A Couple Coming towards Each Other: Enhancing Intimacy through Self-Awareness

It often happens that couple’s intimacy experiences difficulties for the simple reason that the partners don’t know, or are unwilling, to come towards one another. Each believes his/her way of thinking and doing things is “the right way”. In addition, women in general often feel they are not loved; men often feel they are being criticized. Becoming aware of how all these hinder your intimacy will enable you to come towards each other and “help” your partner feel loved, understood and accepted.

In the following example I show how a couple’s behaviors and attitudes can make or break their intimacy. I describe them BEFORE they are Self-Aware and AFTER they have developed awareness.

BOB & JANE’S INTIMACY

BEFORE Bob & Jane develop awareness:

Every evening, when Bob returns home from work, he puts down his briefcase and goes to work on the computer. Jane goes after him, asks him to sit with her, eat dinner together, watch a movie on TV or go out to see friends. When he refuses, she cries.

BOB & JANE’S LACK OF SELF-AWARENESS HARMS THEIR RELATIONSHIP

Bob escapes to his computer because he feels that Jane is “smothering” him. Jane pursues him because she feels that he’s “abandoning” her. They repeat the same behaviors day after day: Bob comes home and goes to the computer; Jane begs him to stay with her.

When Bob and Jane repeat the same behaviors night after night, they’re functioning according to fixed, automatic emotional and behavioral patterns which are out of their control. They are NOT capable of choosing to behave otherwise.

Let’s see now what happens after they become aware.

AFTER Bob & Jane develop awareness:

Wishing wholeheartedly to stay together and maintain a loving relationship, Bob and Jane decide they must understand, once and for all, what drives them to behave the ways they do and find out what they can do to improve their relationship.

They are determined to develop their Self-Awareness and work together on improving their relationship.
To their surprise, they find out things about themselves they haven’t realized until now:

BOB

Bob understands that his “escaping to the computer” is driven by the FEAR OF BEING SMOTHERED by his partner.
He realizes that his escape-patte
is controlled by the way he interpreted his mother’s behavior towards him.

Whether out of love for him or maybe out of control issues (and probably both), she “was there for him” all the time: making sure that he ate and dressed properly and had everything he wanted. Bob has unconsciously interpreted her behavior as smothering.

He then developed a FEAR OF BEING SMOTHERED which affected his relationship with Jane (as well as with previous partners).
JANE

Jane understands that her “smothering behavior” is driven by the FEAR OF ABANDONMENT.

Thinking back over her childhood-experiences she notices that she experienced her parents completely differently from the way Bob experienced his mother. Her parents were so busy at work, making a living and paying the mortgage, that they had very little time to be with her and her siblings. She unconsciously interpreted their behavior as rejection and abandonment.

This has driven her to develop the fear of abandonment which affected her relationship with Bob (as well as with previous partners) by being too smothering and “needy”.

BOB & JANE IMPROVED INTIMACY

Having gained this awareness Bob & Jane are now able to free themselves from the power these patterns have exerted over them and work together on a satisfying and balanced relationship, being careful to respect each other’s space, on the one hand, and need for closeness on the other.