The Facets of Intimacy

9 minute read + 12 minute listen

Knowing glances, conspiratorial winks, nods, and understanding smiles. Harmony and ease of communication. Most of us think of intimacy as soft and fuzzy, something that makes us feel understood and acknowledged. Closer to others. It’s great when this happens, a thing of beauty and grace. But this is just one aspect of intimacy, admittedly the one most of us want.

Intimacy is actually being known with all of our extra, missing, and broken pieces. It’s often messy and raw, exposing parts of ourselves that are not curated or polished. Not pretty at all. It’s scary and high stakes. I mean, if you let someone see you, really see you, will they still like you, much less love you?

I’m lucky to be married to a man I love very much. I also really like him, he’s interesting and kind and warm and generous. Often thoughtful, almost always insightful. He’s fun and optimistic. Most of the time I hold him in positive regard unless I can’t stand him and the liking goes away, but the love always remains.

I’m not breaking our bond here. He would probably say the same about me. We’re solid and we’ve got each other’s backs and after sixteen years together there is a lot of ease and understanding between us. But there’s a lot of conflict and misunderstanding too. Old resentments, unhealed hurts, and gaps in our ability to empathize. The other is still other, three-fourths unknown, a vanishing horizon. On the one hand, he’s the person I know best of all, on the other, there are aspects of him I don’t know at all. Things I’m still discovering, answers I don’t expect, surprises welcome and unwelcome.

I love this. It keeps things interesting and complacency at bay. Not the conflict part but the incompleteness of knowing another, or indeed oneself. How fascinating is it to be a person on the quest for self-knowledge?

I mean, sure, you could pretend that there is nothing beneath the surface of the iceberg, but what kind of life would that be?

Doubtless, there are people who want their relationships like that too…on the surface, above the fathomless depths and perilous currents. Not me, I’ll take the deep dive, into myself and in a relationship. The easiest navigation? Definitely not. The most worthwhile? Don’t even question it.

Yoga is like that. It’ll make your life better but not easier. I’ve heard parents say the same about having children but since I’m childless, I don’t know. I do know that my yoga practice has taken me down a rich and rewarding path strewn with obstacles, anguish, and small but consequential discoveries about who I am and what makes me tick. Has it always been pretty and Namaste? Absolutely not. It’s been a theatre of shadows and monsters hiding in the shame-filled hallways of my psyche and innermost self. But also a garden of delight with joyous discoveries and quiet moments of contentment and an abiding sense of wellbeing. Kind of like marriage, the most intimate dance I partake in, outside of the one with myself.

A relationship is a razor’s edge because the risks are huge. If you really get to know me, warts and all, will you still love me?

When you come to understand that my bad behaviour comes from wounds that have calcified, but in some ways also served me, will you still be understanding? When my self-centeredness and unwillingness to change repeatedly causes you pain and suffering, will you still be empathetic? Maybe.

Have I lost you yet? The thing is it never gets simpler. I mean, are you simpler now than you were ten, twenty years ago? I’m guessing not. Is your life richer, your emotional tapestry more nuanced, your self-understanding more complex? I’m thinking yes. This is the great secret. It doesn’t get simpler and it doesn’t get less interesting, it gets more interesting the more you stay in the game. The game can be yoga practice or relationship, either way, it comes down to more knowledge, penetrating more layers, more integration but also more expansion. There’s always more and there are always extra, missing, and broken pieces. Because we are all fragmented selves and your brokenness and mine might come together in a dance of intimacy and make something whole. And your extra piece might fill a place where I’m missing something and create something beautiful and wondrous.

I’m not saying that intimacy requires being married or long-term yoga practice. I’m just speaking from my own experience rather than elsewhere. What I am saying is this: consistent yoga practice over time will bring you deeper into congruence with yourself. Because every time you sit down to meditate or step on your mat to do a physical practice, you meet yourself with all your beauty, flaws, and imperfections, your resistances and unwillingness to change, your ability to go further and step outside your comfort zone. Your mat is effectively a mirror, a template for self-inquiry and maybe even acceptance and love. A good teacher helps. One who is kind and experienced and not afraid of the shadow, the old adage that you can only take others as deep as you’ve gone yourself never being more apt.

