Welcome to the relationship lessons! The following lessons contain information about 3 issues essential to any relationship – love, communication, and intimacy. The more you understand these issues and how well you apply them (or don’t) in all your different relationships, the greater chance you have for success. But don’t stop here! Go to your favorite book store or even to the library and you will find enough material to keep you challenged and learning the rest of your life.
Relationship Lesson #1 - Intimacy
Before we discuss the development of intimacy, we need to understand what intimacy is. The dictionary definition is knowing someone well or a close association over time. In other words, intimacy is an emotional attachment or bond to another person. We usually think of it in the terms of friendship. We get to know someone over time and with a few people, we develop a closeness to them. They become very important in our lives. So how does this develop?
Intimacy has five growth levels – Lowest to Highest. Let’s look at each level separately.
LOWEST LEVEL OF INTIMACY
When you first meet someone, what kinds of things do you talk about?
That is right. You usually talk about basic facts and information such as your name, where you go to school, etc. You are at this level with most people in your school, such as someone that you meet at a game or at the mall.
At the next level, the low level, you begin to risk just a little. You share ideas or opinions of others. "My friend Trish loves the movie... (e.g. Lord of the Rings)".
What is the advantage of sharing someone else’s opinion? Well, when you don’t know someone very well, sharing the opinions of others is safer than just throwing out your own opinion. There is less risk of embarrassment. You might be at the low level with some of the people in your classes or at your job if you have one.
LOW LEVEL OF INTIMACY
If you share the ideas of others at the low level, and you begin to trust them, what do you think you might be willing to share at the moderate level?
At this level, you are very comfortable with these people and so you go ahead and express your own opinion. You have many things to talk about, but they aren’t very personal just yet. You might be at this level with quite a few people at school, on a sports team or club.
HIGH LEVEL OF INTIMACY
At the high level, you start to feel comfortable enough to share some personal information. For example, you would be comfortable taking these people to meet your family and share things about your background. Typically, this is a smaller group of people than at the previous level. Since you are sharing fairly private and personal information, there needs to be a significant level of trust built. You would consider a person at this level a very good friend.
The highest level of intimacy is the hardest to achieve, but it is also the place we most want to be! At this level we will have the most trust, the deepest commitment and loyalty, and our greatest vulnerability. It is a wonderful, and yet, scary place to be. This level has the greatest potential to make us feel loved and cherished and the greatest potential for deep hurt.
HIGHEST LEVEL OF INTIMACY
Let’s look a little deeper —
If you were at the high level with a friend and you started sharing some private information would you expect them to respect your confidence? If they were at the moderate level and you didn’t realize it, would the information you just gave them be safe? Why or why not?
If they were to betray your confidence and tell other people about you, would you tell that information as quickly the next time you started a friendship? If you are like most people, you definitely won’t go there that fast the next time. Why? Because you got hurt! You will self protect the next time because you have experienced betrayal.
So, will a person with a lot of relationship hurt be able to get to the highest level of intimacy very well or very quickly? The answer? Probably not. Once we build up a number of hurts it usually results in suspicion and mistrust.
"I know you are going to leave just like__________."
"I was too trusting in my last relationship. I won’t make that mistake again!"
A therapist would call this "baggage". It is stuff we bring from past relationships into the new relationship. While it is true that we can’t completely avoid having baggage, we can minimize it by understanding more and more about relationships and how they work.
Learn about Communication in Relationships
Learn about Love Languages in Relationships