The Art of Love & Intimacy

How to maintain intimacy?

Making each other feel special, loved, appreciated and desired is a necessity to maintain sizzle and passion. This is especially true for a woman and if you light your woman's fire, she will light yours in return and vice versa. Men also need intimacy, but may not be as much aware of their need and it may not be as important to them personally in regard to sex. Women need to feel loved, valued, special, intimate and listened to with their partner for sex to be at its best. If she feels these things, it will unleash her inhibitions, desires and passion. She will desire her lover more deeply and be more willing to pleasure her lover in the way he desires.

The key is to nurture yourself, your partner and the relationship. If you want your relationship to be intimate, love and respect one another, do your best to meet each other's needs, share dreams and feelings, and avoid giving in to the intimacy killers. All relationships go through ebbs and tides. Remember…do well and good for each other and instead of sink holes; you’ll have speed bumps.

Sex without intimacy eventually becomes shallow and unfulfilling. You may get away with it for a while, but eventually the relationship will die, if intimacy is not nurtured. The deeper your intimacy is in your relationship the more explosive and satisfying the sex will be. When sex is explosive and mind blowing, it cements you to your lover in a very powerful way and thus opens the door for more intimacy. Therefore, intimacy and great sex feed each other in a reciprocal relationship.

Many people do not understand why their relationship falls apart or why sex is not very good anymore. A lot of times it is because they have fallen into a rut and begun to take each other for granted. They have stopped sharing with each other intellectually and emotionally so intimacy has been lost, thus the passion in their sex becomes lost as well.

A lot of people think that when this happens that it means they should leave the relationship and find someone new, but that is not the case. Sure, with someone new there will be excitement and passion because it is new, but it too will fade away once the novelty wears off, if they do not build and maintain intimacy. They don't realize that the same passion and excitement that they felt earlier in the relationship can be recaptured by building intimacy, through expressing affection and love and by rediscovering each other and their needs and desires more deeply, then meeting these needs.

Taking each other for granted is deadly to a relationship. If intimacy, passion, excitement and adventure are not maintained then boredom will ensue. One of the main causes of unfaithfulness is sexual boredom. Another cause is not meeting each other's sexual or emotional needs. One or both partners may start to look to someone else to meet their needs and provide passion, not realizing that they could solve their problem if only they would turn back to their lover, deepen their intimacy, explore each other's desires and needs more deeply and engage in some spontaneous, adventurous sexual activities. Getting to know your lover more intimately both emotionally and sexually will enable you to know what their desires and needs are, and therefore meet them more effectively, increasing satisfaction in the relationship.

Marriage can be a great partnership, and still lack intimacy, and that is a knife that cuts both ways. Experts say if you want to gauge the level of intimacy in your relationship, consider the amount of time you spend with a locked gaze. Eye contact is absolutely essential to maintaining intimacy in a relationship. Men and women both need to know that hugging, kissing, and even fair fighting are just as important to maintaining intimacy. Also, it’s not if you fight, it is how you fight.

Focus on the positive in your relationship. Accept your partner and don’t focus on the negative things. Instead, bring light to all the wonderful things about each other and continue to remember all of the positive things about each other. Focusing on the negative or things that you don’t like so much will do so much harm to your relationship.



Remember these behaviors below to increase intimacy and maintain intimacy in your relationship:

LOCK LIPS
Kissing releases oxytocin (the neurochemical that makes you feel bonded) and decreases cortisol levels, so it may also reduce stress.

MAKE SMALL CONNECTIONS
Intimacy is established by the little things we do throughout the day. Think of a way each day to make your partner feel loved, appreciated, special, cherished, and not taken for granted!

DEVELOP EXCITEMENT AND ANTICIPATION
Re-create that excitement and anticipation that you had in the beginning by spending fun time together, experiencing new things together, learning about each other together, and sharing in each other’s world. Never have separate worlds! Stay interested in what your partner has going on and learn about their world, dreams, goals, feelings, interests, job, hobbies, and friends.

OPEN YOUR EYES
To be truly intimate, you need to look your partner in the eyes. Open your eyes during conversation and during sex. Eye contact usually denotes connection. Also, open your eyes in your relationship and ask yourself what behaviors you are using to create and maintain intimacy.

FIGHT IT OUT THE RIGHT WAY
It’s not if you argue sometimes, it is how. Do you argue with contempt, criticism, defensiveness, and harsh names? Vent your frustrations without making it unsafe for your partner to talk to you. Communicate in a way that shows you care how the other feels and that you want to be okay together in the next few minutes. Fights usually happen when the woman does not feel loved and the man does not feel respected.



How to destroy intimacy?

Do you really understand what kills intimacy? As human beings, we all have a built in need to be close to someone. But often the very thing we desire is the opposite of what we have. Some of us subconsciously sabotage the relationships we want because of our fear of intimacy. Sometimes we unknowingly and unwillingly drift apart because of our inability to allow ourselves to open up to intimacy. Others avoid intimacy because they carry the baggage of past failures. Intimacy, physical and emotional closeness, is tough to navigate. It takes skill, hard work and commitment. True intimacy is difficult to achieve, but who says the best gifts come easy?

