6 Ways to Develop Intimacy in Your Relationship - Part 2

Excerpted from the book Road Warrior by Stephen Arterburn and Sam Gullucci

There are six external activities that can help you build a strong intimacy in your marriage and sustain you while you are on the road and separated.

(Previous 3 were in yesterday's Marriage Tip)

4. Talking About Your Feelings

One of the biggest barriers to growth in marriage is the absence of  discussion. Couples must talk about their feelings. Life is not perfect, and marriage is not perfect. Your spouse is not perfect and neither are you.

You need to talk to your spouse about how you feel and what you struggle with. Traveling with unresolved issues can actually cause a heart to grow colder. Set aside time each week for just the two of you to go out and talk. Tell your spouse what happened each day and what challenges you had personally. If you learn to invest time together while you're at home, your time on the phone will increase in meaning and depth while our on the road.

5. Forgiving and Being Forgiven

We must not let resentments build up in our marriage; we must learn to forgive our spouses and ourselves. Conflicts in marriage happen, and we need to give our spouses permission to tell us what they are struggling with.

Everyone's feelings are valid. We must get to know how our spouses feel on issues that cause conflict between us. If you do not share and forgive, you are not in a place to see your spouse or yourself properly. We cannot express love and receive love properly if we do not forgive.

6. Protecting Your Image of Your Spouse

This is the biggest vulnerability to attack you will face when on the road. Intimacy with your spouse must not only be developed, it must be protected! Our images must be real, not make-believe. What we see on per-per-view or over the Internet is not a real source of intimacy. If we look at other images as sources of physical intimacy, we set ourselves back and block our view of seeing things clearly. If we think about them and meditate on them, we rob ourselves of true intimacy.

When you begin to find true intimacy with your spouse, you will lose your desire for substitutes and instead try to protect your relationship. The goal must be to seek and search for those things in your spouse that will grow your love and intimacy. Your spouse must be the most important person in your life. 

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God bless your family and your marriage.

Jim Stephens