3 Criteria Of Proximity. What Is Intimacy?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-18 02:26

How do you know if intimacy exists in your relationship? This implies a relationship created by two adults (romantic, love, sexual relationship) - it can be both female-male relationships, and paired same-sex relationships (a woman and a woman, a man and a man).

Proximity is an opportunity to allow your partner to enter your territory, or to get into your partner's territory yourself, but at the same time not be afraid of getting into a merger or dependence, not being afraid of being caught in something, not being afraid of excessive pain. We may be intimidated by allowing a person to cross our personal boundaries, but we are willing to do so nonetheless.

So, if you are pretending to be intimate in your relationship, you can test yourself with a short checklist.

The first criterion applies personally to each of the participants in the closeness to which we claim - you, in principle, are capable of intimacy, you have no fear of entering each other's territory, you did this in childhood with loved ones and you can calmly repeat it now. In some places you have boundaries, and in others you have emotional access to each other.

The most important thing about intimacy is your own ability to be vulnerable, not to be too afraid of someone stepping on your wounds, finding some kind of trigger, and hurting you. You are able to endure your vulnerability, you can cope with those feelings when your partner accidentally stepped on your wound, on some kind of childhood trauma. Such situations are not uncommon and will happen, this is how close relationships are arranged. If we talk about friends, we communicate, we are friends, but there is another degree of affection, this is a distant relationship. Plus, relationships with friends don't cause as much pain. In close relationships, we open up as much as possible, trust and, accordingly, are as hurt as possible (if our partner says a rude word to us, it will be much more painful than if we heard it from a friend). In order for intimacy to be possible in principle, you must have your own tolerance for your vulnerability - you accept your shortcomings and are ready to look at them, you live normally with it.

It's important to note here that you know how to deal with your 3 most difficult feelings - fear, guilt, shame. You need to be able not to feel overly guilty in a relationship, to be able to defend your boundaries, but at the same time, somewhere to understand that you could be wrong. It is important not to be ashamed too much when your partner points out your flaw, because this will happen one way or another. It happens that the partner simply mirrors you, and does not show a flaw, but it hurts you - you cannot accept some trait in yourself (for example, anger or selfishness). The pain may be associated with your mother, who, leaving the room, told you: “Yes, you are generally selfish! You are generally an evil person! Accordingly, now, hearing even the neutrally spoken phrase “You are quite selfish!”, You will experience pain. Give yourself the right to be who you are! You give yourself such a right and thanks to this you can have a relationship. This does not mean at all that you need to be an egoist and an evil person in a pair. Work on character traits that don't suit you as much as you can, but understand that now you are that kind of person and that kind of person is entering into a relationship. It is important that you have this contact with yourself.

You have trust in a couple. You know that your partner does not want to offend you, trample you, does not feel angry, he basically loves and accepts you, does not want to hurt you.

The pain will be in the relationship - some of the words of your partner will hurt you, but this is not because he wanted to hurt. He defended and defended himself, not knowing that you would be hurt. Trust in a couple does not build up at once, it develops over time due to the fact that you communicate with your partner, talk about your actions, their reasons. By having trust in a relationship, you will understand that the person was not against you, he was traumatized and defended himself. However, you are still willing to continue to protect each other from injury. So, you are confident in your partner, and he is in you, and all possible hurtful words were said by chance or because of your hurt injury.

It is important to communicate in confidence, to share with your partner your experiences, reasons for behavior, motivations, traumas, including some painful memories, experiences. But at the same time, you are completely confident in your partner - he will take care of it all like a crystal vase. If it suddenly trips and breaks, you can glue it together.

Each of you wishes each other happiness. There are quite sad stories when partners start to compete in a pair - no, this is my territory, I am better than you. If you are truly interested in developing the other, you can truly rejoice.

If everything is not going well in your life, and your partner is very successful, you need to be able to share (“I must / must cope with my life myself / myself, but my partner is great. I'm glad / happy for him!”). It is important to be able to support and share his happiness, success, development.

1. Flaws. You see each other's shortcomings, put up with them, are ready to adapt, adjust. Why? Dignity is more important! We are talking about the virtues that this relationship gives you, about inspiration, exalted feelings, emotional closeness, belonging. You feel an emotional connection when you are around and in contact with a person. This does not mean that there are no moments when everyone is sitting in their own corner (there was some kind of misunderstanding, they misunderstood each other, everyone went home). But then you thought why this happened, connected and continue to communicate.

Your partner's flaws don't bother you too much; you can handle them. You know about his injuries and you can talk about them with each other, discuss some experiences, the difficulties of childhood. Proximity is formed from children's perceptions of the world, from the first childhood experience. Your first experience of intimacy was with your mother, and then we transfer it into an adult relationship. The moment we are faced with the fact that somewhere there was an inadequate reaction, we mirror it. The main thing is that you can calmly hear the words of a person, not fall into strong feelings. Talk about your feelings: “Mom used to react to me like this, and it hurt me. And you reacted somehow differently, and I felt unexpectedly worse. A similar situation also happens. It is important to talk about it and be able to take care of each other and your injuries. For example, you are hot-tempered with certain phrases and still rebel against your mother, you do not like to clean, but your partner accepts this, adapts and adapts, hoping that perhaps you will be able to change. Yes - yes, no - no. If you don't change, nothing bad will happen. It is this deep human understanding that is called intimacy.

Intimacy also happens with friends, when you are on the same wavelength, experiencing the same emotion, some kind of involvement, empathy, sympathy. However, it ends at the moment when you disperse and each return to your home. Couples usually live together and therefore experience regular closeness.

An important point - intimacy should not be 24/7. It's okay that you and your partner sometimes go off to your own corner. This is the time to think, because in a close relationship it is very important not to enter the territory of another and return to your home. You need to be able to keep your I, but at the same time be together, only then will it be closeness. If partners are in close proximity all the time, this is most likely a merger.