What To Do About A Lack Of Emotional Intimacy With Your Partner
Emotional intimacy — a deep sense of closeness and security with another person — can be a crucial foundation for a healthy relationship. Yet many long-term couples neglect this connection, which can place their happiness and relationship satisfaction in jeopardy. Understanding how various behaviors can help or hinder emotional bonding may lead to a stronger, more satisfying partnership. This article will discuss the most common causes of a lack of emotional intimacy and suggest some solutions.
Intimacy in a relationship may break down due to a lack of trust or an inability to communicate honestly and empathetically about your feelings. Neglect of your emotional bond through inattention, lack of appreciation, or failure to prioritize shared activities can also play a role, as can disruptions to one or both partners’ mental and emotional health. Finding your way back to your former closeness and comfort may require you to place a new emphasis on practicing vulnerability, respect, and compassion in your interactions as a couple. A licensed couples therapist can guide you on this journey.
What is emotional intimacy?
Although many people recognize emotional intimacy when they experience it, describing it can be challenging. In the simplest terms, emotional intimacy can be thought of as the sense of closeness and comfort that can develop between people who know each other well. According to the American Psychological Association, intimacy typically characterizes relationships that are “close, familiar, and usually affectionate,” and generally requires a strong understanding of the other person.
The Triangular Theory of Love, a psychological framework that has been validated across multiple cultures, identifies intimacy as one of three core components of romantic relationships. The other two are commitment and passion. A couple with absolutely no emotional intimacy might function more like a cold, transactional partnership or a dysfunctional relationship held together by codependency and sexual chemistry.
On the other hand, a highly intimate couple usually shares a strong emotional connection. They tend to be comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings, trusting that the other person will accept them. Two people with strong emotional intimacy generally sense they are “at home” in each other’s company and rely on each other for support.
The importance of emotional intimacy
Psychological research suggests that achieving closeness with other people may be a core human need.
Maintaining emotional intimacy in your close relationships can have a measurable positive impact on your day-to-day well-being, and it may improve your overall satisfaction with life.
When emotional intimacy between you and your long-term partner is diminished, it can leave you feeling lonely, stressed, and insecure. Your relationship may also be at risk. A research review published in 2017 identified intimacy as one of several factors with a strong influence on marital satisfaction. Maintaining a committed partnership without a sense of connection can be a severe challenge.
What can cause your relationship to lack emotional intimacy?
You may be confused about why you’re no longer as close to your partner as you once were. There may be a variety of contributing reasons, but the following are common examples.
Insecure attachment
People often have different emotional attachment styles — long-running patterns in the way they typically relate to others. Those with insecure attachments may have difficulty trusting that others will continue to value and cherish them, often due to experiences of inconsistent affection from caregivers in early childhood. Research indicates that attachment insecurity can hamper emotional intimacy, and it may also increase your risk of mental health difficulties.
Stonewalling
Aggression and hostility
Frequently displaying anger, criticism, or contempt toward a partner can be just as detrimental to intimacy as bottling up your emotions, even if these reactions come from genuine negative feelings. Psychological research suggests that expressing vulnerability may be a vital part of building emotional intimacy. Going on the offensive whenever you’re upset can be a way to avoid this vulnerability out of discomfort or fear.
Low self-esteem
The saying “You can’t love someone else until you love yourself,” is often regarded as a cliché, but there may be a grain of truth behind it. A 2023 study found that the tendency to base your self-worth on the opinions of others may be linked to lower emotional intimacy. This may be because it’s harder to be genuine with your partner the more you’re worried that they won’t like the “real you.”
Taking each other for granted
Some studies have found that expressing gratitude toward your partner can reduce the negative impacts of attachment insecurity on intimacy. A lack of gratitude can have the opposite effect. If one or both parties are putting considerable effort into the relationship and it’s going unacknowledged, they may sense they are unappreciated and become resentful, potentially leading to a lack of emotional intimacy.
Lack of affectionate touch
Emotional intimacy can be strongly tied to physical intimacy. Research on intimate couples around the globe indicates that frequently expressing affection through touch tends to reinforce intimacy and love. If you and your partner rarely engage in affectionate activities like holding hands, stroking each other’s hair, cuddling, and kissing, it could partly explain why you’re no longer as close to each other.
