What is intimacy?
Well first, let’s address what intimacy is not.
Intimacy is not sex. It’s not pleasure. Sex can be a part of intimacy, but sex doesn’t guarantee intimacy, nor is intimacy even required for sex. Much of the secular worldview, when it comes to intimacy, simply misses the mark.
The next category of the inventory deals with true intimacy.
Think about what you say at the altar at your wedding. You make a promise to your spouse. You promise to give yourself to them . . . in the good and the bad; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health. To love and honor your husband or your wife all the days of your life.
You give yourself fully to your spouse. That’s true intimacy.
It’s easy to give and receive all the good things about one another, but that’s not everything. You’re giving them everything:your past, your expectations, your tensions, your challenges, your fears. And you are receiving everything from your spouse:their past, their expectations, their tensions, their challenges, and their fears.
True intimacy—this entire gift of self—it’s the foundation on which everything else in marriage is built. If you don’t have this, you don’t have much. Nothing else in your marriage will make sense without it.