list to make room for everything else. Date nights are great but can be few and far between, what happens daily matters MUCH more than what happens once in awhile.
Try it Out: Make sure to check in with your partner on how their day was and share with them parts of yours. Extra points if you make intentional plans to do this in person and put the phones away while you chat!
4. Be Deliberate: Be deliberate in the time you spend together. Binge watching Netflix doesn't exactly count as quality time if you're sitting on separate couches and splitting your attention between the TV and your phone. By deliberately carving out time for your relationship every week, you’ll begin to form a necessary habit of bonding with your partner.
Try it Out: Make a list of activities you and your partner enjoy together or would like to try and be deliberate about implementing those activities. Begin to turn your Sunday scaries into a day of bonding and reconnecting!
5. Physically Connect: Physically connect at least once a day, whether its holding hands, laying together, or a long meaningful hug! Physically connecting with your partner can make you feel more in tune with them and with yourself.
Try it Out: Sit down with your partner side by side with your bodies touching and your phones away, begin to outline words in your partner’s hand with your fingers and have them try and guess what you’re spelling out. If you don't live with your partner or have the ability to see them daily, shoot them a call or text letting them know how you'd like to be sitting with them and snuggling right now!
6. Learn Your Partner’s Love Language: Love languages are the way that we speak and understand emotional love. We all have different love languages, developed through the ways in which we were shown love in our families. We generally give love the way we best receive it. The difficulty that arises with that, is that many of us do not share the same love language as our partner. Learning the way that our partner best receives love is an easy way to mitigate this miscommunication.
Try it Out: Have both you and your partner take the Love Language Quiz online at www.5lovelanguages.com. Discuss the results you both got and how to better communicate with each other on a daily basis. Try using your partner's love language and having them try and use yours!
7. Focus on The Good: It is hard enough to not compare ourselves to others and it's especially difficult to not compare our relationships. That is awesome for Sally that her partner surprised her with flowers today but that doesn't mean your partner deserves the cold shoulder because you're feeling green with envy.
Try it Out: When you feel yourself comparing, focus on the good in your relationship and the ways that your partner does show up for you emotionally and physically. Using your knowledge of your partner’s love language, begin to think about the times in which your partner has shown you that they love you, and you may have missed it. If you are feeling a bit neglected, let your partner know in a kind, vulnerable way!
8. Apologize Better: Apologizing for something you did can be really difficult, as it often requires partners to put their egos aside. Apologizing for something you have done or said to hurt your partner doesn’t imply intent to hurt your partner or that you are a bad person, it means that you value the relationship and your partner’s feelings. We often unintentionally hurt each other in our relationships and it can be helpful to apologize, in order to repair any relationship breaks.
Try it Out: Developing your own “I’m sorry” -- Sometimes “I’m sorry” can sound like BS on both ends, especially when trust has been broken. Creating your own “key phrase” in your relationship to use in times of stress and disconnect. We love this example from Sheri Meyers, Psy.D author of Chatting or Cheating -- “I love you. You are the one I want. We matter. I am so sorry for the pain I caused you and us. It feels scary right now, but we'll get through this."
9. Know Yourself: It all starts with you. In order to increase intimacy with a partner or person in your life, it is vital to work on increasing intimacy within yourself. Knowing yourself might include gaining insight into who you are, what made you who you are and how that might affect you and your ability to be the best version of yourself. Without this knowledge, we may continue to take part in perpetuating patterns that are not working for us - and we might not even know it! It may sound corny, but it all starts and ends with you.
Try it Out: Get curious about yourself and your values. Here are some questions to explore: What does “success” look like to you? If you were a fly on the wall of your own memorial service after you have lived a full and “successful” life-what would your eulogy sound like? What have you accomplished and what roles have you filled?
10. Fall in Love All Over Again: No matter how long you have been with your partner, there is always more to learn. We encourage you to spend your Valentine’s Day answering the questions below with your partner (or even your dear friends) to get to know them all over again. Chocolates and presents are great but they don't actually give you a deeper connection. So while you eat your treats, answer the questions with your partner and see what you learn!
Try it Out: Google " The 36 Questions that Lead to Love" and you will find a New York Times article that contains the 36 questions. The questions are split up into 3 sections and they get increasingly more deep and vulnerable. The idea is that mutual vulnerability fosters closeness. Also- don’t just leave “dates” for “special” occasions-schedule dates regularly with your partner!