Developing Emotional Intimacy

Series Summary

Romantic love is a wonderful thing. Finding a kindred soul can make every action in life meaningful and rewarding. This happily-ever-after ending is ingrained into consciousness from a young age. Growing up on fairy tales and romantic comedies, we know how to deal with the beginning stages of romantic love. Unfortunately, few are prepared for the demise of a relationship. Nonetheless, circumstances develop, people change and love can disappear. Struggling through a failing marriage or relationship is no doubt one of the hardest and most challenging experiences, but it's the perfect opportunity for personal growth and fulfillment. In this free video series on relationships, the author of a marriage counseling book discusses key points of marriage and divorce. Discover the main fundamentals of a successful relationship, which include love, trust, friendship, communication and mutual respect. Find out how to compromise in a marriage to keep it working, and learn ways to add a bit of romance to spice things up. Find out how to identify a cheating spouse, and get advice about deciding on divorce.

Video Transcript

"I'm Joe Cuenco with Family Resources and today we're going to be talking about how to make marriages grow stronger and closer, specifically how to develop emotional intimacy. This is something that a lot of couples really struggle with, developing a sense of emotional intimacy or mental closeness. And realistically, it's a very positive thing in a relationship but both people must be very willing to do this and also pay attention to the signals of communication. The fundamentals have to actually be there, trust, respect and you have to be able to communicate. And the communication is important, especially the listening, active listening understanding what each other is actually saying. And it does require a bit of sharing. It really exposes some level of vulnerability, risk, but that's what you have to do in order to begin the sharing process. So realistically you need to assess where each other is on the scale. One might be closed off, one might be open, but you really need to be together in terms of being able to share on this openness dimension. Really what needs to happen is that there has to be a dialog and perhaps one partner shares at an emotional level something that may be a little bit risky. It may be talking about the children. It may be talking about something in the bedroom. It may be talking about something in the relationship, and demonstrate that there's some action required. And if your partner actually listens and takes action, then trust begins developing and also it's a level of success. And therefore, this type of emotional intimacy starts to begin to be created. So it's the action, it's the action, it's the building, it's the listening and actually which will foster more opening up. And it's a repetition which will increase this cycle of success and bring a couple closer and closer. And this is really something that will help strengthen the relationship, strengthen the partnership and strengthen the marriage, you know if it is a married couple. There are workshops that can be helpful here. Marriage education and some things like this are available from Family Resources or other programs that might be in your community. And that's how we develop emotional intimacy. I'm Joe Cuenco with Family Resources, Relationships for Life."