How has intimacy and dating changed since you’ve been married?
- Has DATE NIGHT!!!! gone to date night…
- Has the Forbidden Fruit…gone to “Sure I can rally”
If your intimacy and dating life hasn’t changed and has maintained itself at full speed, then you need to write a book about it and teach the rest of us! The fact is maintaining a healthy intimate and dating life with your spouse is hard.
Michael and I met at DTS while we were both working on our Master’s in counseling. After 3 years of close friendship he finally got up the nerve to ask me out, two years later we were married. Now because we are both counselors we communicate very well, share our expectations frequently and openly, set appropriate boundaries for one another and our relationship, always provide a safe environment for the other, and therefore have passionate sex 7 to 10 times a week…yeah right!?!
Well it is true that we met at DTS and that it took Michael over three years to ask me out on a date. The rest of that story is not our reality. So, here’s our real story…We share a lot of similarities, but we are also very different from one another. Some of these differences we knew before dating and eventually marriage…but other differences and similarities are continually found along the way as our relationship continues to develop.
For example we knew before we dated…I am loud!!!! Michael is quiet…, but we didn’t know how deeply rooted those differences were in each other’s lives and how it would affect our relationship…how we communicate…how we fight.
We have had to come up with a communication style that worked for us. Same is true for intimacy. We both have very different pasts that modeled intimacy. There is no one perfect way. However, as a couple, you have to communicate so you can come to a common ground.
Over the next couple of weeks we will be sharing strategies and tools that you can use to help foster and maintain safety, trust, and intimacy within your marriage. We’ve had a great time putting this together and hope you will benefit from it!
We love feedback so give us your thoughts on what you’ve done to create and maintain intimacy.
