Finding intimacy in your relationship is about more than just sex, one expert says. Photo / 123RF
It may sound simple, but open communication about your wants, desires and any feelings of betrayal are key to achieving intimacy in your relationship.
That’s according to sex therapist Dr Jo Robertson, known for her role on the local version of Married at First Sight.
Speaking to Francesca Rudkin and Louise Ayrey on their NZ Herald podcast, The Little Things, Robertson said that one of the biggest issues around intimacy in a relationship can be false and authentic agreements.
“A false agreement is where one person has just given in, and sometimes resentfully. They don’t actually like what’s happening. They don’t like the dynamic.
“This happens with sex all the time. A false agreement being, ‘I don’t like that we never have sex, but I’ve given up’.
“An authentic agreement [is] a conversation about how things are going to look, and how you’re going to manage stuff, what you’re going to do.”
Robertson said that couples need to look at being more honest with each other about what they want, even if they don’t get everything they desire when having a discussion.
She said that sex is a common issue with this, largely due to differing levels of libido between those in a relationship, which she said is quite common.
That can often be a shift for those in long-term relationships compared to how their relationship usually starts, but Robertson said that in the early stages, your body is trying to figure out if the person you are seeing is your mate.
“So the body is essentially pushing you towards that person and figuring it out, and then, often when there’s some kind of deeper level of commitment, the body rests.
“And this is what we notice in reality TV shows. I was on Married at First Sight, and we noticed it then, that if there isn’t that attraction in the early days, it’s really hard to make the relationship work because the body is not doing the work.
“So if you are having conflict in an early relationship, which is really, really normal, because you’re figuring each other out, the body’s kind of pushing you through that a bit because you’ve got just like deep passion for each other.
“But later stages, or if you don’t have the attraction, then it’s struggling a little bit more.”
A lack of honest conversations can lead to one partner seeking validation or filling a need elsewhere. Robertson said that this can lead to a betrayal in the relationship – not necessarily an affair, but something that violates the sense of boundaries.
And the recovery from that can be a five-year journey.
“Your first year is always going to be the hardest. And then your second year, you build new memories and you build a new way of doing the relationship. But the five-year recovery is who you become as people,” Robertson said.
“So the person who’s done the betrayal of whatever kind, there’s often some pretty big character stuff going on. So they’ve either got a deep sense of insecurity, they’ve got an ego that they’ve never managed, they’ve got lots of things that they’ve never kind of quite managed. So that’s the five-year journey. It’s getting on top of that.”
And again, that relationship can’t be repaired if one person is avoiding the difficult conversations that need to be had after it.
Listen to the full episode of The Little Things for more about intimacy with Jo Robertson, including the keys to communication, sorting out those false and authentic agreements, and how to change the course of your relationship if you are in a tough patch.
The Little Things is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. The series is hosted by broadcaster Francesca Rudkin and health researcher Louise Ayrey. New episodes are available every Saturday.
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