Finding True Love Through Intimacy
By Daniel Linder MFT
A lot of people have been asking about true love. Is there such a thing? If so, what is it, is it attainable? If so, how? If it were just love, I wouldn’t have so much difficulty. But, true love?
Talking about true love is risky business. I can imagine taking a poll, going around asking people who are looking for true love what it is they’re looking for and getting different answers and a lot of “I don’t knows.” Given its subjective nature, it always comes down to one’s interpretation or experience.
Does true love refer to how a parent might feel towards his/her child? A child towards a parent? A sibling or friend? Does it mean being in a committed relationship that lasts a lifetime? One in which there is emotional intimacy, sexual fulfillment and spiritual development? Soul-mate? Life partner?
Does true love have to do with finding that special someone? Is it
the same as being “in love?” Being romantic? Being turned on? Having great sex? Is it a high or rather mundane? Is it temporary or does it last? Is it nothing more than a bundle of excitement or is there any substance to it? What does it feel like? Is it more than a feeling?
Does true love depend on the prevailing conditions and circumstances at any given point in time? If you achieved it once, will you be able to do so again?
Is it a long plateau of fixed contentment, like being “happy ever after?” Or, is it a never-ending, ever-deepening journey fraught with relationship threatening challenges?
Is true love a matter of luck? Why do some people appear to find it and others don’t?
Is true love momentary or does it stay?
Is true love when you stop thinking and fantasizing about being with other people?
Is there love at first sight? Or, does true love come later in the relationship?
Let’s start at the beginning. You are with someone for the first time, separate entities who must establish some kind of connection. Assuming you do…
There is some kind of spark, a discovery that has to do with how you feel being with this person. It may be nothing more than an attraction, or it may be a lot more than attraction. An irrepressible stirring can take hold.
It’s usually during an initial encounter when the seeds of true love are planted. Something happened, some kind of deep, profound exchange occurred. You have one foot in and one foot out. You lose yourself in the process of interacting while maintaining awareness of how you’re feeling. There is a chemistry that goes beyond desire, projection or neediness. Call it rapport.
When there is rapport, understanding is achieved. One criteria of true love is being able to say, “We understand each other.” To break true love down into something real, of substance, emotionally nourishing and spiritually uplifting, it may come down to true intimacy; that is, true love becoming interchangeable with true intimacy.
Intimacy begins with rapport. Rapport occurs when you are engaged in conversation. You are listening and responding freely and spontaneously, neither self-monitoring nor anticipating what is going to happen next, but rather existing totally in the moment and engaged in the process. Like actors performing a scene, musicians playing a song, their attention is riveted on what they’re doing at the time. They care little about themselves and all about what they’re creating. It’s a natural unfolding process untainted by the wish for any specific outcome.
When you are generating rapport during an initial encounter, intimacy is right around the corner. Usually, the content of communication becomes increasingly more personal and emotionally charged for as long as the interaction continues. If the context is an established relationship, there is a continuous deepening in subsequent encounters, assuming you are able to build on your tried and proven ability to communicate. During a rapport, there is a bridging of experience. Understanding is achieved.
True intimacy exists in a relationship that provides much-needed nourishment in the form of its basic ingredients: respect, trust and acceptance. For some, the experience of being able to be completely open, free and understood may be the highest of all highs. Yet, that’s not all there is to true intimacy.
Along with the ability to achieve a deep mutual understanding is comes a variety of other pleasant surprises. When gazing into each other’s eyes and you’re communicating on a deep level and understanding each other, the feeling of knowing one another elevates the level of excitement. “We know each other like no one else does.” When this is happening, you feel special, powerful and affirmed in your purpose, and that you have this wondrously special connection.
Having offered perspectives on what true love may be and how it can be attained, let’s address some of the questions raised earlier.
What kind of love are people generally referring to when they say, true love?
It’s not the love between parents and children, siblings or friends, although there may be some overlap with regards to qualities associated with intimacy that may exist in these relationships. While intimacy may be the operative term, true love specifically refers to two adults who forge a bond that goes above and beyond intimacy. We might say, “They are hitting on all cylinders,” i.e. there is a steady stream of interest flowing from one to the other, a sense of emotional safety, an ability to talk to each other about anything, and sexual fulfillment.
Does true love have to do with finding that special someone?
That special someone is the person with whom you can create the quality relationship you have been yearning for. The focus isn’t so much on how special you are as individuals, but rather as co-creators who are in synch and in tuned with each other.
