The Intimate Marriage
by Howard J. and Charlotte H. Clinebell

Chapter 2: The Many Facets Of Intimacy

Someone asked me

To name the time

Our friendship stopped

And love began.

Oh, my darling,

That's the secret.

Our friendship

Never stopped.

What is intimacy? Is it something a couple really wants? How do they know when they have achieved it? Is it possible for everyone? What are its varying forms and degrees? Does it stifle individuality or make people too dependent on each other? The dictionary and the thesaurus, in defining intimacy, list such widely divergent words and phrases as "friendship, closeness, communion, familiarity, pertaining to the inmost being, sexual relations, illicit sexual commerce, fornication." The word "intimacy," like "love," is a symbol that carries a freight of meanings as diverse as a peddler's wares. It is clear that some guiding image of intimacy is needed -- an emotionally alive picture (2) that will provide guidelines for couples in their search. The picture presented here is tentative. It must be so

since exploration of this important human experience is only beginning. One thing stands out .sharply: intimacy in marriage can be rich and diamond like in its many facets. Some of these facets are difficult to describe adequately with the frail vessels of meaning we call words. Certainly, in any depth encounter, there is a prominent element of mystery. Some of the mystery in the experience of intimacy has been put into words by Gibran in his essay "On Friendship":

In that most intimate of friendships called marriage, the opportunities and demands for a relationship of depth are pervasive. Intimacy is an art with as many expressions as there are artists to express it. It is often expressed in the sharing of thoughts and ideas and feelings. It is expressed in shared joys and sorrows, in respect for the deepest needs of the other person, and in the struggle to understand him. Intimacy does not suggest a saccharine sentimentalism; it can be expressed in constructive conflict which is the growing edge of a relationship. Intimacy is not a constant, but is expressed in varying degrees in the ebb and flow of day-in, day-out living. And intimacy is never a once-and-for-all achievement but must be nurtured throughout marriage; with this care, it grows and changes with the stages and seasons of marriage.

An intimate marital relationship requires certain qualities of the husband and wife as individuals as well as of the interaction between them.

Intimacy grows as couples dare to risk greater openness. As each partner becomes more honest with himself and more aware of his own faults, and his own need to blame the other for their conflict, the wall between them begins to come down, block by block. Each of us feels the need to hide at times, behind a mask of self-sufficiency or self-justification, particularly when conflict threatens or self-esteem is weak. Only as each individual relaxes his mask and becomes more transparent (openness) can intimacy develop in the relationship.

Carl R. Rogers uses the term congruence to describe one aspect of openness.(4) Congruence means being a real person, not being phony or putting on an act. It means knowing and owning one's feelings; it means to "ring true" as a human being. There is a kind of inner honesty and consistency in a congruent person which makes it possible to know and to relate to him.

In order to have peace, many couples put aside certain subjects -- those that are emotionally charged -- those that are important for their coming to a true mutual understanding. Thus bit by bit the transparent window which the relationship of man and wife should be, becomes blurred. They are starting to become strangers to one another.(5)

Intimacy thus requires mutual openness and the willingness to risk genuine encounter or meeting in areas which are important to either partner. Intimacy grows as couples learn to be emotionally present to each other. The concept of presence is taken from the thinking of the existentialists in psychotherapy.

The immediacy and unclothedness of our meeting can only be suggested by the word "presence." We are a presence for each other -- a personal presence available to the other. The feeling tone is one of utter lack of alienation and strangeness to each other -- of at-homeness.(6)

Two people can live in the same house for decades without ever being present for each other, without ever experiencing a joining or linking of thoughts and feelings, longings and fears, dreams and delights. The wife who protested, "I feel like you're a thousand miles away" was speaking to her husband who was "absent" in the same room. This was an obvious experience of lack of presence at that moment in their relationship. Cultivation of the quality of presence is essential for the experience of intimacy.

Intimacy grows as couples develop a high degree of caring for each other. Affectionate concern for the partner's safety, well-being, and growth as a person is an essential ingredient in an intimate relationship. It is this mutual caring which makes for responsiveness and complementarity (mutual need-satisfaction). The development of intimacy depends on one's caring enough to make a continuing self-investment in the relationship and in meeting the needs of the other. But it is also true that caring develops as a result of the giving as well as the receiving in the relationship. Mutual giving or complementarity includes being a warm, responsive, earthy, and responsible human being to the other.

