Author: Ann Schiebert

Types of Intimate Relationships

The Marriage Divorce Intimacy Style, Part 5

What brings people closer together? So often, the person we love turns out to be our best critic, not our best supporter. How does this happen? We would never criticize our friends like we criticize our partner and children, so just what gives us permission to do that with people we profess to love? Surely, criticism interferes with intimacy.

Once we become familiar and physically intimate with a person, the, “lust phase,” eventually wears off. All those courting skills we used to entice a person into relationship, fade away, and we become the person we REALLY are, with all those unresolved family of origin issues, fears, and communication challenges that helped end our last marriage. While the person we courted thought that their lustful, considerate, patient, thoughtful, kind and respectful admirer was the REAL YOU, they find themselves with a stranger! The person we thought we were with, mostly disappears and becomes someone else with unsettled issues. This is because the, “courting mask,” has been removed! And those in the Marriage/Divorce Cycle are experts at courting – – they are masters at romance! They hold doctorates in how to create new, sexy relationships! But they don’t have any tools that help them sustain a relationship, and this is important to remember.

The discovery that, “I really don’t know this person as well as I thought I did,” happens over time, and usually manifests as dissatisfaction with elements of the relationship. As the romantic biochemistry fades away, we now have to CHOOSE to act lovingly toward the person we profess to love. What if we only know courting strategies? What if, as many of our relationship histories demonstrate, we don’t have a clue how to sustain a relationship?

More, next post.