When Should I decide to Leave?

In my book, I wrote a chapter titled, "Should I Leave or Stay?" Many hurt spouses are faced with that question and I wanted to offer some points for them to consider in making that decision.

While what I wrote there I still believe and support, I've become more aware of additional issues that I failed to address. This post will be an additional list of considerations, keeping in mind what I said in the original article: you know your situation and you are the only one who can decide when you're done.

The "Default" Position

One poster on the forum we frequent made the statement that divorce should be the default position a hurt spouse should have upon discovering infidelity in their spouse, and reconciliation only a viable option if the unfaithful spouse does all they should do.

In reality, there is some truth to that. When a spouse has sex outside the marriage, they've committed adultery. If you're a Christian, Jesus made it clear that committing adultery in effect meant the offending spouse had divorced you and remarried the affair partner. (Mark 10:11-12) Biologically, having sex with someone else, no matter what protections may have been used, is saying you're committing yourself to having a family with that person, as that is the natural outcome of sex if not otherwise hindered. Those whose affairs have inadvertently produced a child know this all too well. Sex does create a marital bond.

"But my spouse didn't have sex." Or so he says, anyway, which may or may not be true. You can't know for sure he didn't. But assuming he's telling the truth, did he divorce you? In many cases, yes. If he fantasized about it, if he found himself wishing he could, he committed adultery as if he'd actually done it. (Mat 5:28)

So upon discovering an affair, generally a biological divorce has already happened, along with a spiritual divorce, and frequently an emotional one as well if romantic love was involved. Only the outward social and legal aspects of marriage remain intact.

The question then is more along the lines of should we bring the social and legal into line with the reality, or hope that the reality can be healed to match the social and legal statuses?

One woman on our forum decided to divorce her husband on discovery day. She didn't want to lose him, but wanted to reflect that reality and see if he could in effect win her back. Not sure how that went, but is one option that makes some sense, if you can afford it and doesn't negatively affect one's kids' lives

The reality is, however, that on discovery day a hurt spouse may not know whether their unfaithful spouse will do what is necessary to heal. The only real way to know is give them a chance to try. Not everyone is ready to give up on their marriage as a default option. If by "default" one means to start divorce proceedings on discovery day before considering the situation, I don't think that is a good route in most cases.

The hurt spouse has time on their side. Rather I'd suggest that the default option is to keep divorce as a viable option on the table. Plan for that possibility financially and legally. Be ready to pull the plug should the situation warrant it. But I don't think for most people automatically pulling that trigger on discovery day is the best option.

What is the best option in your situation, I can't say. You might should pull that trigger on discovery day. Only you can know when. I just don't think it should be the default as in immediate route to take without giving yourself time to evaluate it.

Because of that . . .

The Default Route is to Give Yourself Three Months

There are several reasons for this.

• You can discover whether rebuilding has a chance.
• Gives you time to get off the emotional roller coaster, avoiding a knee-jerk decision you may later regret.
• The divorce option is always there. Waiting won't cause you to lose it.
• You'll need about that much time, at a minimum, to plan for a graceful exit should that be the decision you make. Waiting doesn't mean not making plans for a divorce, whether you use it or not. It just means you're waiting that long to make a final decision.
• Gives the hurt spouse time to evaluate the situation and get more objective input from therapist, spiritual leaders, and close friends.
• Takes the pressure off to make an immediate decision.

There are a certain number of hurt spouses who don't think waiting is a good idea. Almost without exception, these tend to be people who decided to wait based on advice they received, then after two or three years they call it quits and divorce. These hurt spouses, understandably, feel like they wasted two or three years of living in a horrible relationship and wished they had divorced him on discovery day.

We might point out that we're suggesting three months, not three years. Obviously they waited too long to come to that conclusion. But hindsight is always 20/20 vision. Most hurt spouses should be able to determine if their spouse will take the right attitude and actions in three months that will give rebuilding a chance. That's why we've listed the "Healing Steps for the Unfaithful Spouse" article. Both to guide unfaithful spouses in what it takes to rebuild, and to give hurt spouses a picture of what an unfaithful spouse who stands a chance of rising to the occasion looks like.

Also, it rarely works to generalize based on an individual's experience, whether it is myself who has had a positive experience rebuilding or those who have watched rebuilding go from bad to worse until a fiery death occurred. Personalities, circumstances, and other contributing issues are too complex to suggest everyone should divorce on discovery day, don't wait.

That said, their experience does highlight a real risk in waiting even three months. Some unfaithful spouses are experts at psychological manipulation. They can gaslight with the best of them. Given the chance, they could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo. Give them three months and they can have the hurt spouse believing it was their fault, that they are the victim here, and they will never stray again without proving it by their attitudes and actions. Some hurt spouses are more susceptible to that as well.

If a hurt spouse knows this is likely to be the case, they need to factor it into their decision. If his mind control is too hard to resist, indeed, run now, not later. At a minimum, a hurt spouse in such a situation needs to not believe a single word of "I'm sorry. I won't do it again." Only focus on whether he is making the required changes. Any hiding, refusal to discuss the affair, attitude of "what you don't know won't hurt you," is evidence that your final decision will be to say "bye bye."