Intimacy grows in a climate of trust based on commitment to fidelity and continuity. Couples who enter marriage with the assumption that they can easily dissolve the relationship have already jeopardized its success, at least as an intimate relationship. The commitment of each partner to the other and to the relationship over time, "for better or for worse," is essential to the development of intimacy. Marital partners who find it easier or less demanding of self-investment to meet their sexual or emotional needs outside the marriage will not achieve intimacy. It is the "we're in this thing together" attitude which allows a couple to use periods of crisis, conflict, or even estrangement, as challenges to work harder at deepening and expanding the relationship.

INTIMACY AND AUTONOMY

One of the marks of genuine intimacy is the respect for the need of each partner for periods of aloneness-- for the natural rhythm of intimacy and solitude in a relationship. It is a costly fallacy to assume, as some romantic illusions about marriage do, that an "intimate marriage" is one in which husbands and wives do everything together. Our conformist, group-minded "other-directed" culture, as David Riesmann makes clear, cultivates the idea that aloneness is somehow dangerous or a sign of maladjustment.(8) The popular version of "togetherness" is often a kind of pseudo-intimacy, an attempt to escape from loneliness by blending into the "lonely crowd." If marital partners are too dependent on each other for a sense of self-worth and even identity, there is a kind of compulsive togetherness which is not genuine intimacy. The values of savoring a book alone, for example, are lost. There is a kind of clinging quality which reveals the fear of desertion underlying the sticky quality of such a relationship.

In his study of the "self-actualizing" person, Abraham Maslow found that some persons do not need relationships in the same way that many others do.(9) Because they have a firm sense of their own identity and a dependable feeling of worth within themselves, they are able to relish both intimacy and autonomy. There are two major sets of needs in all of us -- the needs for dependence, love, and nurturance, on the one hand, and the needs for autonomy, self-fulfillment, achievement, and independence, on the other.(10) The desired balance between these two sets of needs is different for each individual and for the same individual at different times in his life. These differences are reflected in the distance-closeness needs and, at times, in the conflicts of two marital partners. Those who in childhood were formed to sacrifice their autonomy in order to receive love carry a sense of conflict between dependence and independence into adult life.

Creative or growth-producing intimacy depends on each person's sense of his own personhood. Having an identity of one's own is necessary before one can develop a shared identity with another. Having one's own center of meaning and existence -- being a person in one's own right -- makes intimate meeting and union with another possible. An intimate relation is an I-Thou relationship. For such a relationship to develop, there must be an I and a Thou. In Ross Snyder's words, "At the same time that we have a sense of immediacy of contact with his life, we recognize the otherness of the other person. Each of us is a center and is meant to be a center."(11) The union of intimacy is always only partial. With it goes a sense of communion -- which requires the presence of two individuals joined deeply, but still individuals. Creative intimacy has respect f<or needed privacy -- one's own and one's partner's -- as an indispensable ingredient.

THE DIMENSIONS OF INTIMACY

Many couples are surprised and stimulated by discovering that intimacy is like an instrument of many strings. There are more areas in which creative closeness can grow than most couples even suspect. The music which couples make together comes from playing on a variety of combinations of strings. Each couple should aim at discovering the particular harmony and melody of intimacy which they find most satisfying. Their musical pattern will vary at different periods in their marriage. At various times, the music will be interrupted by silence or disharmony.

Most couples who make a serious effort can achieve intimacy in several of the dimensions of their relationship. Here are some of the major opportunities for marital intimacy: Sexual intimacy is for many couples the axis around which other forms of intimacy cluster. The marital relationship provides the optimum setting in which to develop the blend of sensual-emotional satisfactions which is sex at its best.

Sexual intimacy is more than the bringing together of sexual organs, more than the reciprocal sensual arousal of both partners, more even than mutual fulfillment in orgasm. It is the experience of sharing and self-abandon in the merging of two persons, expressed by the biblical phrase "to become one flesh."

