Nick StumboExecutive Director driving healing from sexual brokenness

The True Power Of intimacy

11 Oct 2024

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Speaker (Nick Stumbo) frames the issue not as a compulsive behavior but as an emotional problem — an "intimacy disorder": an inability to connect authentically and vulnerably. This breakdown in intimacy affects more than the individual (e.g., addiction): it damages marriage and parenting, leads partners to accept emotional "scraps" or become numb, and requires restoring vulnerability and touch points to renew relational connection. The talk emphasizes intimacy's restorative potential for the whole family system.

What we're dealing with isn't a compulsive behavior per se. It's an emotional issue. It's an intimacy disorder. Right? It's an inability for me to connect with somebody else on an authentic and vulnerable and intimate level. And that's not a one person issue. That's impacting their marriage, that's impacting their parenting. If I can't be vulnerable, if I can't open up emotionally, if I can't connect with you, then you either get to survive on the table, scraps of whatever I can toss out your way, or you get used to it and you get numb to it, and you just think, this is just what marriage is, or what, I'm gonna get to be able to reach into that family system and say, no, this isn't just about him stopping acting out. It's actually about intimacy and a renewal, you know, restoring the power of intimacy and what that could mean for you. Not just the addict, but everyone in their life. And so we gotta have touch points.