Enhancing Intimacy in Relationships

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this presentation on creating intimacy in relationships. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this video, we're going to define intimacy, explore the connection between intimacy and boundaries, discuss how to create safety and security in order to promote intimacy, and finally, review how to be supportive of a partner overcoming their past. Let's start out at the beginning. What is intimacy? Intimacy means allowing someone through your boundaries. Think about boundaries like the walls of your house that keep people out unless you choose to let them in. And even once they get in the house, there are walls that divide the different rooms. You're going to let some people into your living room, like your neighbors, but you're probably not going to let them into your bedroom because that's your more personal space. When you let people into your proverbial house or into your boundaries, you're making yourself more vulnerable. Generally, you only let people in a little bit at a time. You're going to keep strangers in the foyer, you know, repairmen that come over, you know, whatever, and only allow them in under certain conditions. However, on the other end of the spectrum, your best friend may be able to come over whenever they want to and may even have a key to your house and. And you trust them to go anywhere. So this is really what we're talking about, is figuring out how safe do you feel with this person, how much do you trust them, and how vulnerable are you willing to feel around them. All people have the right to choose who they let in, behaviors they will tolerate, and how long people can stay. Maybe you have a friend that you are, you know, getting to know, and you let them into your living room. You know, you. You let them in past your outside boundaries, you become a little bit more vulnerable. But once you let them in, you feel like they start taking advantage of you or they're being hypercritical or whatever, and you don't feel comfortable around them anymore. It doesn't mean you have to let them stay, stay inside those boundaries. You can push them back out and go, no, it's better to keep this person at sort of at arm's length. As people prove that they're trustworthy, they're often given increased access. And this can be physical intimacy where you let somebody come physically closer, somebody you don't know. You know, the repairman that comes to your house. You're not going to let them come in and give you a hug. You know, that's just. Would be weird. However, somebody that you know that might not feel out of the ordinary. So as you get to know and trust someone, you may give them a little bit more latitude or become a little bit more physically intimate. And that doesn't necessarily mean sexual. It means feeling more comfortable to allow a person physically closer, affectively. Affective boundaries are when we share how we feel about something. Now, I may share with just about anybody, the co worker, the lady at the register, whomever, how I feel about the weather today. That is not very intimate. That's not intimate knowledge. I may only share with my best friends, however, how I feel about certain other, you know, things like hot button topics like politics or religion or something else. Same thing with cognitively, I may share what I think about things or my perception about, you know, very benign things with people who I have just met or whom I've only known for a short period of time. But I may share my more deeper, intimate thoughts and thoughts about things that are more personal to me, with people that I know better, whether they're people that, you know, colleagues that I've worked with for years or a clinical supervisor or my best friend. Environmentally, our environmental boundaries are our stuff. And again, you're going to let different people have access more or less to your stuff. And people who are strangers, you're not going to let have free roam of your house when you're not there. You're not going to let them into like, your bedroom where you've got your jewelry and, you know, things that you wouldn't want them rifling through. They're pretty much restricted to the common area and maybe the bathroom. Once you get to know them and trust them, then they start gaining more access to other rooms in your house. Likewise, as far as personal intimacy goes, people that, as you start to trust them more, you're going to feel more comfortable being around them and letting them be around you. You're not feeling like you've got to get all gussied up for them to come over. You know, if they come over and you're in your sweat's in a ponytail, so be it. And relational boundaries, this is who you are friends with. And I may not share a lot with other people about the groups I belong to or the people I'm friends with or the church I go to or whatever. But with my friends, with my close companions, I may share more information about the other people that I hang out with. So it's all a matter of trust. Boundaries protect us. And as we start feeling like we can trust a person, we allow them into our, into our house. We allow them to become more intimate with us, and we become more intimate with them, allowing them to see parts of us or know parts of us that the average person doesn't see or know. So think about what do you share with anybody? You know, it might be something you share with a person when you're sitting on the bus going to work. What do you share with your friends? What do you share only with highly trusted people? Maybe this is your pastor or your grandparents or family. And how do people earn access? You know, thinking about how your friendships have developed, you meet somebody. I remember my. My best friend