Eight Keys to Emotional Intimacy
The harmonious and supportive emotional life between you and your partner is essential to a happy and meaningful marriage. Emotional support and closeness are required not only in times of crisis but also daily. The feelings you have towards each other directly impact the way you cooperate, parent, speak, and create a home atmosphere. For children living in the home, it is as essential as the air they breathe.
More so than husbands, wives are usually very sensitive and dependent on these feelings of harmony and cooperation. Frequently, what matters most to them are their relationships with the significant people in their lives. Naturally, this is their husband and then their children. This is why, in most homes, wives are the emotional caretakers.
Wives continually monitor and take corrective action to ensure peace between family members or fix the situation or a person’s character if there is a problem. Every marriage counselor will agree that, in most cases, the wives initiate marriage counseling, and typically, the husbands are hesitant to participate.
Whereas wives are very sensitive to the emotional side of the marriage, the husbands are most concerned about the family’s material well-being. This is why many husbands have difficulty understanding and appreciating their wife’s insistence on more than a fat paycheck. What their wives care about most is a harmonious and loving emotional relationship. When they don’t get it, many women will turn to other pursuits to soothe their hurt feelings, such as excessive shopping. It may seem these women are concerned about material goods, but their obsession is really a psychological defense mechanism, i.e., a substitute for a good marital relationship. They are trying to fill their emotional emptiness with dresses, furniture, and even big houses. Husbands, clueless about what is happening, mistakenly feel the solution is to earn more money so their wives can shop more. This increases the wedge between the two of them. After years of disappointment and frustration, many men are perplexed about why their wives give up, turn, and want nothing to do with them. After all, they think, haven’t I been a good provider? Yes, they may have provided money and all the benefits that it provides, but they failed to provide a harmonious and loving emotional relationship. Even worse, some husbands feel entitled to criticize and express anger toward their wives, creating a hellish atmosphere in the home.
The Torah (Jewish bible and commentaries) is very clear about how careful a husband has to be when talking with his wife:
It is necessary to be very careful not to be abusive to one’s wife. Not to cause her pain with [harsh] words. Her tears come quickly, and the abuser will be quickly punished [by G-d].
As a general rule, husbands should, and only if absolutely necessary, gently and respectfully criticize their wives no more than once a month, and they should never get angry at them except in extreme situations. Wives have good memories, and criticizing them frequently is counterproductive. Research has shown that couples with a good marriage have a ratio of five positive interactions to each negative. Unfortunately, the negatives make more of a lasting impression than the positives. (Husbands- Your best shot at getting your wives to want to do things your way is by creating love in the relationships, and they will naturally want to please you, i.e., do it your way.)
Although I have primarily addressed the husband’s responsibility, it also applies to wives. In many cases, wives naturally come by these positive character traits, whereas the husbands have to work harder to obtain them. Thus, the following guidelines apply to both husbands and wives.
How to Create a Harmonious and Warm Emotional Relationship:
1. Don’t criticize more than once a month. It’s better not to criticize at all. If you must, do it gently and respectfully.
2. Always talk calmly and cheerfully. It is often not what you say but how you say it. Choose words that don’t offend or can be misunderstood as a negative comment. Some people appreciate jokes and kibitzing, while others don’t. Be sensitive.
3. Try to do favors for your partner continually.
4. Make an effort to really understand what your partner is saying, even if they are angry or frustrated with you.
5. Treat your marital partner better than your friends and co-workers. This is never true with couples who get divorced or who are in chronic conflict.
6. You must work at your marriage to make it succeed like you work to succeed at anything else in life.
7. Be respectful and kind to your partner’s extended family in thought, speech, and deed. You do it for your spouse, not because you like or dislike them.
8. Try to forgive quickly. A peaceful and harmonious relationship is the top priority in your marriage. Dismissing disappointment or upset quickly gives space for positive feelings and experiences.
These should be goals. Few individuals ever master them perfectly. However, goals are necessary to go in the right direction minimally. The more you accomplish, the better the health of your emotional relationship. Also, remember that just because you commit to treating your partner better, don’t expect immediate results. You know what you are doing, but your partner does not, as well as the one-to-five rule, five positive interactions to each negative one, as discussed above. If you have mistreated your partner for years, it can take many months to turn things around. Sometimes, it can also happen quickly depending on your partner’s temperament and their effort but don’t have this expectation.
There are several basic components necessary to a healthy marriage. Each component can be likened to the strings in a rope. A rope is strong only when each string is also strong. Similarly, a marriage is strong when all the essential parts function as they should. A healthy emotional relationship between a husband and wife is absolutely essential to a satisfying and long-lasting marriage. Daily interactions must consistently communicate genuine care, affection, and loyalty.
