Intimacy & Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship (21 page)

This is also where self-validated intimacy comes in: Other-validated intimacy requires partners to be in sync; self-validated intimacy doesn’t. Self-validated intimacy often occurs when partners are out of sync. In fact, if you want to get out of sync with your partner in positive ways, self-validated intimacy is your ticket.

Self-validated intimacy is a positive “out of sync” experience. It’s positive for you, positive for your relationship, and positive for your mate (who may not appreciate it at the time). Self-validated intimacy breaks the tyranny of lock-step reciprocity and stops the volleys of negative emotional reactivity. Screaming and shouting typically diminish because you stop feeling controlled by your partner.

Earlier we discussed how your partner controls the level of intimacy
only
as long as you rely on other-validated intimacy. As long as you depend on your partner for your emotional balance, there is no escape from gridlock. However, when you shift to self-validated intimacy,
you
control the level of intimacy because you can increase it unilaterally. Self-validated intimacy involves validating, accepting, and soothing
yourself
. Self-validated intimacy gives you the freedom to say what needs to be said. Breaking free of gridlock involves holding on to your self and taking a leap of faith: Self-validated intimacy challenges your identity and self-worth. It asks,
“Who do you think you are?!”

Self-validated intimacy isn’t telling your partner how much you loathe him, spewing your venom in the guise of honesty. Self-validated intimacy strengthens your Four Points of Balance (Solid Flexible Self, Quiet Mind–Calm Heart, Grounded Responding, Meaningful Endurance). It involves confronting
yourself
and addressing things you’ve avoided up to now. It requires calming yourself down, validating yourself enough to look at the truth, and being willing to be wrong. You have to stay non-reactive, because your partner usually reacts when you make this differentiating move.

When you initiate a productive out-of-sync experience, your partner will immediately try to map your mind, because your actions are inconsistent with his picture of you. Realizing you are functioning independently often elicits an immediate response (although sometimes not a positive one). Your partner can
feel
changes in emotional fusion as you unhook from his responses, even if he’s never heard of self-validated intimacy.

Sharon and Thomas came into their next session still reeling from a recent argument. I decided it was finally time to confront both of them. “You both know your partner has a soft emotional underbelly. Why do you keep acting like that’s not the case?”

Awkward silence filled the room. After several seconds, Sharon and Thomas realized this wasn’t a rhetorical question. I expected an answer. No one said anything for almost a minute. Then, speaking slowly, Thomas went first.

“Sharon acts like she’s always ready to talk, but she runs away when I try to discuss difficult things with her. She covers her own insecurities by
telling me I have problems with intimacy … I know what she’s doing. I act like I don’t because I’m hurt. I act like I don’t know she’s covering up because I’m insecure too. I know she has a soft emotional underbelly. It’s easier to respond to her hard shell because that way I get to express my anger … I’m not sure I can control my temper, actually …”

Sharon was shocked. This was a real demonstration of self-validated intimacy. It signaled Thomas was taking a different stance and trying harder. He wasn’t accusatory. He spoke matter-of-factly, and his voice was calm. Thomas was finally willing to confront himself and his life.

But that wasn’t the only reason Sharon was shocked. Thomas obviously understood feelings and how people’s minds work. It took several minutes for her to realize he had been tracking her all along. She looked at Thomas the entire time. When she finally spoke, her words came slowly, as if she was speaking her thoughts as they came to her.

“I do it … I do it too … I pretend I don’t see Thomas’s sensitive side … because … because I’m afraid … that deep down … he is more sensitive than I am.”

“What?!” Thomas’s eyes grew wide with amazement.

“I’m afraid you are more sensitive than I am.” This was self-validated intimacy. Sharon said it as a fact. She wasn’t looking for reassurance.

All rancor in the room evaporated. Two instances of self-validated intimacy created hope. This was the first positive synchrony between them in a long time.

“I didn’t know you felt that!” Thomas’s tone said,
It must be awful to feel that!