from. From college. You know, we met at school, and we would talk at school. We figured out we had some similar interests. Then we figured out we lived in the same apartment complex, and we started meeting at the pool, and we got to know each other a little bit better. And then gradually we got to the point where we were inviting each other over to our houses. And eventually we got to the point again where it was no call necessary, just you need something show up. But that was a slow process based on developing trust. We would get to one level, you know, like to the point where we were meeting at the. At the pool. But I didn't force myself to be invited to her house. She didn't force herself to be invited to my house. We respected each other's boundaries. And then at a certain point, one of us took the step and said, invited the other one in. You can also develop intimacy by creating those secure attachments, Even in adulthood. Secure attachments are important, and you can do this with the mnemonic craves. So be consistent. Ensure that your behaviors match your words and that your responses are consistent. If you say I'm trustworthy, then be trustworthy. If you say that I respect your boundaries, then if somebody says no to something, then don't push them on it or try to manipulate them. Make sure that your behaviors match your words and that your responses are consistent. If you are eager to see somebody you know, respond eagerly. You know, don't have it be a Jekyll Hyde thing where they're never sure which you is going to show up. Responsiveness. Respond to the person in a way that acknowledges and helps them meet their needs, to feel safe and empowered in the moment. If the person is coming to you and they're sharing with you that they're upset about something or they're feeling scared about something, then being responsive, acknowledging how they feel, and saying, how can I help you improve the next moment? What do you need from me that is so important? Because that responsiveness indicates A willingness to be there for the person. Attention. Be curious about them. You don't want to always just sit back and wait for them to come to you. Be curious and ask questions. When you are having coffee or getting to know each other. Ask graduated questions. And what I mean by that is, the first day you meet them, you don't want them to tell you their deepest, darkest secrets. That's an invasion of their boundaries. You're trying to dive way into their house and be curious. Where did you grow up? What do your parents do for a living? You know, get to know a little bit about them. Find some commonalities. In counseling, we call it reciprocal self disclosure. So if they ask you about something, then it's probably fair game to ask them about the same thing. But you don't want to go too much more intimate or too much more private than that, and you just very slowly inch into knowing more about each other. V stands for validation. Acknowledge their feelings and thoughts as valid based on their experiences and the information they have. Even if you don't agree, if you've, you've gone through the same experience and you're like, I don't see what this person's so stressed out about, but they are totally stressed out. That's okay. And, and again with my friend from college, she had already gone through her dissertation defense. And so when I was getting ready to go through mine, I was freaking out. She had already been through hers and she's looking back at it going, oh, it's nothing, you know, it's not a big deal. And I couldn't understand her perspective. However, she validated mine. She's like, I remember being terrified and let me share with you some things that helped me get through it and that helped me feel less stressed about it. So she acknowledged my feelings and provided me additional information to help me get a different perspective so I could see it a little bit more from her point of view, even though it totally didn't make the anxiety go away. Along with that, avoid toxic positivity. Saying, oh, you know, it's no big deal, you'll get through it. That does not acknowledge the person's stress. You know, instead of doing that, Stephanie acknowledged how stressed I was and said, you know, I remember being that stressed. And you know, it is a really anxiety provoking thing. However, you know, you can get through it and you know, I'll be here to support you as much as I can. E stands for encouragement. Encourage intimacy by asking permission and using that reciprocal self disclosure. We want to encourage people to Share about themselves. We want to encourage people to be authentic. And when they are, we want to provide reinforcement for that. We want to. And that goes along with support. We want to thank them, for example, when they share something with us that we think might have been difficult, we want to thank them for being supportive. We want to thank them for inviting us over to their house. You know, being polite and encouraging helps people feel safe because they recognize that you recognize the amount of vulnerability that they were. They may have been experiencing. So I get this question a lot. How do I help somebody overcome their past? And the short answer is, you don't. The first thing, if you're having this thought in your head, explore your motives for wanting to change or fix them. This might ultimately represent another way the person has tried to. Somebody has tried to take their power and it may re traumatize them. It's not your job to fix them. You can be supportive while they fix themselves if they want to fix themselves, but you don't fix them. Recognize any of their behaviors as communication and often a creative survival tool. If they get angry, if they lash out, if they withdraw, if they cry, if they. Whatever