Here are 10 “Intimacy Killers”. While it is often not good to focus on the negative, in this regard it is beneficial to point things out that if you recognize yourself doing one or more of these you can reflect on what you can do to change behaviors.


Ten intimacy killers to avoid:

1. Lies
It only takes one lie to destroy the trust in a relationship. To be close to someone, we need to be able to share what is true and real about us. And we must be willing to hear someone else's truth. Sometimes we think that it is best to not say anything at all if it means it may hurt our partner. So we silently hang on to our truth or share our truth with the wrong people. When we do this, there is no opportunity for the relationship to grow with integrity. Most times it is all a matter of timing. If you need to talk, pick a proper time and open up.

2. Loss of trust
Sometimes there is no dishonesty in the relationship, but still a lack of trust has developed. Perhaps real trust has never been a part of your life or relationship. Maybe a painful event in life has fractured your ability to trust. A person must heal from their past and base their decision to trust someone on the overall actions of a person. Consider all people trustworthy until proven otherwise and release the past baggage.

3. A compelling need to change the other and being negative
Real intimacy means acceptance. Having acceptance of yourself and your partner is a powerful indicator of intimate love. It does not mean you have to like everything, but you need to let go of the need to change another person. When we lack acceptance of another person's qualities, our tendency is to control. That control manifests itself in subliminal frustration. Even subtle pressuring people to change will lead to frustration-on both parties. This frustration can fester until it eats away at the core of the relationship. But before you can feel close to another person, you must unconditionally accept who you are with all your faults and qualities.

4. Inability to express your needs and feelings
Unfortunately most of us do not have the power to read minds. Therefore, we have to rely on our partners to communicate with us and vice versa. It is each person’s duty to express his or her needs and feelings. By sharing who we are and what's important to us, we significantly increase our chances of having our needs met. If we repress our needs and feelings, we block the other person out of our world, and make intimacy impossible. Quiet private talk over a meal or during a drive is a good place to begin to change this behavior. Another skill is being able to “read” the other person. If you or your partner cannot express outwardly feelings, neither one of you will be able to read the other. Learn to understand your partner.

5. Not honestly listening
Many of us have no problem talking, but listening poses more of a challenge. Really listening is important as all interpersonal communications. As silly as it seems, it could be why we were given two ears and one mouth. The key to listening is acknowledging what we have heard consciously. Are you really hearing what your partner is saying? Or are you thinking about how your partner is wrong or how you want to defend yourself? If your partner is constantly communicating the same need or feeling to you over and over, chances are you are not hearing your partner with your heart. Listen with your heart!

6. Being self-centered
The minute you decide to enter into a committed relationship, you must set aside self-centeredness. Intimacy requires there to be a balance between self, the other person and the relationship. It's not about just you anymore. You have to take the feelings and needs of the other person and the relationship into consideration. You must become and maintain the sum of what you are together. Decisions about money, routines, free time, children, time, etc. now have to include your partner's input. Remember to always give 100% and not 50%. When you “keep score” of what your partner has done for you lately, you will never have a rewarding relationship.

7. Lack of respect
If you lack respect for your partner, your intimate life will suffer. To respect means you hold a high opinion and high value of both yourself and your partner. You appreciate and show consideration for all people, not just your partner. The closeness of intimacy needs a general feeling of respect for self and your partner. It also means you need to behave in a way that deserves respect. You cannot expect your partner to respect you if your actions do not warrant respect. Respect means, “honor”. You honor others as well as being honorable yourself. This one factor applies to all interactions between people.

8. Angry arguments and love busters
All couples have disagreements. The intimacy in your relationship will suffer if you let your arguments get out of hand. Loud angry words, unresolved festering arguments, and inflicting emotional and physical pain will destroy intimacy. Couples that are close learn how to respectfully and healthily resolve their arguments. Talking, not shouting is the only way to keep a lid on disagreements and avoid hurtful behaviors that damage intimacy. Love busters are the behavior’s that ruins your spouse’s love for you. Be aware of these behaviors.

9. Lack of touch
Although physical intimacy is just a part of total intimacy, it is a very important part. If you don't make a point to hug, kiss, and experience sexual intimacy, your level of intimacy will be affected. You can still be close, but touch adds extra feelings of warmth, safety and love. This is an aspect that if practiced everyday will maintain intimacy. If you do not have regular touch with your partner, as time goes by it becomes more and more difficult to regain those physical feeling between partners.

10. Daily separate lives
Many couples, slowly over time, begin to live separate lives. Either their differences separate them or unawareness or lack of intention causes them to drift apart. Intimacy requires people to spend time together and share in each other's life.


A relationship is like a garden. You need to take the time to weed, fertilize and water your garden. In other words, it requires time, love, and a commitment to keep the bad to a minimum.