Partnership is also a dancing ground for growth and self-knowledge. And here’s the thing, just as if you do a regular yoga practice over time, eventually your stuff will come up and there’s nowhere to hide, in a relationship the same holds true.

Yoga and relationship are potent arenas for investigating the shadow because in both you meet the deepest recesses of yourself, the places you’d rather not visit. You know, the corridors of shame, rage and grief, thwarted desire and love. Both are conduits for moving towards more completeness, or maybe integration. Both require courage and forbearance because the navigation is not for the faint-hearted.

The container of marriage is an accelerated spiritual path for growth and evolution because there is someone else right there with you. You can put on your best front all you like, but eventually, all those less than savoury parts of yourself show up, often when you’re tired, or stressed, or hurt.

Being married has made me confront aspects of myself that had previously been somewhat opaque to me. I realized that I’m not as nice a person as I thought I was. I have seen some really nasty sides of myself. Hurtful, petty, even at times vindictive. Slow to forgive and quick to judge. Capable of stonewalling and holding the moral high ground. As pioneering marriage therapist and author Dr David Schnarch says “marriage shows you that you’re living with a terrorist and then there’s your spouse to deal with.”

None of this feels good. Oh, the perils of our humanity! What does feel good is that I have grown tremendously as a person since I’ve been married. Have become clearer about my behavioural patterns and how they negatively affect my relationship and my sense of self. I’ve learned to look deep inside to try and understand why I behave the way I do, what’s the benefit? Can I gain insight and still feel good about myself? Can I use what I’ve learned to create positive change going forward?

In other words, can I implement what I’ve learned and be a better partner, create less pain for myself and my husband? It takes practice, lots of. Slowly over time I’ve gained more self-mastery and reduced destructive habits, think one step forward, two steps backwards. But there has been progress and I have more integrity now, feel better about myself as a person and as a partner. That feels good, makes the struggle, the heartache, the self-confrontation, and feelings of being a failure worth it.

Intimacy. In-to-me-I-see. Kind of cheesy, all the way true. The mirror of the relationship is always polished for maximal reflection. There is nowhere to hide. At least not in a relationship that goes beyond surface ripples. Therein lies the rub.

Getting to know someone doesn’t just mean getting to know the attractive parts of them, the soft kitteny bits; it’s also about experiencing the jagged edges, the brokenness. You can’t have one without the other. Or maybe you can, but the price will be authenticity and depth.

Of course, we all want the feel-good parts of intimacy, you know the feeling of being seen and valued for who we are, being treasure and appreciated. The mutual appreciation society. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. Let’s bask in our radiance together. Most of us mistake validation for intimacy and many of us want validation more than we want intimacy.

Validation feels supportive and empathetic. Intimacy frequently feels uncomfortable, even unwelcome. When your spouse is telling you something you really don’t want to hear, or unwilling to validate your position in an argument (the topic could be anything, sex, in-laws, politics, where to go on holidays), intimacy doesn’t feel so good.

At a certain point, when something is important enough to you, you can’t keep up a pretence and this is when you reveal your true self. Your integrity depends on it. The things your true self holds dear may conflict with those things your partner holds dear and what happens then? Ideally, you validate your own self and don’t try to change your partner’s mind or get them to validate you; realistically you bully your partner, go on the defensive, throw a tantrum, or all of the above. This can go on for years, and probably will unless you’re willing to do the hard work of becoming an emotionally evolved adult and learning to validate yourself.

This is the work of a lifetime. We’re talking Ph.D. in communication and relationship skills. The question is: is it worth it? Is it worth it for me to do the agonising work of looking at my issues and getting clear enough to see what needs to be changed and then doing the painstaking work of effecting change? To fail over and over again, to face my humanity and brokenness. To keep going even when I’ve messed up again. How do you know if it’s worth it?

The risks of vulnerability and intimacy are huge, but so are the rewards. Oh so sweet and so worth it. To know that you are truly loved, that your fractured self isn’t (only) a liability but maybe also a thing of beauty. To quote Leonard Cohen: “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

To still be loved even when you’ve revealed your broken places, your dysfunctional habits, and maladaptive tendencies is a beautiful thing. It’s tender and precious and adds a sweetness to life that is beyond compare. To be truly known and valued is maybe the greatest gift, the one you cannot buy or sell. It may be hard-won but it’s worth every effort, the risks, dancing the razor’s edge.