Intimacy is defined as:
Something of a personal or private nature.
Emotional warmth and closeness.
A quality that suggests informal warmth or closeness.
Sexual relations.
A state marked by emotional closeness. Example: The intimacy of old friends.
So, while sexual relations are considered intimate, intimacy doesn’t have to mean sex.
Why is this distinction important?
In last week’s newsletter, we talked about being in a sexless marriage or relationship and I disclosed my current marriage had its own moment of being sexless. That may have come as a bit of a shock to those who read my work regularly, as Damian and I seem to have a lot of sex. Well, at least we did before he was incarcerated.
And you’re not wrong in that assumption.
However, when you go from having a lot of sex to not having any sex, even for a month or two, it feels like a full-stop. I’m sure there are some of you out there shaking your heads thinking, wow Demeter, just a couple of months? I know, and I hear you. But let’s not compare ourselves to others, shall we? We all feel what we feel and have our own situations.
Damian and I had a rocky start to our relationship, which I’ve been very open and vocal about. I believe by sharing our experiences, not only can I help us heal the things we deal with, I can also help others who might be going through something similar. If nothing else, they might not feel so alone. Damian has cheated during our relationship more than once. But for the most part, even when that nonsense was going on, it didn’t affect our sex life. We were still having sex regularly and exploring new things with one another.
Until his last affair.
Towards the end of his last affair, something happened he didn’t expect. Guilt. I’m not saying he didn’t feel guilty in the past, but this time, there was something different. I believe part of it was how long the affair went on. Previous instances of cheating were one and done; he’d fuck around once, and that would be that. This time, there was something of a relationship, even though it was mostly one of convenience and ‘friends with benefits’ on his part.
Regardless of why, it began to cause issues in our bedroom. At the time, I didn’t know what was going on, all I knew was we stopped having sex on a regular basis. I would try to initiate, and he would have a headache, so to speak. I knew this game, I’d lived it before. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I chalked it up to the fact he was going to prison in the near future, I mean, that would be more than enough reason to not feel so sexy.
One of the ways we were able to get back to ‘us’ was by re-introducing intimacy to our lives in forms that had nothing to do with sex. This was vital to our coming back to having regular sex and getting to the point where Damian was ready to tell me about the affair. What is intimacy without sex? It looked like this for us:
Holding hands in the car while driving.
Cuddling together on the couch while watching a movie.
Preparing meals together when possible.
Forehead kisses when one would pass by the other.
Touches when passing such as a brush of the hand across the small of the back, firm grasp on the hip, brushing hand across the arm.
Good morning texts-I love you, have a good day. Good morning handsome/beautiful.
Good night texts- I love you and hope you have sweet dreams (yes, we went to bed together, but they’re still nice to get)
Sleeping together. This was a big thing for us because we’d started falling asleep on the couch/dinette bed while watching television. The excuse was, it was easier to get him up for work when he slept out there.
Once we started being mindful of intimacy in other parts of our lives, the sexual intimacy became easier. And it made Damian feel safer (in his mind) to come to me and admit what had been going on outside of our relationship. Part of why he stopped wanting to have sex was because of his impending incarceration. He felt maybe I wouldn’t continue to be there for him and he was trying to ease himself away from me. But part of it absolutely had to do with the guilt he felt at carrying on an affair. Even though he was no longer engaging sexually with this person either and hadn’t been for months, they were still talking daily and saw each other often because they worked together.
The guilt was eating him up and that translated into not feeling like he deserved affection, attention, and even sex from me.
By bringing back intimacy into our relationship, which had fallen by the wayside due to life stressors, his internalized guilt, and things we had going on due to impending incarceration, we were able to get to a place where we were communicating better, where we were able to talk about things that were at the root of our problem, and were able to get back to being sexually intimate as well and intimate for the sake of intimacy.
Everyone’s situation is different because we’re different people. But I believe if you dig deep and discover what is at the root and bring back intimacy that has nothing to do with sex to your relationship, you may find sex being back on the table in the very near future.