Intimacy is an essential part of any relationship. Whether you are just beginning something new, or you’ve been in a relationship for a while, it’s important to make a habit of building this intimate bond between yourself and your partner. While many assume intimacy comes naturally in any relationship, it is something that must be cultivated over time.
Growing Intimacy in Relationships
As humans, we all have the desire and innate need to be close with others. In a relationship, this intimacy is much more than sex. Couples must build their own form of long-term intimacy that allows them to feel loved, valued, and understood. This closeness keeps their bond strong and allows the relationship to keep moving forward.
Looking for ways to grow intimacy in a relationship? Keep reading.
1. Start with Gratitude
Building intimacy in a relationship starts by showing your partner that you are thankful for them. This gratitude can be expressed through heartfelt “thank yous” but should also be shown in the way that you treat your partner.
This kind of gratitude should be exhibited everyday. Do this by letting your partner know how grateful you are to have them in your life. During quiet moments, take time to reflect on the memories that brought you closer together. Think about the first time you met, your first time being physically intimate, and anything else that re-awakens feelings of love and thankfulness for your partner.
2. Learn to Be More Open
If openness isn’t easy for you, you’ll have to work on this as you aim to become more intimate with your partner. Even the most private of people need to be able to open up their lives, emotions, and innermost thoughts with their partner. While this may not be easy, it is essential for partners that are hoping to grow closer to each other.
3. Practice Honesty
In addition to this openness, it’s equally as important to be honest with your significant other. Yes, there may be things about yourself that you may not want to share, but without honesty, there will always be a barrier between you and your partner.
Truly feeling intimate requires that you are “naked” with your partner. By holding nothing back, you’ll be able to experience a closeness like nothing else you’ve felt before.
4. Try to Comfort Your Partner
We all have different love languages. As you work to build an intimate bond between each other, you and your partner will need to learn each other’s love language. While we all find different things to be comforting, every person needs someone in their corner that will support them and show up for them.
Where most couples go wrong in creating intimate feelings is failing to understand how to act with their partners when things aren’t going well. Each person may respond positively or negatively to certain actions, so it’s important to learn how to treat your partner.
5. Be Practical About Your Relationship
Yes, there are moments where relationships rival the best scenes in our favorite romantic comedies, but when it comes to long-term intimate bonds, we must be practical.
The truth is that intimate feelings can be found in the simplest of things. Practical things like creating a budget together or going over plans for the future can make you feel completed bonded to your partner in ways that no rom-com love story could.
6. Talk About How You Grew Up
While you may not think sharing about your childhood as a way to build an intimate bond, it is an excellent opportunity for you to establish an intimate bond with your partner.
Going over all the joy and pain you felt growing up will give your partners a certain insight into your mind, allowing them to understood how you grew into the adult you are now.
7. Discuss Self-Improvement
Just as self-improvement helps us grow closer to ourselves, discussing self-improvement as a couple will help both partners improve their sense of intimacy. Begin this discussion by talking about how you’ve watched your partner grow, telling them how proud you are of them.
Just as we all need to actively pursue self improvement, it is necessary for couples to intentionally push their relationships to the point where they can grow even more.
When discussing self-improvement for your relationship, start by having a conversation about certain things you’ve been thinking about but have been hesitant to talk about. These things can include a fear of judgement, being misunderstood, or not feeling like you are being valued the way you should be.
8. Listen to Each Other More
Growing closer to each other doesn’t always need to be a complex and emotionally heavy experience. Simply encouraging your partner to talk to you will bring you both closer to each other.
During this kind of conversation, it’s important to completely focus on one another. Oftentimes, having a conversation about basic everyday things will lead to even deeper conversations.
9. Be Vulnerable
Vulnerability isn’t comfortable to experience, but it is a shortcut to becoming intimate with your partner. As you get to know someone, you’ll begin to become more and more vulnerable.
With a long-term partner, it can be easy to forget this vulnerability that you initially had in the beginning of the relationship. As you aim to become more vulnerable, it is important to ensure that your partner does the same. A relationship where vulnerability
is one-sided is one that is unhealthy.
10. Ask Questions
Being inquisitive will naturally lead you to know more about your partner. Whether you’ve known your significant other for a while or you just started dating, your partner is an individual that you will never stop learning about. Just as you are always changing, so is your partner.
Keep asking questions as you grow closer in your relationship. These questions will serve as a way to keep you in tune with your partner’s innermost thoughts and feelings.
11. Practice All Forms of Intimacy
While intimacy is more than just sex, there are various types of intimate bonds. By tying in all forms, you’ll find that you are closer to your partner than you’ve ever been:
- Physical
- Intellectual
- Emotional
Every aspect of being intimate is needed for you to grow closer to your partner. Many experts suggest that appreciating and talking about all three forms of becoming intimate is the best way for couples to improve their understanding of them.
Going back to expressing gratitude, showing your partner that you are thankful for how they touch you, how they make you feel, and how they understand you on an intellectual level will strengthen these intimate feelings in them.
12. Tell Your Partner That You Love Them and Why
Whether this is stroking your partner’s ego or not, it’s always nice to hear all the reasons that someone loves you.
Telling your partner that you love them is an important part of building an intimate bond as it is essential that your partner understands that you really do love them, and vice versa.
13. Keep Dating Each Other
As a relationship grows, it’s natural for that initial spark to fade away, That is why it is so important that couples intentionally keep this flame alive. By making it a point to have regular date nights, couples will be actively working towards growing their intimate bond.
Consider the following date ideas:
1. Work Out Together
Working up a sweat together helps to build your body, as well as bringing you and your partner closer together. The endorphins that are released during exercise helps couples to feel more positively about each other.
2. Spend Time Reading
While most people envision a date as an outing with their significant other, this doesn’t have to be the case. Spending time reading good books and discussing them together will allow both partners to feel more intimate.
3. Work on Your Home Together
This may not seem like a date, but it is definitely a way to bring couples closer together. Whether you undergo an extreme home makeover or simply do a few household chores together, you’ll find that these activities help you to feel more intimate with your partner.
4. Engage in an Extreme Sport
There’s a reason couples on the Bachelor go on extreme dates like skydiving or paint-balling. Going through these nerve-wracking experiences together help to make couples feel more attracted to each other.
Final Thoughts on Intimacy in Relationship
True love is built on how intimate couples become with each other. While some people are under the impression that love doesn’t always last, it can. However, to ensure that couples remain committed to each other, each partner must make a committed effort to grow closer to the other.
There is no one way to build intimacy in the relationship. Keep this in mind when applying these strategies to your love life as you aim to get closer than ever to your significant other.
