Emotional Intimacy
Have you ever spent the entire day with someone, but still felt like you missed them or you didn’t really connect in your time together? It’s possible that you are doing tasks alongside someone but missing emotional intimacy. Emotional intimacy applies to all relationships. You do not have to be a touchy-feely person to have emotional intimacy. It's more a matter of having the ability to show someone that you care, rather than gushing over someone and sharing all of your feelings all of the time.
“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
Here are some examples:
When you’re aware that your friend has an important event coming up and you text them to “Best of luck” on the day of or ask them how it went.
When you ask your parent for their opinion on a subject even if you don’t need their advice. Giving them an opportunity to give a neutral perspective on a topic.
When you’re running late to work and your partner helps you out by packing your lunch and getting your coffee started.
When you see that a family member had a strong reaction to something, checking in with them about it later to see how they felt or if they want to discuss it.
You tell your parents about an upsetting experience you had and they listen carefully to your complaints and discuss them calmly with you.
You tell your coworker about an incident at work and they listen to you and offer support as you figure out how to navigate the situation.
Emotional Intimacy in Romantic Relationships
A relationship can survive without physical intimacy, but not emotional intimacy. Emotional intimacy in relationships is important as it allows you to reach new levels of trust and vulnerability in your relationship. Common challenges to emotional intimacy in relationships are when one partner feels that their partner is not providing equal levels of emotional attention and support or when one partner confuses emotional intimacy as an opportunity to emotionally unload on their partner.
How Do You Build It?
The recipe for emotional intimacy is equal parts communication and trust. Emotional connections take time to build. In addition to having patience you have to create opportunities to demonstrate that you can be trusted. This allows, the other person to gauge how safe they are to be vulnerable with you and how reliable you are. It’s important to start where the other person is. Start with the present relationships or interests, rather than childhood and deep family relationships.
Why Don’t You Have It?
Is it a trust issue? communication issue? or both? Having a strong emotional bond is an outcome of working on these issues first. Trust is the hardest to build and easiest to lose. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re in the re-building phase of trust. The person has to be willing to put in the effort to repair what they have broken. They have to take ownership of what actions they took to damage the relationship in the first place. The focus should be on building a healthy relationship instead of recreating the relationship you once had. The reality is that it's gone and if you were both truly fulfilled then it would have been sustainable.
How Do You Accept That Your Partner Will Not Give It To You?
Can you force someone to give you what they don't have? For many people it isn’t a conscious decision but more of a completely new way of relating to someone. Healthy marriages are supposed to be different than every other relationship you carry. It is unique and that often makes it challenging for people to create something they’ve never had.
If your partner can carry an emotionally intimate relationship but chooses not to, then you can't force them. You should demonstrate patience and communicate your needs consistently and calmly. Once you’ve established that they understand what you are asking for, given clear ways of creating it, and given ample opportunities to make the changes necessary, then you have to accept that you don’t have control over their behavior. You can choose to remain in the relationship as it is, but it is likely you are continuing in the relationship based on the potential you see in the relationship, more than the reality of the current relationship.
For more info, https://www.nbcnews.com/better/lifestyle/how-build-emotional-intimacy-your-partner-starting-tonight-ncna1129846
Vanessa Trujillo, LCSW
My first steps into the field of mental health started in Los Angeles County working to reunite families who had been separated due to abuse and generational trauma. I learned firsthand how important it is to heal from emotional pain in order to develop healthy relationships and positive personal change.
I have worked as a therapist for 8 years and know that we are all working towards stability and security. I have found success in working with youth, women, children, and families, ages 4-80 years old, who struggle to manage their worries, feel hopeless, and/or have experienced trauma. It is important to me that I learn about each client, in order to identify ways that I could be of service to them and their family, rather than to pathologize their behavior.
I strive to provide mental health services based in compassion, commitment, and honesty. My goal is to ensure that each person I work with understands their behavioral health condition and can identify techniques to be successful in overcoming any impairments. Often, when facing challenges with our emotional health, we become convinced that we are in a hopeless situation. While no amount of therapy can change someone’s lived experiences, in therapy we work to understand the meaning of these events and provide you with tools to determine the direction you want your life to take.
Our sessions will include theory, literature, and evidenced based techniques to create practical solutions that can be used in everyday situations. I would love to assist you in taking the first steps in a journey to improve the quality of your life and/or relationships.
TO BOOK A SESSION WITH VANESSA CALL 951-778-0230. VANESSA IS ALSO BILINGUAL IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH.
