Sign Up To Stay In Touch
We send out newsletters only occasionally and we fully respect that your information always remains private.
We send out newsletters only occasionally and we fully respect that your information always remains private.
I thought I was doing okay. We were talking. She knows I love her, because I tell her. Now she says she wants more intimacy.
Intimacy is a sense of closeness or togetherness shared with another person that can take some time and work to establish in a relationship. For men who have experienced child sexual abuse or sexual assault, like many men, becoming comfortable with intimacy can be a challenge. Below is some information about intimacy, details of some of the difficulties a man who has experienced sexual victimization can face, along with suggestions on how to further develop intimacy in relationships.
Intimacy is a close personal connection between two people that usually develops over time. Typically, children learn about and develop intimate relationships through interacting with parents and close family members. As we grow older opportunities arise to develop more intimate relationships outside of the home, getting to know people, establishing commitment and trust, building connections through work, play, sexual contact, parenting, etc. The journey towards creating intimate relationships is therefore potentially never ending and everyone’s experience in growing up and learning about intimacy is going to be different.
Cultural beliefs about men, about what a man should stereotypically do and be, influence how men understand and relate to intimacy. When the traditional man’s role of breadwinner, going out to work in order to provide food and shelter, was dominant, there was little expectation that men should learn about or put energy into developing more intimate relationships. Now, however, partners, men and their children are seeking a greater degree of intimacy.
A difficulty that men face with regards to developing intimacy in relationships is that there is an expectation that, as men, they should stand on their own two feet and be firmly self-reliant. This expectation can make men reluctant to acknowledge personal struggles or vulnerabilities, yet the disclosure of worries and difficulties can lead to greater intimacy. Further difficulties are created for men by the cultural habit of mixing up sex and intimacy, where intimacy is seen and used in an instrumental way as something you do in order to obtain sex.
Although sex is often an important part of a close intimate relationship and can increase feelings of intimacy, sex and intimacy are not one and the same. There can be intimacy without sex and sex without intimacy.
For men who have experienced sexual violence, confusion and uncertainty around intimacy is understandable, if you consider how some people who perpetrate sexual abuse invest considerable time and effort in getting to know a child, to build trust and a sense of intimacy in order to commit sexual abuse. The person committing sexual abuse might even tell themselves that they love a child and that this is a mutual relationship. When sexual abuse involves such a profound betrayal of trust, it is not surprising that closeness in future relationships can evoke discomfort and be difficult to manage. An experience of child sexual abuse can lead to:
These difficulties, although not insurmountable, can take some time and patience to sort out. What can make problems related to intimacy extra tricky to work out is that sometimes in order to gain assistance a man might feel pressured to speak about a history of sexual abuse (something he may not have previously told anyone about).
In seeking to develop more intimate caring relationships, it can be useful to explicitly differentiate sexual intimacy from other forms of intimacy. The following list identifies a number of opportunities for enhancing intimacy in relationships:
The intention of the above list is to help highlight the multiple possibilities and opportunities for intimacy in relationships.
In seeking to make intimacy more a part of your life and relationships, it is important to recognise that intimacy is relational. Intimacy is not something you can do on your own, the degrees of intimacy possible in a relationship is dependent on there being a shared commitment and interest. Negotiating and building intimacy in relationships is, therefore, reliant on a clear knowledge of your own and a partner’s preferences and a willingness to put time and energy into the relationship. You might consider:
In posing these questions, it is recognized that there is no prescribed right way of ‘being intimate’ in a relationship. No two relationships are alike. Although what has gone before might provide a guide to a man’s preferences or areas he might want to work on, history does not dictate the future.’
Becoming comfortable with intimacy is not easily worked out on your own. Relationships can provide opportunities for learning, healing and change for both parties. As the below partners of men who have experienced sexual abuse highlight:
He’s good at being independent and he knows how to take care of himself. Even though he’s not that good at intimacy, I am. So having learnt off each other I am more independent and he is more intimate.
I used to complain saying ‘you haven’t said you love me in ages,’ once I realised that this wasn’t getting what I wanted from him, I started telling him that I need to feel loved sometimes and I explained to him what makes me feel loved.
As indicated earlier, building and maintaining intimacy in relationships is likely to be a lifelong project. It is not something you do just once. Also, it is useful to recognise that what builds intimacy in relationships changes, as people’s preferences and choices change over time.
Some practical tips to help men understand and enhance intimacy and love in a relationship are offered by in the book Five Love Languages Men’s Edition: The Secret to Love That Lasts. This book encourages men to talk with their partners and to learn about and attend to both, their own and their partner’s preferred ways of developing closeness and expressing care. In doing so it demystifies love and intimacy, presenting information in a practical useful way.
If you were asked, could you identify your preferred ‘love language’ and that of your partner from the following list?
Possession of knowledge of your own and your partner’s preferred ways of relating is important. Just as important is letting people know and acting on these preferences in ways and at times when it will build intimacy.