Emotional intimacy is the depth awareness and sharing of significant meanings and feelings -- the touching of the inmost selves of two human beings. Emotional intimacy is the foundation of all other forms of intimacy. Couples whose inner worlds of meaning overlap become tuned to each other's emotional wavelengths so that they can often sense what the other is feeling long before a word is uttered. Some couples even have dreams which seem to be connected.

Intellectual intimacy is the closeness resulting from sharing the world of ideas. Oliver Wendell Holmes once stated: "A man's mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions." Sharing mind-stretching experiences -- reading a great book, studying an issue of joint concern, discussing a stimulating lecture -- can bring a special quality of intimacy. There must be a genuine touching of minds based on mutual respect for each other's intellectual capacities. Couples who have a wide discrepancy in educational backgrounds sometimes find intellectual intimacy more difficult to achieve.

Aesthetic intimacy is the depth sharing of experiences of beauty. One couple finds a special closeness in relaxing very near to each other as the stereo plays the soul-moving strains of a magnificent symphony. Another experiences together the raptures of natural beauty -- the sun sparkling on whitecaps; a grove of giant sequoia; the fury of a mountain storm; the tranquillity of a mountainside at sunset. Others find it in great art. Drinking from the common cup of beauty, wherever it is found, is an experience of communion for many couples.

Creative intimacy is the intimacy of shared creativity. Conceiving and parenting children is an act involving many forms of creativity -- biological, emotional, social, spiritual. The middle years, when "generativity" (Erikson(12)) is the central task of the ego, constitute a period of shared creativity in that the two are joining their skills and persons in generating new life between each other and in the family and community. Creative intimacy often is linked to aesthetic intimacy in that what is created together is something of beauty -- a garden, a house, a musical expression, a painting. Creative marital intimacy, at its heart, is the experience of helping each other grow -- to be co-creators (not reformers) of each other, engaged in the mutuality of feeding the heart hungers of each other so that each can realize his potentialities as a person. Ross Snyder declares: "A marriage is not just a personal relationship of affection between two people; it is a joint venture into a life of growth."(13)

Recreational intimacy may be for newlyweds synonymous with sexual intimacy. Gradually, the pattern of play broadens to become more inclusive, and to involve other activities. Recreational intimacy is essential to the mental health of the partners, refilling the wells of energy and allowing one's "Child" side, in Eric Berne's (14) terms, to rejuvenate the personality through stress-relieving play.

Work intimacy is the closeness which comes from sharing in a broad range of common tasks involved in maintaining a house, raising a family, earning a living, and participating in community projects. Married partners face many common problems in which they join their strengths and support each other in bearing responsibilities and loads. In work-oriented marriages, this form of intimacy is one of the major channels for developing closeness. Work intimacy needs to be balanced with other forms, particularly recreational intimacy. The shared satisfactions of achieving relatively minor objectives such as redecorating a recreation room and the long-term goals of seeing one's children launched in their marriages and vocations -- these are derivatives of working as a team. But the joining of hands in mutual tasks in itself can have a deepening effect on a marriage; the mutuality which stems from the feeling of a job well done is an added bonus of work intimacy.

Crisis intimacy is the strength which stems from standing together against the buffeting of fate; standing together in the major and minor tragedies which are persistent threads in the cloth from which family life is woven. Included are the times of internal testing, when a crisis occurs in the marriage itself as the shifting tides of circumstance and the pressures of aging throw the relationship off balance for a while. This particular form of crisis intimacy, derived from facing and struggling with differences, might be called "conflict intimacy." Coping successfully with the threats of internal and external crisis, through the years, helps to cement marriage ties. One couple said after the ordeal of his near-fatal auto accident and six-month hospitalization: "It was sheer hell while it was happening but it has given us a new love for life and each other."



Commitment intimacy is the core feeling of ongoing mutuality which develops in a marriage in which there is shared dedication to some value or cause that is bigger than the family, something that both partners regard as worthy of self-investment. Being captured by a common cause that turns on enthusiasm and conviction provides a powerful bond in a marriage.

