Intimacy With Yourself
Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Over the 40 years that I have been counseling individual and couples,
I have very often worked with people who are considering leaving
their marriage. Often they say things like:

* I no longer feel close or intimate with my spouse. I love him/her,
but I'm no longer in love with him/her.

* The love we once had seems to be lost.

* We don't seem to have anything in common any more. We have gone
off in different directions.

* I've met someone that makes me feel alive again. I haven't felt
this alive with my husband/wife for years.

Generally, I try to find out if these two people once felt in love
and passionate about each other. Most of the time they did. And often
the person on the phone with me believes these feelings cannot come
back, especially if he or she has met someone else.

For example, Brandon consulted with me because he was thinking of
leaving his marriage of 18 years. He still cared about his wife,
Jennifer, but he was no longer in love with her. He had recently
fallen in love with Chandra, with whom he now had all the passion he
previously had with Jennifer. The reason he hadn't left was he was
deeply devoted to his and Jennifer's four children.

I asked Brandon not to make any decisions about leaving until we had
a change for work together for a few months.

It soon became evident that, while Brandon was deeply desirous of
having an intimate relationship, which he believed he had with
Chandra, he had no intimacy with himself. By this I mean that he had
lived his life ignoring his own feelings and needs.

Brandon was a nice guy who was there for his wife and children, but
never there for himself. He was completely out of touch with his own
feelings and needs. He had abandoned himself. He was often judgmental
of himself, which led to his relying on others' approval for his
sense of himself. He would care-take others in the hopes that they
would give him the love, attention, and approval that he was not
giving to himself.

Love and intimacy almost always disappear in a relationship when we
abandon ourselves by judging ourselves, by ignoring our feelings, and
by making others responsible for our sense of worth. Because Brandon
had been abandoning himself for years in his relationship with
Jennifer, he was a sitting duck for an affair.

Chandra and Brandon were in the same profession and they met at a
national sales meeting. Over dinner, Chandra gave Brandon the
attention and approval that he was not giving himself and that
Jennifer was not giving to him. Jennifer, an executive in a large
company and a busy mother of four, did not want the responsibility of
taking care of Brandon. The problem was that Brandon had not wanted
the responsibility of taking care of Brandon either.

As Brandon started to learn how to attend to his own feelings, and
how to give himself the love and attention that he needed, he started
to feel much better inside. He discovered that the more he learned to
value himself, the more he started to reconnect with Jennifer.

I have often found in my work that as a person starts to treat
themselves with the love and valuing that they have always sought
form others - when they become intimate with themselves - they find
themselves experiencing intimacy with their spouse. A marriage they
thought was over becomes renewed with the love that they had been
seeking from someone else.

Before you leave your marriage, especially if you have children, do
your inner work and learn to have intimacy with yourself. You might
be surprised at what happens with your marriage.


Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of
eight books, including "Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?"
and “Healing Your Aloneness.” She is the co-creator of the powerful
Inner Bonding® healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her
web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: http://www.innerbonding.com
or email her at mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone Sessions
Available.

Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
Inner Bonding Educational Technologies, Inc.
2531 Sawtelle Blvd., #42
Los Angeles, CA 90064
310-459-1700 • 888-646-6372 (888-6INNERBOND)
mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com
www.innerbonding.com