Intimacy (Part Two)

In my first post, Intimacy (Part One), I talked about how intimacy with other people is so much more than the physical. I originally thought I was going to have even parts emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy, but I've discovered that I have more to say about emotional. I talked about how activities together and discussing them can establish emotional intimacy, but I thought of two more ways. Here goes:

Emotional Intimacy (continued)

A few days ago I met with a student who had to drop my class because of a new job. She complimented me on my teaching, expressed how she had learned helpful things in my class, and shook my hand. I thanked her for the work she had done, and I wished her luck in the future. It was a sincere exchange, and I believe we were both touched. One of the big reasons we connected (appropriately) was because during her time in class I learned about her past--for a reflective essay she opened up in an incredible essay about her experience in prison. One of the key points of establishing emotional intimacy is to share personal histories. We are who we are, but to a degree we also are where we've been and what we've done. Discussing our history is discussing why we are who we are.

Another aspect of emotional intimacy is learning the intricacies of the other person's personality. I first met my wife on a blind date picnic type of thing (I'll tell the whole story sometime because it's awesome). We were talking about various things--we both served missions, we are both from fairly large families, etc. I had brought four of those store-bought sugary cupcakes that have a huge dollop of unnaturally-colored icing on top. At one point when we were talking, she grabbed a cupcake and scraped off the icing before she started eating it. I actually followed her example, since the icing was too much. Anyway, I learned that she was the kind of girl who was confident enough to stand up for what she wanted. She didn't want to eat that icing, so she didn't. It's not the health-consciousness that I valued, but the courage and show of confidence in me that I wouldn't be offended.

Spiritual Intimacy

This is one aspect of intimacy that I haven't thought a lot about. Partly because of the guilt of unworthiness during potential spiritual connections I could have had with my wife. For example, attending the temple can be such a sweet experience, but when I was acting out I fought my wife about going and passive aggressively dragged my feet the whole way. It's unbelievable, though, how we can attend church together, even making comments while sitting next to each other, share thoughts about meetings, and generally share the same views but STILL not be completely spiritually intimate.  Perhaps it partly was due to my wife sensing my unwillingness and not feeling comfortable opening up. I'm going to have to think some more about this, but let me share one story about scripture study and the potential source of the lack of spiritual intimacy in my marriage.

When my wife and I were first married she was in the habit of reading her scriptures for a few minutes at night, and I started working on a giant scripture study project--reading the standard works in a year. I had mapped out how many pages I had to read every day and had an elaborate marking system. Sadly, our scripture study didn't have as helpful of an influence on our marriage as I would have hoped. On top of suspecting that my project was somewhat superficial, my wife also felt intimidated by it...and that somehow her nightly reading wasn't good enough. I felt the other side of it, pridefully wondering why she didn't do more and create some multi-month project to work on. We let pride--through overconfidence and poor self-esteem--keep us from connecting in our scripture study.

Physical Intimacy

I promise this isn't going to be about sex. In fact, this is probably closer to my two-part post (one here and two here) on why avoiding sex for a while can be a good thing in a marriage affected by lust addiction. Since we've made this commitment, I've noticed a few things about how dysfunctional our marriage was when it came to physical intimacy. I always thought (even as recently as a few posts ago) that the main problem in this area of our marriage was our mismatched libidos. I'm no longer convinced that's the case. I thought, if she had a higher libido, she'd initiate physical contact more and we'd feel more intimate. As a result of these kinds of thoughts, I'd think, well, if she's not going to  initiate, I'M going to have to to make sure my needs [wants? demands?] get met. 

I'm now starting to get a different picture of what's going on. The second thought above is essentially saying, "I don't trust my wife." It's hi-jacking our physical intimacy because I don't think it'll get to it's destination by itself or through any other means. This doesn't have to do with libido as much as it has to do with broken trust. This is a stark contrast to our pre-marriage relationship. When we first started dating, my wife was the one pursuing physical contact. She was the one who made sure we had a hug after our third date. She also expressed a desire to hold hands before I made the move, though she was nice enough to let me lead the way. And I guess that's my point. She sensed I was uncomfortable, so she let me take the lead. I've made my wife very uncomfortable through the repercussions of my addiction, yet I've selfishly ignored that and still taken the lead.

I've now committed to not initiating any physical contact between me and my wife. I won't even give her a hug without her first initiating it. It's been depressing in one way--each time I would have touched her arm or given her a big hug I feel bad. Both because I don't think it was entirely selfish (I did express my love partly through those kinds of acts), but because I see how often I took over. It's also been amazing to see how much better the physical intimacy is in our marriage. She's still learning how to take the lead, but at least she knows that she's in control...that if she doesn't want to be physically intimate, she doesn't have to. This is beginning to reestablish another aspect of an intimate relationship between us.

Here's an intimacy questionnaire based on the points I've made in both parts of these posts. I've phrased this in "you" format, but I'm actually just basing these based on my own limited knowledge with a desire to make myself feel proud (or guilty) about my effort (or my lack of efforts).

1. When in the past week did you create opportunities to experience new things with your spouse? 
2. (How much) did you discuss your thoughts and opinions about these experiences afterwards?
3. How many conversations in the past week have you asked questions about your spouse's past?
4. Have to taken time this week to make note of your spouse's preferences? Habits? World-view?
5. How often have you shared thoughts about things of a spiritual nature in the last seven days? 
6. This week, did whoever initiated physical intimacy more do so from a place of safety/trust?

In Hebrew, there's a word that really gets at the heart of intimacy: "to cleave." We usually think of "cleave" as meaning to cut something in two, as with a "cleaver." Something that is whole and one is afterwards two separate things. In Hebrew, this word means this as well as the exact opposite. So when the Lord commands man to "cleave" unto his wife, he means that their two lives need to be united...as if they were one thing. This is not just like with glue or tying with a rope--this is a uniting on a deep, inward level. Ironically, Satan also wants us to cleave with our wife, although he means the opposite. He wants to sever any connection we have. Part of the reason lust addiction makes him smile is because it's a giant wedge between husband and wife. Overcoming lust addiction is removing the wedge, but in order to follow God's meaning of the word, we need to become intimate with each other, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.