Is true love the same as being “in love?” Being romantic? Being turned on? Having great sex? Is it a high or rather mundane? Is it temporary or does it last? Is it nothing more than a bundle of excitement or is there any substance to it?
Being able to distinguish true love from all of the above will avoid a lot of confusion. Being in love, falling in love and romance are altered states, peak experiences; extremely intense, compelling and exciting, but always temporary. Your experience is heightened. Your thinking and perception are distorted. Objectivity is lost as you are operating outside of the confines of reality. You tend to see each other in an overly favorable light while and blinded to each other’s darker sides. It’s not emotionally nourishing when running on adrenaline.
In contrast, true love may be considered to be more mundane, subtle, and certainly less dramatic; a much more enduring experience, one that has real substance and is emotionally nourishing. True love must be some kind of collaboration, a joint-effort creation that requires time, energy and skill
Sex or great sex is also often confused with true love/intimacy. The ability to feel sexual attraction, become sexually aroused and to engage in sexual relations is a natural part of our biological make-up. We can have sex, and we do have sex. It’s not as big of a deal as it has become. It feels great, is the ultimate pleasure, but is nothing more than sex. Emotional intimacy does not naturally accompany nor follow sex. Even great sex in no way guarantees emotional intimacy or a great relationship.
Does true love depend on the prevailing conditions and circumstances at any given point in time? If you achieved it once, will you be able to do so again?
It’s not at all unusual for two people to discover true love or intimacy that is context-based; that is the relationship was not born in a natural setting. Sometimes there are unique conditions and circumstances that force two people to relate in a way that cuts quickly to their cores.
There are a great many occupations that afford co-workers intimate knowledge about each other, and endless opportunities to earn respect and trust. In the military, for example, soldiers live and train together for months, sometimes years, and must rely on each other in battle. Police and firefighters also spend large chunks of time together and must depend on each other. Actors travel the whole spectrum of emotions, baring their souls to each other.
Other examples of contextual-based intimacy include people who meet when they’re traveling and are away from their normal lives, or people who’ve survived a natural disaster or a terrorist attack -- people who have shared an extreme experience.
In contrast, a natural setting is in the natural course of life, independent of an imposed structure, when you must rely solely and entirely on each other to create and sustain rapport.
Is true love a matter of luck? It’s never a matter of luck. It’s not luck when conscious intention meets purposeful action. It doesn’t just happen. Two people make it happen. They are collaborators and co-creators.
Is true love a long plateau of fixed contentment, like being “happy ever after?” Or, is it a never-ending, ever-deepening journey fraught with relationship threatening challenges? We know “happy ever after” is a fairy tale. Whatever true love may be, we know it will be tested and challenged numerous times during the course of any relationship. The longer it lasts, the more inevitable adversity, which is why it deepens and grows over time.
Is true love momentary or does it stay? Why not both?! It’s possible to be a matter of the prevailing conditions and circumstances at any given point in time; but when those change, the relationship does not continue on its own. It requires your full participation each and ever time all of the time.
Is true love when you stop thinking and fantasizing about being with other people? Some people might confuse a fantasy with acting on the fantasy. It doesn’t seem to fit that true love means being totally consumed, obsessed or single-minded all of the time. Thinking and fantasizing about other people may be common transient experiences occurrences and doesn’t necessarily mean that one’s love isn’t true. Of course, it’s all relative. It depends on the frequency of those thoughts and fantasies, whether they are serving as harmless, momentary escape hatches, or to relieve pain from the lack of emotional nourishment stemming from the relationship.
Is there love at first sight? If there is, it doesn’t continue on its own. Love at first sight can and does happen, but oh so rarely. You hit it off upon eye contact, the rest is history, the greatest sex evolves into the greatest relationship. It happens in the movies where dramatic license is permissible, when years are compressed into minutes and reality distortion the norm.
Or, does true love come later in the relationship? When it comes to people and relationships anything is possible. But again, how likely? A patient who has been married 25 years captured what she was up against in her search for true love. Unless my husband is so motivated as to tender the journey of learning how to communicate intimately, we’re stuck where we are. If only we started sooner.”
As far as lasting power, we may assume that when there is true love, both people place a high value on their ability to communicate and that their ability to do so tends to remain a constant throughout the course of the relationship. In all subsequent encounters, basic principles apply.
To break true love down into something real, of substance, emotionally sustaining and spiritually uplifting, it may come down to intimacy; that is, true love as interchangeable with intimacy. Rapport precedes intimacy. Rapport means both people being present, interested in each other, totally open and honest in the face or whatever is happening. Understanding and all of the accompanying feelings of a deep connection reminds them that they truly love each other.