Spiritual intimacy is the nearness that develops through sharing in the area of ultimate concerns, the meanings of life (to both partners), their relationship to the universe and to God. For many it is the sense of a transcendent relatedness which provides a firm foundation or supportive ground for transient human relatedness. Participation in the life of a church or synagogue, and in the century-spanning heritage of a couple's religious tradition, often stimulates and nurtures the development of spiritual intimacy.

The common characteristic of these various expressions of intimacy is that each has the potentiality for drawing the marital partners together. Collectively, they allow opportunities for the lives of two human beings to touch significantly in an increasing number of areas. Many couples have achieved satisfying intimacy in at least a few areas. The opportunity which is before all couples is to increase the number of areas in which depth sharing occurs. This can happen as a result of planned and persistent effort, choosing the goals that attract both and planning strategy for moving toward them, remembering that there needs to be a balance among the various dimensions of intimacy in order to enrich the relationship and prevent any one facet of the relationship from being overloaded.

Of course, joint participation in any of these areas is no guarantee of intimacy. Some couples participate in one or more of these areas -- sexual, aesthetic, recreational, work, for example -- without the growth of any sense of organic one-ness. (They are something like nursery children at certain stages who play along-side others but not really "with" them.) In such parallel marriages, the pall of loneliness is not really dispelled.

"Intimacy" refers to two different things in marriage: (a) a close moment or period of intense sharing; (b) an ongoing quality of the relationship which is present even in times of some distance and conflict. The latter is the undergirding "we-ness" of a good marriage. Increasing moments and periods of intense closeness help to establish the abiding sense of dependable oneness. It is important to understand how the quality of intimacy develops.

Complementary interaction produces a gradual narrowing of the emotional distance until there is, in Eric Berne's terms, "a genuine interlocking of personalities,"(15) or intimacy. What develops is a kind of psychological union. In both Hebrew and Greek, the verb "to know" is the same word as to have sexual intercourse. Clearly, to really know one's marital partner requires a kind of union. Such a union is the heart of intimacy. In it, the aloneness of a man and a woman's existential condition are transcended and, to some degree, overcome.

Erikson describes the union of personalities which is intimacy when he defines love as "The mutuality of mates and partners in a shared identity, for the mutual verification through an experience of finding oneself, as one loses oneself in another."(16) The key ideas here are "shared identity" and "finding oneself [through losing] oneself in another."

The idea of shared identity opens the door to an understanding of the essence of the experience of marital intimacy. As two people continue to relate in the ways we have been describing, the breadth and depth of their relationship increase. Thus develops a new and unique psychological entity -- the marital relationship. Psychiatrist Nathan Ackerman calls this entity the "marital pair identity."(17) T. S. Eliot points to this reality of shared identity when he makes one of his characters exclaim to his partner, "The new person -- us!"(18) It is this "us" or "we" feeling that identifies the existence of a relationship of ongoing intimacy. Anne Philipe writes with sensitivity to this: "There was this you and this I and this we, which was not exactly you plus me, and which was coming to birth and would surpass us and contain us."(19) In other words, the marital identity is more than the sum of what each partner brings to the relationship. It is the sum of these, plus what they become together in their interaction. In the language of Gestalt psychology, the marital identity develops when there is an overlapping and a partial merging of psychological fields or worlds of meanings, of the two partners.

In some marriages the "we" feeling never develops. These are the still-born relationships in which the participants continue to live alone together, as though they were still single psychologically. In those marriages in which the "we" feeling does emerge, it does so slowly, with struggle and with frequent retreats into psychological singleness. Anne Philipe recalls:

The development of some degree of shared identity occurs in any close relationship. Emerson's familiar statement, "I am a part of every man whose path has crossed mine," states a basic psychological truth -- viz., that our relationships become a part of us. The unique opportunity in a good marriage is that of developing a degree of shared identity through a continuity and fidelity of relating seldom available in any other context. Two people who have lived together for forty years, having experienced the sun- light and shadow of married life and rearing a family, have shared many dimensions of their lives. If there has been what Ross Snyder calls "creative fidelity" -- "long term commitment to the growth of the other and to the 'both'" (21) -- such a marital pair

has a pro- found and marvelous degree of closeness. The pity is that so many couples are unable to use their years of being together to deepen their relationship.

