Here’s a little secret I learned a few years into marriage: I didn’t know if I really loved Mike until I felt no feelings of love toward him. The sense of “feeling love” had to fade away for me to be able to learn how to really love my husband. My friend, and this week’s guest blogger, Gary Thomas gets this. If you’re wondering if authentic intimacy can be kindled — or rekindled — in your marriage, read on. I also encourage you to pick up a copy of the newly revised “A Lifelong Love.”* – Juli
Why do couples who are convinced they have found “the one” end up divorcing each other just a few years (or sometimes a couple decades) into their marriage? There was a time when they couldn’t imagine being apart for five hours; now they can’t bear the thought of being together for five minutes. What happened?
In many cases, the relationship existed only on what I call “artificial intimacy.” True intimacy — that sense of “oneness” that we all seek — has to be pursued and built rather than simply discovered and felt. Artificial intimacy is sustained by the common events of life, but usually comes to a huge crash as soon as the couple enters the empty nest years if true intimacy hasn’t replaced it.
In the Beginning
Artificial intimacy begins with the onset of infatuation, a “grab your brains with a vengeance” neurochemical reaction that makes us virtually blind to our partner’s faults but is notoriously short lived, with a shelf life of about 12 to 18 months.
In addition to infatuation, early relationship “compatibility” is also enhanced artificially via sexual chemistry. When infatuation and sexual chemistry are strong, compatibility or incompatibility barely even register. You both feel crazy about each other, you can barely keep your hands to yourself — how could you not be compatible? You don’t even really have to do anything to sustain your desire for each other; just being alive makes you feel compatible. And so, on this basis and often on this basis alone, the couple decides to get married.
When Spring Turns to Summer
When a couple begins to move toward marriage and set a date for the wedding, even though the initial artificial intimacy may be on the decline, planning the ceremony gives them something in common and keeps them going. They plan it, talk about it, and divide up tasks to make it happen. This is “intimacy” of a sort, but it’s a superficial intimacy; the intimacy of co-workers, not life-mates.
Once the couple gets back from the honeymoon, they will start setting up a house, move into a new apartment or neighborhood, and try to join two lives. That also joins them in a common task and gives them something to talk about. What color should we paint the bedroom? Do you think we’ll be here long enough to bother with planting trees outside? Where’s our new favorite hangout?
As life moves on, just when things could get boring again, the couple is likely to start raising kids. That’s a big thing to have in common and requires a lot of communication. You go to childbirth classes, you build a nursery, you raise the kids, and then you have to communicate to get the kids to the right places. You share your kids’ failures and successes. Eventually those kids repay you for your faithful service by growing up and leaving the two of you alone together.
That’s when you find out how much intimacy you really have.
At the start of the relationship it was just infatuation and sexual chemistry. Then it was the joint task of planning a ceremony. Then, setting up a home. After that, raising kids. In days past these life events could take marriages to the doorstep of death and eternity, but modern couples can blow through these stages of life in two and a half decades, often leaving another 30 years or more of marriage to follow. That’s a long time to be lonely and to live with a familiar looking stranger. If you haven’t consciously built true intimacy, the relationship is going to collapse right at this point.
Some couples have to wake up to the reality that they’ve been living relationally on shared tasks, not shared intimacy. They haven’t prayed together. They haven’t shared their dreams. They haven’t carried each other’s burdens and then built that all-important empathy for each other. They’re teammates, not spouses, and now that the season is over, what’s to hold them together?
When couples get divorced and start over with someone else, the second relationship initially feels more fulfilling than the first because, once again, it’s existing on artificial intimacy. Infatuation and sexual chemistry retake their place on center stage. Two people once again begin the relationship building of sharing past histories, planning a ceremony, and setting up a new life together… But the same dynamics will bring this affection to an end as well if the couple doesn’t consciously build true intimacy.
Making a Marriage
One of the main messages of my writing and speaking career on marriage has been this: a good marriage isn’t something you find, it’s something you make. And you have to keep on making it. Just as importantly (and herein lies the hope), you can also begin “re-making” it at any stage.
If you wake up to the sobering reality that you’ve existed on artificial compatibility, that doesn’t mean you can’t begin to build true intimacy. True intimacy can be pursued at any stage of marriage. It would be much better for everyone involved if, instead of seeking a divorce and building yet another relationship on artificial intimacy, the couple chooses to begin building true intimacy with God as the center of the relationship.
I can tell you this: the level of maturity it will take to rebuild a stale marriage instead of killing it and moving on can lead to some of the most transformative growth of your life. It will require hope, courage, patience, honesty, understanding, and perseverance — all key virtues for a Christ-like life.
How do you start building or rebuilding that intimacy? Well, that’s what “A Lifelong Love: Discovering How Intimacy with God Breathes Passion into Your Marriage” is all about.* To keep this blog post under 1000 words, all I can offer is this shocking (to some) diagnosis: if your marriage is frustrating or underwhelming, it’s possible that you haven’t even really experienced what true marital intimacy is all about. Doesn’t it make sense to first seek that out, instead of just starting over with someone else?
If you’d like to begin rebuilding intimacy in your marriage, we have some resources to help you get started:
- Java #357: Emotional Safety: What It Is and Why You Need It
- “Your Spouse Doesn’t Complete You” (Juli’s blog)
- Date Nights In (a four-week video series to help you talk, fight, and pray with your spouse about sex)
- “When You’re Attracted to Someone Who’s Not Your Spouse” (Juli’s blog)
- “Can You Spiritually Outgrow Your Marriage?” (Juli’s blog)
*This is an affiliate link. AI may earn referral fees from qualifying purchases.
This article was originally posted on 11/21/2016 at garythomas.com. Used with permission.