they're doing that you think is coming from their past, you know, think of it in terms of how did that behavior help the person survive until now? It doesn't mean that you have to tolerate it in your relationship. You can set your boundary and say, this is. This is not working for me. But it has to be up to them to decide if they're going to choose another behavior. It's also important not to try to over interpret or over analyze because that can feel very invasive. And if you say, well, I think you're doing this because of this thing from your past, that can feel very invasive to someone who has experienced trauma. Understand that trauma impacts the whole person down to a neurobiological and sensory level. And recovery from many forms of trauma should only be done with a therapist. You can open a Pandora's box that causes more harm than help if you start probing around in places. So it's really important if people have experienced trauma, to be supportive of them, seeking the help that they need, but not trying to tinker around and fix it yourself. As a partner, you can be supportive of the person in their recovery and help create an environment in which they feel safe and empowered. If they feel safe and empowered at home, then they may be able to go out and go to therapy or go to support groups and start working through their issues, knowing that when they come back, even though they Feel exhausted and worn down and raw. It's a safe place to be. They're not going to be bombarded or violated in their own home. Freeze is another mnemonic that you can use if you want to think about encouraging someone to start working on overcoming their past or freeing themselves from their past. Feedback. Identify the behaviors that the person is using that are troubling to you in the relationship and how they impact you. R stands for responsibility. Empower them by asking for suggestions to address the problem. You're putting the responsibility for change on them, and you're saying, I don't know what you need me to do. It's your responsibility to tell me what I can do to help. Whether it's emotional dysregulation, they go from being fine or calm to being enraged, or there's a lack of trust or there's suspiciousness or whatever the behavior or behaviors are, you can identify them as problems for you. You can ask, you know, what is it that I can do to help you feel safer and more empowered in this relationship? It's your responsibility to tell me what I need to do. I can't read your mind. E Empathize with how they feel. They may be overwhelmed, they may be terrified, they may be fearing abandonment, whatever they're feeling. And, you know, I can't even begin to guess all the different feelings that a person might experience. But it's important to empathize with them about how they feel in the moment. With you bringing this up, it could be. It could feel terrifying, it could feel liberating, it could feel. Feel overwhelming. I don't know. But use your common sense. You know, read their body language, listen to what they're saying, and be sensitive to their boundaries. If they start becoming extremely defensive, then that means they're feeling unsafe. So you need to back off a little bit. You've planted the seed. Now back off. And, you know, maybe you can readdress it at another point if it's necessary, or even in couples counseling. Encourage, but don't force forward movement, such as going to therapy and open communication about what they need, reminding them that you cannot read their mind. You want to help, you want to be supportive, but you don't know what they need. You can't read their mind, and it's their responsibility to tell you. So encourage them to do this when they start getting upset. You know, a lot of times people who've experienced trauma haven't had anybody to rely on, so they haven't developed that skill of asking for help. So when they start feeling overwhelmed or anxious or angry or, you know, whatever is going on, their past starts rearing its ugly head, so to speak. That's when you can very gently say, and very matter of factly say, I see you're upset right now. What is it that I can do to help? You know, what is it that we can do together to help you move through this and support the person with unconditional positive regard? What does that mean? That means you love them for them. You may not like some of their behaviors, but even if they do things that you don't like, you still love them for who they are. And so don't say things like, I hate you, or you're the worst person ever. You know, you want to. You can identify. I really don't like this behavior. I love you, and I want to try to figure out how to help you feel safer and more empowered. Today's cancel culture makes it very difficult for people to feel safe enough to develop intellectual or emotional intimacy with others. And this goes beyond couples relationships. This is even in friendships. People are finding it more and more difficult to become authentic, more and more difficult to allow anybody in the house past that foyer because they're not sure whether they will be safe. Trauma strips people of their sense of safety and power, and discussing it may make the person feel too vulnerable and unsafe. Remember, developing intimacy is a process to help people feel safe enough to let you into their proverbial house. Remember, we're using the house as a metaphor for boundaries. It's important to create a safe environment, respect their boundaries, and open the door to your home first, which may mean you need to share a little bit about yourself first before you expect them to share anything with you. You can learn more@docsnipes.com YouTube this episode was produced by Mr. Charles Snipes and presented by Dr. Donnelly Snipes. They can be reached by email@supportocsnipes.com.