Intimacy in Marriage

Wedding Days in June.

A wedding ceremony does not promise intimacy, yet God intends intimacy for a marriage. Intimacy is not something that happens automatically. It takes time, effort, and commitment.

June is often referred to as “wedding month”. A trend in recent years shows that is changing. The month of June is named for the Roman goddess Juno, wife of Jupiter. She symbolized women’s health, fertility, and childbirth among the Romans.

Families believed a couple married in June would be blessed with happiness forever. The idea of “happy ever after” just isn’t so, though, is it? Nor do we hear “intimate every after”!

No guarantee

Intimacy in marriage is not a guaranteed bi-product of the wedding ceremony. The first mention of marriage in the Bible is Genesis 2:23-24. 

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast [cleave] to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

 

“One flesh” is the mindset of being one for life. That is true intimacy. Jesus and His Father have this oneness, and marriage should point to that relationship with the church.

The wedding ceremony or marriage does not signify intimacy; it does not make us one. Sexual intercourse does not make us one intimately. Your years of marriage do not equal intimacy. Some marriages never experience this one-ness. If you are married and the two of you have areas that you “can’t go there”, then you do not have intimacy.

How to experience intimacy

We have instructions in scripture that tell us where to start to experience intimacy. 

We must leave, then we must cleave.

The wedding ceremony does not make us leave, nor does the ceremony make us cleave. It’s a choice we make every single day. Some days, leaving and cleaving is easier than others.

To leave means we leave physically and emotionally. Our first allegiance is to our spouse, and not to our family. This means you and your spouse decide how you spend Christmas. Neither his family nor yours make that decision for you. You are now a unit of your own, regardless of how close one or both of you are to your parents. That’s leaving.

To cleave is to attach to your spouse. You cannot cleave if you do not leave. You become a team. When I speak negatively of my spouse in public, I am speaking negatively about our team, which includes me. 

You become one flesh. This is not just talking about sexual intercourse. It’s talking about becoming one. You can have sex and not be one. You can have sex and not be intimate. 

what Intimacy is not

To be intimate, you do not agree on everything. You do not lose your personality, identity, or who you really are. Intimacy is being willing to “go there” when a subject is hard to tackle or because you know it will bring pain to your spouse. Intimacy does not stifle, so if you are stifled by your spouse, or if you are stifling your spouse, you are not intimate with each other.

What Intimacy is

It is a closeness and emotional connection that is closer than with anyone else. Intimacy is mutual trust and acceptance. It truly is able and willing to “go there”. It is a willingness to be open and vulnerable in expressing thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Intimacy is to know. It is also to be known. 

The measure 

A few miles from our house is a pair of trees that grew together. The red cedar was there, and the crepe myrtle pushed through its trunk. Over time, their trunks became so intertwined that one can hardly see where one starts and the other one stops. That’s intimacy. To destroy the one would be to destroy the other, for they are so encapsulated with each other. Yet each tree remains true to its natural bent. The crepe myrtle blooms even though the red cedar does not, but they are woven together. That is intimacy. 

Being married for five years or fifty years does not guarantee intimacy. It’s not the wedding, the ceremony, or the sexual act. It’s a way of thinking and a continual way of life.

The measure of intimacy shows up at least four ways of thinking and acting. You can measure intimacy by knowing if you are pulling on the same team or pulling apart, against each other. 

Measure yourself by these four things, and you will know where you are in your marriage. You will know where you need to grow.

When:

• Two become ONE
• I becomes WE
• Me becomes US
• Mine becomes OURS

That is when you know you have intimacy.

Photo credits: pixabay.com and My Windowsill