If you've reached three months without coming to a firm decision one way or the other, that in and of itself is an indication of a rebuilding problem. Use your judgment, but evaluate your inability to decide. Is it because the unfaithful spouse isn't following through on being transparent and honest?

I'm not talking about whether you trust him or not. If you do in three months you either deserve the Hurt Spouse of the Year Award, or you're deluding yourself. But you should be able to measure whether his actions and attitudes are making the rebuilding of trust a real possibility or not. You simply go down the list I mentioned above and check off what he is doing, then based on that make your decision. Leave emotions and promises out of it. If every hurt spouse did that, more of them would save themselves a lot of heartache.

Even with all that, it is possible to be so convinced he's on the right path, only to discover he's still at it months or years later, maybe never quit. That is a real risk to choosing to rebuild, or even waiting to divorce. Some people are that convincing and hesitation means a lost chance to exit an emotionally abusive relationship.

Even with that, in general, most will benefit from giving themselves at least three months to process a decision. Unless you are in a physically or emotionally abusive situation, waiting will not hurt. The only warning I'd give is if he's not doing what he should in three months, another year or three is not likely to change that. Don't take three years of living in Hell before you decide to leave.

Final Thoughts

Allow me to reemphasize. No one situation is going to match another. What works for one couple won't for another. You can do everything right, and still find yourself cheated on again. Rebuilding has risks. Divorce has its own risks as well. It is up to you to evaluate those and decide what risk to take. All a blog like this or any forum can do is give you general principles to consider. It is up to you to apply them.

If your marriage sucked and you see the affair as your exit, by all means call up the lawyer on discovery day and get that ball rolling. Ignore the above advice. I can't know what is best for your situation. No one can. Hopefully this and the previous article will provide some help in making that decision, however. It is not an easy one to make.

Sex After Discovery Day

One of the more common questions that pops up from time to time is whether and when the hurt spouse should resume sexual relations with their unfaithful spouse once the affair(s) has/have come to light? This is not an easy question to answer simply because of all the dynamics that can exist in a relationship. But I'm going to make the attempt to provide some principles, that while not covering every situation, hopefully most reading this will be able to adapt to their own situations.

What is Sex?

Before we dig into that, it is important to know where I'm coming from when I talk about sex. Sex is a broad term, and can refer to various sexual activity. But I'm using it in the narrower context of sexual intercourse between a man and a woman (required for sexual intercourse that has the potential to create life). So I'm not talking about other sexual activities like oral sex or anal sex in this article, though those participating in those activities would have some of the same issues and concerns. Thus much of this will apply to participating in any sexual activity with one's spouse or partner.

When a couple have sex, they are in effect uniting to each other in marriage or renewing their marital bond.

"What?" I can hear some people crying out. "I thought it was the state and/or church that married people so they could have sex." If you don't understand the above statement, are surprised by it, or think you disagree with it, you first need to read my articles on this topic: What Is Marriage - Biological Basis, What Is Marriage - Biblical Basis, and What Is Marriage - Cultural Basis. It is important that you understand this concept to grasp the significance of the principles I'm about to give you. To have sex with someone you don't intend to marry emotionally, socially, legally, or spiritually is to abuse the union that act creates. This is also why affairs are so destructive to a marriage, because it essentially divorces your spouse and marries another physically.

If after reading the above articles you still disagree with that concept, take that into consideration where I'm coming from as we go through these points, and adjust for you own understanding.

The Hurt Spouse's Considerations

Upon discovering one's spouse has been unfaithful, there are several issues the hurt spouse is dealing with that relate to whether and when they can resume a sexual relationship with their spouse. At the root of these issues are the following.

Betrayal: An intimate trust has been violated. The unfaithful spouse took what was not theirs to take and gave it to another without the hurt spouse's knowledge or consent.

Lies and secrets: The unfaithful spouse has lied to hide their guilt and shame for what they've done to the marriage, their spouse, and their family.

Due to those, trust has been destroyed and the unfaithful spouse's love for him put into question. While the unfaithful spouse may have convinced themselves they could love two or more people, the hurt spouse will not see it that way. From their viewpoint, people who love you don't hurt you by secretly loving another.

The unfaithful spouse's claims to the contrary will fall on deaf ears of the hurt spouse due to actions speaking louder than words. They are not able to trust anything the unfaithful spouse says. Promises and claims of undying love for the spouse will sound hallow in the hurt spouse's ears for months or years to come, depending on how fast the healing takes place.

All of those realities factor into the following issues the hurt spouse tends to deal with.

Has he stopped?

It is near impossible for the hurt spouse to know for sure, that the unfaithful spouse is no longer having sex with other people or continuing an affair. Especially in the early days, but even long after that if trust isn't healing, often due to trickle truth (new revelations about the affair that the unfaithful spouse didn't mention) or reluctance of the unfaithful spouse to talk about the affair at all.

