26. Emotional Intimacy: A Simple Strategy That Builds Connection
Emotional Intimacy:
A Simple Strategy That Builds Connection
End loneliness and disconnection in less than 10-20 minutes a day
In this episode we discuss:
What builds emotional intimacy
Questions to ask for emotional intimacy
The difference between creating emotional intimacy in the TV show Love is Blind vs. Raised By Wolves.
This podcast is not meant to diagnose, treat prevent or cure any medical, mental health, or relationship problem. Talk to a couples therapist in your area for help for your specific relationship issues.
Free Guide How to finally get him to listen to you. www.emberrelationshippsychology.com
This relationship podcast is not meant to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any medical, mental health, or relationship problem. It should not be seen as relationship advice for your specific relationship. Seek out couples therapy or marriage counseling by a practitioner in your area for advice for your specific problem.
Host: Amber Dalsin., M.Sc., Psychologist (Amber Mckenzie). She does Couples Therapy in Toronto. She does online individual relationship counseling and online couples therapy.
Transcription (this is a close transcription. It may not be 100% accurate.)
Emotional intimacy a simple strategy that builds connection
And loneliness and disconnection in less than 10 minutes a day
On the TV show love is blind , if you haven't seen it or heard about it at this point I don't know where you've been but you haven't been on Netflix . On this TV show you see people in pods that have to communicate through a wall. They don't get to see each other until the day they propose. The premise of the show, to find out if love truly is blind. As with any of these reality dating shows, you see more than one person vying for the affection of one person, and people that are slowly falling for each other. It's so interesting because you see the emotional intimacy build between these couples, the giddy laughs how they look forward to talking to each other, and the smiles. You also see the couples where conversation gets a little stilted, weird, or disconnected. The show starts out with many couples that we don't get to know at all, and by the end there's a few couples that go on to that engagement phase.
I loved watching this show and understanding a little bit about what was different than what the couples that actually got to the proposal stage. They seem to have this really great emotional connection. One of the number one things I hear in my practice is they partners want to be emotionally connected. Many women tell me their partner isn't vulnerable enough and doesn't open up enough. Many men tell me they don't know how to be with their partner wants. With some guidance and some structure actually I found most men are pretty good at this.
Building emotional intimacy can be built in simple steps that happen every single day. It doesn't have to be resolving huge conflicts or agreeing on everything, in fact often those aren't the things that build emotional intimacy. Rather emotional intimacy is built in getting to know each other's inner worlds , appreciating each other, and taking suggestions on day-to-day things from the other person.
If we compare the Plot of Love is Blind to the TV show Raised by Wolves, where mother and father, Who are androids have been tasked with raising humans on another planet. Mother and father are not supposed to have the emotions of connection. They do day to day tasks together but you see them on this planet, parenting the children, but not really inquiring about each others in our world. Rather they have duties to do. They have different main tasks. Mother is a powerful necromancer and her main job is to protect the children and establish an atheist civilization. She can basically kill anything that serves as a threat. Where his father has been programmed to just help raise the children and he isn't a killer and his main job is to help establish the civilization, he pays a more submissive to the mother. It is clear from watching them that they are good team, however they don't know each other well. Which makes sense because they are androids, not humans.
So what makes them emotionally disconnected compared to what we see on love is blind?
Think about the early stage of falling in love. We get riddled with butterflies maybe it feels like our mind won't stop thinking about the other person, and just a state of bliss that can come over us. In this phase we are prone to ask questions and truly listen to our partners. Even if you don't like hockey you could find yourself on a date for hours listening to your partner go on and on about the latest hockey game or something they found exciting. But as time progresses we tune out of those topics that we don't really care bout , and we stop being interested in the things our partners interested in because we're interested in them. What is normal in relationships will have different personalities different beliefs different values, and the measure of success is whether we can still TuneIn to our partners in our world even if it's not 100% our favorite topic .
In my case this means listening to sports , and asking questions about sports even when I don't talk about sports with my girlfriends .
So the simple strategy that we're talking about here today that builds connection is asking questions . I don't mean like interviewing your partner an like catapulting questions at them , I mean truly getting to know their inner world, giving them time to answer, and answering however they see fit. And I really qualify answering however they see fit I have lots of partners try to correct their partner on their answer and that really inhibits them from opening up. Try to be nonjudgmental in your listening and just allow your partner to share. All we know in the research is that by talking to your partner for approximately 5 minutes a day and getting to know their inner world, this builds relationship connection.
So what can you even ask your partner you could ask what are you grateful for today, describe your day to me today in detail, what's been most stressful for you this week, what has brought you the most joy this week, what people have played the biggest role in your life this week, or what is something you're looking forward to. By asking different questions , we get different answers .
I'm often struck in couples therapy how my couples are so excited by getting to new learn things about their partners. They have found the couples that have even been together 10 or 20 years, by asking different questions they do learn different things and it brings them closer together.
Make note that building emotional connection doesn't mean talking for hours. It could mean talking for hours, but it could also be that five minute a day conversation that your partner doesn't have with anybody other than you. Don't take this for granted it's really special. It's important to remember that women have many close emotional confidants, and at times they can expect their partner, their male partner, to be that too. While at times their male partner may be this, and while there are some male partners out there who I'm sure or amazing emotional competence, be sure to reign yourself in an recognized that men do closeness differently than women. For most men they will see their female partner as their closest friend and closest emotional confidant. But many women don't recognize this, because they're used to being close with many women. So I encourage you to be curious with your partners and not take them for granted , I encourage you to see how they do connection and maybe how it's different than how you do connection. Maybe your relationship is emotionally intimate for them .
But if you want more intimacy , if you feel like it's not quite enough, set aside 5 20 minutes a day and just get to know each others in our worlds. Even if you're spending all day together in quarantine don't just gas based on their behavior, spend time listening, asking good questions, and truly trying to understand what is happening for them.
This podcast is not meant to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure any mental health or relationship problem. Please see a psychologist, or marriage and family therapist in your area for more help for your specific problem.