There are two main pillars of intimacy that are discussed more often than the others: Physical Intimacy and Emotional Intimacy. While together they can be explosively beautiful... one is not synonymous to the other.
Usually when looking for a mate we anticipate a good measure of both from our partner, right? And sometimes it starts off just like that. We meet our mate, and possibly sift through conversations, create intimate moments, decide how open and honest we are regarding emotional and physical intimacy... then we do life for as long as possible with them, oftentimes not revisiting what intimacy looks like as we evolve.
Safety and closeness look different in your 20’s than it does in your 30’s, than it does in your 40’s, than it does in your 50’s. Intimacy evolves... age to age, partner to partner. Our emotional and physical needs pivot in one space to the next... and we should desire to find our partner in each space (or phase) - meeting their most intimate physical and emotional needs, and them meeting ours.
The difference between physical and emotional intimacy is similar to hardware and software. Where hardware is the tangible machine that can wear out, need repairs, need resets, and in some cases need to be replaced... software is intangible. It’s the internal workings that is a collection of programs and procedures. Creating systems, programming, and application. It gives you an ordered sequence of instructions, and can detect when something is going wrong with both- the tangible and intangible parts.
Make a list of 3-5 ways your hardware (physical intimacy), and software (emotional intimacy) has evolved over the past 5 years.
Comments