“I don’t let you see that.” This was more self-validated intimacy from Sharon. To me it sounded like,
I’m not looking for sympathy. This is difficult for me, but I’m anteing up. You may track me, and you may think you can read me like a book, but you don’t. There are still some things about me you don’t know
.

Sharon followed Thomas’s lead by openly confronting herself. They were in sync. Their previous banter and repartee was typically negative and disconfirming. Their competitive sides usually surfaced. This response and counter-response using self-validated intimacy was completely new. This felt a lot better.

Thomas said, “I can understand why you wouldn’t let me see that. I’d probably use it to pressure you for sex.”

Sharon responded, “I understand why you’d do that. I make you pressure me to have sex because that’s the only time we have it. I don’t initiate.”

“I always initiate, you never get a chance.”

“Forget it. I never initiate. You’d have a better chance winning the lottery!” Thomas and Sharon laughed.

It was time for me to speak up. “You two are very competitive. Is the new competition going to be more honest and self-confronting? Is this going to fall apart when you leave?”

Sharon looked at Thomas. Thomas looked at the floor. Sharon said, “This isn’t like winning the lottery, but I feel better than before. I feel freer and lighter … I need to do this for myself. I have to stop treating you like you’re a jerk, because I know you’re not. And I need to stop withholding sex because I’m only hurting myself.”

Thomas looked up. He waited a moment to make clear he wasn’t responding reflexively. “At the risk of sounding like a copycat, I have to say, ‘Me too!’ … I need to stand on my own two feet and talk straight, even when you don’t … I need to stop withholding from you, too … And if that’s competing with you, well, then screw me!”

“I just might!” she laughed. Thomas was taken aback. He looked at Sharon from the corner of his eye and laughed a little, half afraid to believe it.

Sharon and Thomas left our session feeling better but unsettled. Self-validated intimacy creates intense moments of meeting, profound intersubjective experiences. Operating on this level, they were virtual strangers to themselves and each other. They left with the awkwardness of two people just starting to date.

On the way home Sharon and Thomas were friendly toward each other. Each was lost in thought, reflecting on what had just happened. They left my office feeling like
a couple
. It happened by functioning
more independently as individuals
. They felt more together and more free. It developed quickly, and it could disappear just as fast. They had something positive going between them, and neither one wanted to drop it. The overriding sense of anger between them was replaced by hope.

When Sharon and Thomas went to bed that night, the question of sex hung in the air. Thomas wanted to, but he didn’t want to ruin things. He was sort of impressed with himself, and with her, too. Sharon looked more sexually appealing.

Thomas decided to go for it. He asked Sharon if she wanted to have sex. For his efforts he received an immediate, reflexive “No.” Sharon’s response was more modulated than usual, but she regretted it as soon as she said it. She hadn’t considered for a moment whether she wanted to or not. She was shocked by her own reaction. On the way home she had actually thought it might be nice to have sex.

Thomas saw both sides of Sharon’s response. He got her automatic negative answer, but saw some effort on her part to modulate it. Her tone didn’t have its typical message:
You’re making me angry! Stop badgering me!
But for Thomas, it was rejection nonetheless.

Thomas sagged. Sharon braced for his impending emotional barrage. This was usually enough to set him off. But this time, instead of raging at Sharon, Thomas kept himself under control. This time his disappointment was more than just a punctured reflected sense of self. The better part of Thomas was hurt too. His hopes from the therapy session crashed. He was angry with himself for initiating so soon, and not just because Sharon said “No.” Thomas thought he had blown his alliance with her, and she’d think he’d never change.

Typically, this would have launched Thomas into another emotional nosedive. He usually felt the impulse to lash out at Sharon. But Thomas didn’t indulge himself in it the way he usually did. He didn’t say anything at first. Then he said softly:

“It’s okay. I had my own ambivalence about asking. I thought it was probably premature, but I haven’t felt this good about you in a long time.”

