Four helpful tips for increasing intimacy in your relationship
Whether you are looking to reconnect with your partner, or to strengthen what you already have, here are four tips to help you create a more intimate relationship:
- Be physically affectionate during the day. This may include sex, or it may just be holding hands or hugging. Being physically affectionate not only feels good but it help promote a monogamous romantic relationship. The ‘feel good’ chemicals produced during sex facilitate bonding with your partner which further promotes intimacy in the relationship.
- Try to be open and communicative about sex. Get in the habit of focusing on your partner’s satisfaction. If both partners have this ‘giving’ attitude, sex can become an incredibly gratifying, bond-strengthening and fun activity.
- Make time for romance. Increasing physical and emotional intimacy doesn’t just happen naturally – it takes time and effort. Unfortunately, with the demands of work and children, many couples forget romance altogether. Without the romance the relationship can become a drag and with that decreased feelings of appreciation for your partner can set in. So schedule romance into your life. You and your partner should create opportunities for intimacy, making times when you can be alone together where you can focus on each other and on your relationship. Creating time for romance will strengthen the ‘specialness’ you share together as a couple.
- Go to bed together. Going to bed at different times contributes to a pattern of disconnection and can undermine the sense of intimacy. Start by turning off technology, try leaving social media out of your bedroom and instead put this time aside to attend to each other emotionally and physically. This might be the only time you get on most days to really connect.