The Path to Intimacy Is Paved With Touching Moments

Close relationships involve, by definition, a willingness of both partners to share their deepest feelings. Partners who are emotionally available to each other build intimacy, trust, and a sense of connection.

Not everyone arrives at this ideal state through the same set of steps, however. Joan and Chris are a loving couple whose initial relationship stages were marked by a series of missteps and misunderstandings. Although they were attracted to each other, Chris thought Joan was cold and unfeeling, and Joan felt the same way about Chris. On the verge of breaking up, Joan took a chance and shared her feelings of attraction. This broke the logjam, and they are still together today.

Peter and Erin, unlike Chris and Joan, became emotionally close in practically no time at all. Yet, their first blush of love for each other may not be enough to carry them over the long haul. Something else is needed to feed the further development of what seems like even the best start to a solid relationship.

Being Moved as a Key Relationship Feature

These are just two of what could be an infinite number of possible intimacy pathways, but they serve the purpose of bringing into relief the idea that relationships don’t necessarily follow a set number or type of steps to emotional closeness.

As suggested in a new paper by Jagiellonian University in Kraków’s Jan Wiecha and colleagues (2026), the quality of kama muta is gaining traction in relationship research as a common denominator of relationships that will ultimately progress to true intimacy. Defined as “an intense, positive state…often marked by feelings of warmth in the chest, upliftment, and a profound sense of unity with others,” it’s a communal emotion that fosters intimacy and enhances relational satisfaction.

Setting aside the term itself for the moment, this experience is one you undoubtedly can identify, as it roughly translates into “being moved.” You’ve definitely felt this sensation if you’ve ever gotten goosebumps, a lump in your throat, or teary eyes in response to a shared emotional experience with another person. The Polish authors propose that kama muta can “catalyze” or speed up the getting-to-know-you phase of relationships.

As the examples of Chris and Joan vs. Peter and Erin show, not everyone gets to kama muta in the same way or at the same pace. Why this may be the case becomes the question explored in the Jagiellonian University study.

Comparing the Factors That Promote Being Moved

As you reflect on the idea of kama muta, it might strike you that some people are probably better at being emotionally available than others. Another possibility is that the emotionally movable person becomes that way as a close relationship progresses. It’s also likely that interactions between partners can foster the progression toward intimacy as they become more and more comfortable with each other through joint sharing of experiences.

The Wiecha et al. investigation tested all three possibilities in a series of studies on relationship satisfaction, intimacy, and moments of sharing. With online adult samples, the authors used as their key measure a scale assessing the general tendency to experience the emotion of being moved, along with questionnaires assessing tenderness, relationship satisfaction, closeness, intimacy, and attachment style (security vs. insecurity).

The main finding to emerge from the study was that, although it helps to have an easily “movable” disposition, more important to relational satisfaction is the building up, through joint experiences, of shared positive emotions. As they concluded, “moments of being moved translate into greater intimacy.”

What these moments do, the authors claim, is foster intimacy through mutual responsiveness between partners. When you share your feelings with your partner, who, in turn, is moved, this reinforces your emotional connection. This interactional process doesn’t depend on one person’s ability to be moved, but on the back-and-forth as partners increasingly reinforce each other’s sense of safety and comfort.

Building Those Close Relational Experiences

Reflecting on the Joan-Chris vs. Peter-Erin couple, you can see that it took a while for Joan and Chris to get to the point of feeling they could share their deeper feelings. Peter and Erin might have been quicker to get to that point, but the Jagiellonian U. findings suggest that they’d be in trouble if they stopped there.

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Are You Relationship Material?

As you apply this idea to your own relationship, what moments strike you as the critical ones that led you to feel more emotionally present and responsive to your partner? Or are you not there yet?

If you’re feeling a bit stuck, this study provides some key ideas to get over the hump. Their main finding was that responsiveness becomes an interactive process, noting that “experiences of being moved can act as temporary ‘boosters’ in strained relationships.” Try an exercise similar to one used in the study. The authors asked their participants to recall events in which they were emotionally moved by their partner, providing, as a very mundane example, such events as “My partner cares for me when I am sick.” You could take your own personal examples and ask each other to rate the extent to which you were moved by this. Maybe your partner didn’t realize that this small gesture had such a large impact on you, or maybe you didn’t realize that your partner was caring for you out of feelings of empathy and concern.

Sharing these small but potentially impactful relational events along with the impact they had on your emotions can become the first step toward a broadening and deepening of your responsivity.

To sum up, close relationships don’t just happen through luck or chance, or even in the same pathway of progression. Ensure that yours continues to develop your own pathway toward a fuller and richer expression of intimacy.