Sharon heard,
I’m okay. This is just hard to swallow. I’ll take care of my feelings. I’m disappointed, but you’re not doing something wrong. I’m not going to let this ruin things between us
.

Time stopped. This was a
huge
intersubjective moment. Sharon watched Thomas confront, calm, and master his feelings. She watched him go through a whole range of reactions, then sag and struggle, and emerge more solid on the other side, albeit a bit shaky. He went through this in a matter of minutes instead of days or weeks or months. Sharon was impressed.

“Thank you,” she said. Thomas knew she meant it.

“No problem,” Thomas said. It was clearly a
big
problem, but Thomas handled it. He wasn’t denying his feelings. He was trying to be kind. He was putting all his effort into maintaining his emotional balance.

“I really mean it.” Sharon’s earnestness drew Thomas to look at her. Their eyes met, and they
saw
each other. Sharon wanted Thomas to map her mind. They were acutely aware of the significance of what was happening, and the positive change in their alliance. Thomas knew Sharon was watching him confront himself and keep himself under control.

“I know you do,” said Thomas. Sharon saw that his words and his mind lined up, and her face and body relaxed. This interaction felt incredibly different. They weren’t stroking and reinforcing each other as usual, they were standing on their own two feet. Each one’s behavior brought out the best in the other, but they didn’t get there by trying to accept and validate each other. They were speaking for themselves, trying to be honest, rather than trying to ingratiate themselves by saying what the other wanted to hear. This was self-validated intimacy.

Sharon regretted having said “No” even more. She decided this wasn’t the time to mention it. She didn’t want to interfere with what Thomas was doing. He didn’t need to be propped up with sex, and she didn’t want to look like she was paying him off. She also wasn’t over being stunned by her “hardwired” refusal.

By the time they went to bed, Thomas felt good about himself. He slept more peacefully than usual. Sharon hardly slept a wink. She was upset—frightened actually—by how automatically she had turned Thomas down. It didn’t have anything to do with what she was feeling at the time. It just came out of her, like a grooved response in her brain. Sharon replayed the countless times she’d made that response. She
gasped when she saw how awful this must have been for Thomas. Instead of feeling pressured
by
him, she felt compassion
for
him. Far from feeling self-righteousness, Sharon felt
awful
.

In the wee hours of the morning, Sharon initiated sex. Thomas awoke at 2 a.m. to find Sharon fondling him. “Am I dreaming?” Thomas said groggily. He was clearly pleased. He wasn’t being sarcastic.

“No, you’re not dreaming. I’m just waking up.” Thomas realized this had different meanings. He needed to be sure.

“Couldn’t you sleep?”

“I’ve been asleep a long time,” Sharon said, as she straddled him and took him inside her. It wasn’t like Sharon to get on top. Self-validated intimacy wasn’t Sharon’s preferred sexual style. Sharon looked down at Thomas and smiled. “I’m sorry I said ‘no’ when you initiated before. I don’t know why I did that. It was completely automatic. It must be hard for you when I do that.”

Thomas smiled back. Sharon responded by grinding her pelvis. A smile grew across her face as Thomas’s eyes began to bulge.

Self-validated intimacy isn’t always contentious. Some of the best self-validated intimacy is carnal. Moments of meeting like these can change your life. They can lead to profound desire, intense intimacy, and pretty incredible sex. Just bring along your Four Points of Balance.

Scientists believe interpersonal encounters shape the neurobiology of your brain. As experiences go, few are better than sexual self-validated intimacy. (Right up with going through childbirth together.) If you picture Sharon and Thomas’s intense moment of meeting, it won’t surprise you when science demonstrates you can rewire your head this way. It contained many conditions thought to expedite the process.

First, the sex Sharon and Thomas had was moderately stressful and highly emotional, against a background of peace and calm—perfect conditions for creating brain plasticity. Second, both their “body self” and complex self were involved. Third, the new information and experience they gained required their minds to integrate their thoughts, emotions,
sensations, and behavior. Presumably this forced the right and left halves of their brains to interact in new patterns.