Nurture the five different types of intimacy in your relationship and watch your marriage blossom …

What do you think of when you hear the word “intimacy”?

Most people immediately think of romantic love or physical intimacy. But by having such a narrow concept, you can stifle the fullness of intimacy you could experience in your marriage.

Some people mistake intimacy with familiarity. There’s a significant difference, something which Gordon Lester highlights in Homemade:

Familiarity and intimacy are not the same. Each has a value in life, certainly in married life, but one is no substitute for the other. If one is confused for the other, we have the basis for major human and marital unrest. In marriage, familiarity is inescapable. It happens almost imperceptibly. Intimacy is usually hard to come by. It must be deliberately sought and opened up and responded to. Familiarity brings a degree of ease and comfort. Intimacy anxiously searches for deep understanding and personal appreciation.

So let’s establish a simple working definition for intimacy. Intimacy simply means “closeness.” We experience intimacy in all kinds of relationships — closeness with biological family, closeness with friends, closeness with some co-workers, even closeness with God. But intimacy in marriage provides a unique relationship for experiencing a fuller expression of closeness. And if you give purposeful attention to nurturing the five different types of intimacy in your relationship with your spouse, you will likely see your marriage blossom!

So let’s get a brief understanding of the five different types of intimacy you should nurture in your marriage:

SPIRITUAL INTIMACY
One of the saddest realities within the Christian church is there are many “spiritual singles” among the married couples in it. Put another way, many couples fail to fully share with each other what should be the greatest love of their lives — their love for God.

That’s right, above everyone in the entire world, we are commanded to give God first place, to love Him with all of our heart, soul, and mind (Mt. 22:37). That means that you love God above your spouse. However, it is God’s design for a husband and wife to share their love of God with each other. By developing shared core values, purposes, and goals, a couple generates spiritual intimacy in their marriage.

You can nurture this spiritual intimacy by spending time studying the Word of God and plumbing the depths of scripture and the character of God together, by praying together, by engaging in the fellowship of the church together, and by serving God and others together. So often couples do these things individually without sharing these ways of knowing and serving God. But when a couple agrees that God must have first place in each other’s lives, and that can be shared with one another, a beautiful spiritual intimacy is formed and can (and should!) be nurtured. In fact, fostering and nurturing spiritual intimacy with your spouse is one of the greatest things you can do to support your personal spiritual development. Couples who prioritize nurturing a spiritual intimacy in their marriage tend to have marriages that are marked by a deep joy and are better able to endure the trials and troubles life may bring.

PHYSICAL INTIMACY
Let’s understand from the start something very important: Physical intimacy is much more than sex.

While it is important for husbands and wives to share a healthy, mutually satisfying sexual relationship, physical intimacy is a greater bond of touch expressed in different and numerous ways …

Holding hands while taking a stroll around the neighborhood …

A gentle hand on the shoulder …

Wrapping your arm around your spouse’s waist …

Running your fingers through their hair …

… and other simple touch are expressions of intimacy that build a powerful bond between a husband and wife. Often a couple can be together without conversation if they simply are touching in a simple manner.

The intimacy of physical touch helps a couple build the kind of bond that can last a lifetime, something I’ve written about previously and encourage you to read by clicking here.

INTELLECTUAL INTIMACY
It is an intimate thing when our minds can “connect” with others!

By fostering an environment where we can openly, freely, and safely enjoy sharing our thoughts, ideas, dreams, skills, and opinions with our spouse we’re able to nurture an intellectual intimacy that builds a bond of trust and enables a greater opportunity for a collaborative relationship.

Examples of intellectual intimacy include free-flowing discussions about your hopes and dreams together, asking each other for opinions about things, sharing past experiences, and knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Intellectual intimacy does not mean thinking the same things or in the same way, but nurturing an environment of enjoying expressing your thoughts and skills with one another, whether or not they differ. We feel closer to people we feel safe and enjoy expressing our thoughts to. Marriages in which a spouse doesn’t feel safe or welcome to express their intellectuality suffer a lack of bonding that can cause a marriage to fail. It’s important for couples to make time for conversation with each other.

EMOTIONAL INTIMACY
Saying to your spouse, “Tell me how you feel,” can be one of the most positive intimacy-building things you can do.

We generally fail to build an intimate and lasting bond with someone we don’t feel safe in sharing our emotions with.

Emotional intimacy is the ability to be able to share your joys and your pains with your spouse; they’re the person you can cry with, laugh with, and bare your soul to (be vulnerable with), and share your fears and dreams with.

Examples of emotional intimacy can be a wife confiding in her husband that she’s unhappy with her body after having a baby, a husband sharing with his wife about the challenging day he had at work, including the emotions he didn’t reveal to co-workers, or a wife letting her husband know she’s uncomfortable with him maintaining “friendships” with exes. Couples who stifle an openness to express how they feel with each other create a gap between them that could threaten their fully bonding if they don’t learn to nurture genuine emotional intimacy.

EXPERIENTIAL INTIMACY
This intimacy is the very heart of marriage given that marriage is leaving the single life for a shared life. Experiential intimacy could be described as the intimacy fostered by doing things together; it’s enjoying companionship and unique friendship with your spouse through shared activities and experiences. Couples don’t have to do everything together, but it is important to consistently share experiences throughout a lifetime together.

Examples of experiential intimacy can range broadly from sitting down to pay the bills together, going shopping together, or doing yard work together, to enjoying recreational activities together, playing games together, going out to dinner, going to the movies, celebrating the holidays together, enjoying the adventure of a trip or vacation, or simply watching the sun set together. Going through the hard times of life can also be a time of experiential intimacy as you love, encourage, and support one another through difficulties and trials.

The beauty of experiential intimacy is having many of your most cherished memories be mutually cherished memories of a shared life.

The more intimate a marriage, the greater the joy of a shared life. Is there a type of intimacy you and your spouse need to work together on giving greater attention and nurture to?

Scotty