DEGREES OF INTIMACY

In their study of sexual and marital behavior among affluent couples married for ten years or more, Cuber and Harroff discovered five recurring configurations of male-female relationships in marriages.(22) The first was the conflict-habituated. These were couples for whom fighting seemed almost a way of life. Their dominant mode of relating was through the exchange of hostility. A kind of intimacy can develop in such a relationship. It may be, as some psychiatrists have suggested, that the need to do battle with one another is the cohesion that holds these couples together.

The second pattern consisted of the devitalized. Often these couples reported being deeply in love in the early years of marriage -- including spending a great deal of time together and enjoying sex. Now these relationships have become voids. The zest is gone. Sex is much less satisfying qualitatively and quantitatively. Little time is spent together and there are few shared interests. Some seemed resigned to their apathetic, "habit-cage" existence. Others were less accepting; both assumed that "marriage is like this." In such relationships there is occasional sharing, if only of a memory. One man said, "Tomorrow we are celebrating the anniversary of our anniversary."(23) The intimacy in these marriages seems to be mainly an unburied corpse. They illustrate an important truth — that intimacy can never be taken for granted. It can be lost.

The third pattern, the passive-congenial, is much like the devitalized, except that the passivity has been there from the beginning. There is little conflict. Things are polite, convenient, and conventional. There is some sharing of common interests. Sex is often regarded, by both partners, as of little importance. Unlike the devitalized, there is no sense of "barren gullies in their lives left by the erosion of earlier satisfactions."(24)

The fourth mode of marriage, the vital, stands in sharp contrast to the previous three types, although these couples say and do many of the same things. The difference is the presence in the vital marriages of a high degree of intimacy: But when the close, intimate, confidential, empathic look is taken, the essence of the vital relationship becomes clear: the mates are intensely bound together psychologically in important life matters. Their sharing and their togetherness is genuine. It provides the life essence for both man and woman.(25)

One of the husbands of such a couple reported: "The things we do together aren't fun intrinsically -- the ecstasy comes from being together in the doing. Take her out of the picture and I wouldn't give a damn for the boat, the lake, or any of the fun that goes on there." People in this kind of vital relationship know that their style of life is not comprehensible to most of their associates. One such couple declared, "The big part of our lives is completely mutual. . . ." Their central satisfactions are found in "the life they live with and through each other."

The total relationship, the fifth pattern, is like the vital, but there are many more points of vital meshing. In some cases there is vital sharing in all the important areas. One husband described his wife of thirty years as his "friend, mistress and partner."(26) This kind of multifaceted intimacy, as Cuber and Harroff indicate, is rare, in marriage or out, but it does exist.

These five types of marital relationships do not necessarily represent degrees of marital stability. Most of those in all five categories said that they were reasonably content, if not happy. What they represent is five styles of relating and different degrees of intimacy. There are undoubtedly many other styles and degrees of intimacy. It should be noted that there are many factors in addition to intimacy and happiness which play a role in holding a marriage together.(27)

What is the optimal degree of intimacy in a marriage? There is no arbitrary way of determining this. Rather, each couple must work out its own most-satisfying pattern of intimacy. Intimacy is different for different people. In all marriages there are cycles of moving toward and moving away from one's spouse. In some marriages contact can be maintained for a brief time only. In others the tolerance for intimacy is so low that the partners seldom, if ever, really touch. Still others, like the vital and total relationships, can luxuriate in intimacy for longer periods of time. Most of us achieve depth relatedness only a small part of the time and in certain limited areas of our marriages. In spite of the designation "total" relationship in the study cited above, it is our experience that there are at one time or another walls in every marriage, sometimes high, sometimes low. Most of us long for more intimacy than we have found. We hunger for the walls to be lowered. The message of this book is that significant lowering of the walls usually is possible, if a couple is willing to work at developing the potential for joy, pleasure, and creativity in their marriage.