Separate lives
While maintaining some independence and individuality from your partner can be healthy, you may also need to have at least some shared experiences to maintain an emotionally intimate relationship. Some couples wind up growing apart until their day-to-day lives — their interests, social circles, and leisure activities — have little overlap, with negative consequences for their sense of intimacy.
Betrayal
Trust is usually essential to sustaining intimacy. Severe violations of trust by one or both partners can cause deep and lasting damage to the bond between romantic partners. Infidelity is one common example, but behaviors like stealing, lying, concealing important information, engaging in violence, or neglecting major responsibilities can all cause significant harm to the foundations of intimacy.
Intimacy and your sex life
While sex by itself isn’t considered emotional intimacy, there’s evidence that having a mutually enjoyable and satisfying sex life can support strong emotional connections. Sexual intimacy can be an opportunity to express affection and vulnerability while sharing a pleasurable, emotional experience. When this part of your relationship is absent or dissatisfying, you may experience a sense of distance from your partner.
In addition, sexual frustration can sometimes lead to resentment, irritability, and conflict within a relationship. This may be especially likely if there’s a discrepancy in libidos. The person who wants physical intimacy more frequently may believe they are being repeatedly rejected, while their partner may sense that they’re being pressured and their boundaries aren’t being respected.
Mental health and intimacy
In some cases, a lack of intimacy could be due in part to a psychological disorder. Symptoms of common mental illnesses may make it hard to communicate with your partner or disrupt the sense of closeness between you.
For example, depression often involves emotional numbness, irritability, and lack of pleasure, all of which may disrupt the positive emotions you normally have for your partner, while apathy and lack of motivation can make it harder to put effort into maintaining your relationship. Anxiety could make you hesitant to open up about your feelings due to excessive worries about how your partner will react.
How can you build emotional intimacy?
The process of regaining emotional intimacy can look different for each couple, but the following strategies may help in many cases.
- Express vulnerability: Letting your partner know that you trust them by turning to them when you feel insecure, fragile, tired, or otherwise vulnerable can help you forge a deeper connection.
- Practice empathetic communication: Research findings suggest that making an effort to respond with empathy, patience, and support when your partner discusses difficult emotions and personal vulnerabilities can improve intimacy.
- Make time for each other: Budgeting regular quality time for a variety of shared activities, including fun hobbies, romantic activities like date nights, and sexual encounters, can prevent daily routines from coming between you.
- Have meaningful conversations: Long-term couples can fall into a habit of talking only about mundane matters like chores and work. You may want to try asking each other questions about important values, spiritual beliefs, or your worries and hopes for the future.
- Express affection frequently: Compliments, smiles, affectionate touches, and words of endearment may have a greater positive impact than you might suspect.
- Discuss your needs and boundaries: Having frank conversations about what you and your loved one need from each other (and what boundaries you need to establish) may be painful, but the process may make you into better partners in the long run. This may also be essential to restoring trust after a betrayal.
- Try new things together: Research has identified engaging in unfamiliar, stimulating, and challenging activities as a factor that can keep love alive over the long run. You and your partner may be able to improve your intimacy by trying out new things, from taking up leisure activities that stretch your brain to experimenting in the bedroom.
Counseling for emotional intimacy
Getting help from an unbiased, experienced professional could improve your efforts at repairing intimacy. Studies have found significant positive effects from techniques like emotionally focused therapy (EFT) for couples looking to improve their relationships.
Finding a counselor with whom you and your partner can form a good working relationship may have a substantial impact on the effectiveness of therapy. Online therapy platforms may make this easier since they can draw from a wide pool of licensed professionals, matching you with one based on your needs and preferences.
Evidence is accumulating that web-based interventions for relationship challenges can be effective. A study from 2022 reported that there appeared to be no difference between face-to-face and online couples counseling in the ability to improve relationship satisfaction, mental health, and other desired outcomes. Many couples prefer online therapy because it can create a sense of distance and control that makes them more comfortable being emotionally open.
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