Intimacy is something that (nearly) all of us desire in our serious love relationships.
Most of us really do want (deep down): [1] to impart and receive affection, [2] to mutually share emotional support, [3] to give and to experience companionship, and [4] to be able to let someone see who we really are, knowing that they will not take advantage of us in the process and that they will reveal who they are in return.
This is at the heart of intimacy.
But let's face it. Some people have been burned so badly (and / or so often) that they have lost sight of what they are really looking for in love. Some have such a thick build-up of scar tissue on the heart that they have become cautious, making it difficult for intimacy to get through. And some people have become just plain cynical about love, giving up any hope of achieving what they really do want from love (and in love).
But did you know that many women, in the process of seeking what they really want, actually work against it, and may even end up contributing to their own experience of depression?
Let me ask you: Who are the intimacy experts? Or in other words, who is responsible for making intimacy happen in a relationship? If you answered women, then you have answered consistent with most people (both men and women) in the U.S. We have come to believe that if a relationship is going to work / if a marriage is going to be fixed / if intimacy is going to happen, then it is the woman who is going to have to make it happen.
Do you know the pressure that this can put on a woman? [I suspect that some of you do --- firsthand.] "IF I can just please him enough" / "IF I will just put aside my needs for the sake of what he wants" / "IF I just don't say anything or do anything that will disappoint him" / "IF I just don't say explicitly what I need" / "IF I just sacrifice enough" / "IF I can just make him happy, THEN we will achieve intimacy in our relationship."
Many of us have been taught throughout our growing up years that it is expected that a woman will sacrifice for the sake of love --- that she will put the needs of her partner in front of her own, that she will sacrifice to nurture the relationship, that she will do what it takes to please her partner.
Put another way: for many women, it is the experience of being in love that triggers a willingness to sacrifice for their partner. Once in love, they can act selflessly, even for prolonged periods of time, in an effort to strengthen the relationship.
Most men don't think this way! It is not the experience of love that triggers such self-sacrifice on the part of most men, but rather, the experience of commitment. Once a man begins to see that the two of you have a FUTURE together, then they are much more apt to embrace the sacrifice that all healthy love relationships require.
So what if a woman has repeatedly sacrificed for the sake of relationships, and what if the men in these relationships have not seen a FUTURE for the two of them? Then I would be willing to bet that this woman has a long relationship history of frustration, sadness, hurt, disappointment, and depression.
Does this then mean that sacrifice is bad / that you should not sacrifice yourself for someone you love? No. In fact, we know that sacrifice is essential to the development of life-giving ways of relating, to reduced distress in a relationship, to healthy conflict resolution, and to ongoing relationship satisfaction. If someone desires a stable, healthy, and happy relationship, then sacrifice is necessary.
Instead, the key is to sacrifice for someone who is willing to reciprocate.
Most women invest in their romantic relationships (at least those women who have not become love cynics). They sacrifice to maintain them. They work to improve them. They deny themselves in an effort to nurture them. But whether or not a relationship is actually going to improve or not depends (in the end) upon the man.