TAKING ACTION

Discuss your reactions to the ideas in Chapter 2. At what points are they relevant to your marriage? Make an inventory of the facets of your marriage in which you feel that you have achieved some degree of sharing and sense of closeness. You may find it helpful to use the "Marital Intimacy Checkup" to identify the areas in which each of you would like to improve your relationship. The form headed "Marital Intimacy Action Plan" may be useful in planning your approach to this improvement. Or you may prefer a less-structured approach to understanding and im- proving your relationship. Do it in your own way. The important thing is to begin discovering how to apply the ideas that make sense to you, in your relationship.

MARITAL INTIMACY CHECKUP

(Instructions: After discussing each area, check the blanks that apply to your relationship.)

Both Wife Husband

Desire Desires Desires

Improve- Improve- Improve- Both

Facets of Intimacy ment ment ment Satisfied

1. Sexual Intimacy

2. Emotional Intimacy

(Being tuned to each other's wavelength)

3. Intellectual Intimacy

(Closeness in the world)

4. Aesthetic Intimacy

(Sharing experiences of beauty)

5. Creative Intimacy

(Sharing in acts of creating together)

6. Recreational Intimacy

(Relating in experiences of fun and play)

7. Work Intimacy

(The closeness of sharing common tasks)

8. Crisis Intimacy

(Closeness in coping with problems and pain)

9. Conflict Intimacy

(Facing and struggling with differences)

10. Commitment Intimacy

(Mutuality derived from common self-investment)

11. Spiritual Intimacy

(The we-ness in sharing ultimate concerns)

12. Communication Intimacy

(The source of all types of true intimacy)

MARITAL INTIMACY ACTION PLAN

(Instructions: In those areas in which both of you desire improvement, discuss specific next steps which you feel can be taken to increase the degree of mutuality and meaningful closeness in each area. If you agree on specific action in one or more areas, decide on how you will go about implementing your plan. If you agree on what you want to do in several areas, decide on which should have priority. Jot down the main ideas for action under the appropriate categories below. If you cannot agree on any concrete plan in any area in which you both desire change, you may need to consult a marriage counselor.)

Sexual Intimacy:

Emotional Intimacy:

Intellectual Intimacy:

Aesthetic Intimacy:

Creative Intimacy:

Recreational Intimacy:

Work Intimacy: Crisis Intimacy:

Conflict Intimacy:

Commitment Intimacy:

Spiritual Intimacy:

Communication Intimacy:

NOTES

1. Lois Wyse, Love Poems for the Very Married (Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1967), p. 41.

2. We are indebted to Ross Snyder for this conception of guiding images.

3. Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940), p. 64.

4. Carl R. Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961), pp. 47-49.

5. Paul Tournier, To Understand Each Other (Richmond, Va.: John Knox Press, 1967), p. 14.

6. Ross Snyder, unpublished paper entitled "Married Life," p. 7.

7. Wyse, op. cit., p. 51. 8. David Riesmann, The Lonely Crowd (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1954), p. 183.

9. Abraham Maslow, Motivation and Personality (New York: Harper & Row, 1954). 40 ) The intimate Marriage

10. For a classic study of these two sets of needs see John Levy and Ruth Monroe, The Happy Family (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938).

11. Snyder, "Married Life," p. 6.

12. Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963).

13. Ross Snyder, "Married Life," p. 17.

14. Eric Berne, Gomes People Play (New York: Grove Press, 1964).

15. Eric Berne, Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (New York: Grove Press, 1961), p. 86.

16. Erik Erikson, Insight and Responsibility (New York: W. W. Norton, 1964), p. 128 (italics added).

17. Nathan Ackerman, The Psychodynamics of Family Life (New York: Basic Books, 1958), p.22.

18, T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1950), Act two, p. 137.

19. Anne Philipe, No Longer Than a Sigh (New York: Atheneum, 1964), p. 34.

20. Ibid., p. 86.

21. Snyder, "Married Life," p. 13.

22. John Cuber and Peggy Harroff, The Significant Americans (New York: Appleton-Century, 1965).

23. Ibid., p. 50.

 

24. Ibid., p. 54.

25. ibid., p. 55.

26. ibid., p. 58.

27. For a discussion of the multiple factors influencing marital cohesion see "Marital Cohesiveness and Dissolution: An Integrative Review" by George Leninger, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 27, No. I (February, 1965), pp. 19-28.