Most unfaithful spouses are not going to be gun-ho on having sex with their spouse if they still suspect the affair is still going on. In my explanation of marriage and sex above, doing so means committing adultery since the unfaithful spouse has united to the affair partner. So aside from the "ewe" aspect of their private space having been violated by another, is the desire to have sex mean more than having a good time, but that it is a commitment to each other. After discovering an affair, that commitment has been destroyed. The hurt spouse will not be ready to commit himself to his spouse in sex until they feel confident that the unfaithful spouse won't do the same again.

Health

Once the hurt spouse discovers the affair, one of the first concerns they will have is whether they've been exposed to any sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). It his highly recommended that both spouses get tested for STDs. Some of them are life threatening. Until the hurt spouse knows the unfaithful spouse is safe, and is not still playing Russian Roulette with their health by a continuing affair, it will be difficult for the hurt spouse to feel safe having sex again.

Remember, if the unfaithful spouse says, "But honey, we used protection," that will not help. One, the hurt spouse has no way to verify that and they can't believe anything you say about this. Two, even if you did, protection is not 100%. Condoms break or slip off. It only takes one drop of fluids to transmit a disease.

Triggers

When an affair involves sex with the affair partner, many hurt spouses have trouble getting thoughts of their spouse and the affair partner out of their mind. Sexual activity of any kind can trigger those thought and shut down desire when visualizing the unfaithful spouse and the affair partner engaged in the same activity.

Related to that, any attempts to do any special sexual and exciting actions can trigger thoughts of "I'll bet he did this with her!" Especially if they had never been done until that point. These kinds of thoughts will tend to destroy motivation for sex.

This is an issue the hurt spouse must get through, and no one has the same time table on it. Unfaithful spouses should not be surprised to discover that their hurt spouses stop in the middle of preparing for sex, because they simply can't get these images out of their minds.

Loss of love

Dr. Willard F. Harley, in his book, His Needs, Her Needs, discussed the analogy of the love bank as it relates to romance, or feeling in love with your spouse. The idea is that through a relationship, people make desposits and withdraws from their spouse or future spouse's point of view. Deposits are actions and words that make the spouse feel loved, and that varies from person to person. Withdraws are actions and words that make the spouse feel not wanted, not important, or even hated. The higher the balance, the more in love a person will feel. If it dips into the negative, however, the relationship is in danger.


There is no question that the affair is a huge withdrawal on the love bank. Some spouses can take the hit and still feel love for their spouse because their love balance was high enough to compensate. For those with a low balance, however, the withdrawal could very easily put the account into the negative. It will take a lot of the unfaithful spouse doing and saying the things that make the hurt spouse feel loved before the negative balance can be restored into the positive.

When I say it will take a lot, I mean it will take more than it normally would have before the affair. Why? Because the hurt spouse doesn't trust the unfaithful spouse. Initially, the unfaithful spouse doing things to make the hurt spouse feel loved is going to feel, in many cases, fake and temporary. It will look like attempts to calm the storm so things can "get back to normal," in hopes he'll get over it. So those don't tend to deposit much at first. But if the unfaithful spouse sticks with it, over time it will accelerate.

But as long as the hurt spouse doesn't feel very loved by the unfaithful spouse, they are not going to be too eager to express a love they don't have by having sex. If they do, they tend to feel used and numb.

In essence, the hurt spouse may love the unfaithful spouse, but at that moment he's not in love with the unfaithful spouse.

Resistance from the unfaithful spouse.

The unfaithful spouse may also be unresponsive to having sex. Many hurt spouses take this behavior as proof they don't love them anymore, or that they are still engaged with the affair partner. In some cases, that evaluation would be correct.

But there are other reasons an unfaithful spouse may not be active in wanting sex. He may feel guilty, and is reluctant to initiate sex, or feel uncomfortable because it reminds him of what he threw away. He may feel such shame over it, he sexually shuts down. If the hurt spouse is having a hard time dealing with triggers, the unfaithful spouse can interpret that as punishing him, so he distances himself from the hurt spouse.

Not feeling the "I want you" from the unfaithful spouse, the hurt spouse may have a hard time generating any desire themselves.


The above is not an exhaustive list, but reflects the primary difficulties a hurt spouse tends to encounter when considering the resumption of sexual relations after discovery day. This, however, will not account for past history of the couple which can also play into this dynamic.

Hysterical Bonding

Hysterical bonding is what many rebuilding couples experience in the weeks and months after discovery day. Initially, after the affair is discovered, if the hurt spouse has some sense that the affair is over, and he is reconnecting to his unfaithful spouse, a period of sexual desire can ensue much like the first days when he started having sex with her.

The motivation stems from the fear of losing each other and the desire to regain what he almost lost. It can also arise due to the hurt spouse's fear that if they don't have sex frequently, the unfaithful spouse may be too tempted to return to the affair partner.

This period typically last for several weeks, even months after discovery day. However, everyone is different. Some may experience little to no such desires, for others it can last more than a year. A lot of factors go into it, including the intensity of the barriers a hurt spouse experiences.

While the period of hysterical bonding may override the above listed concerns, if they are not resolved, they are waiting on the downside of the sex craze. The period is temporary and doesn't mean the above listed issues don't need to be addressed.

Principles to Guide the Hurt Spouse

So how does a hurt spouse go about deciding if and when to resume sex, and how?

The first and primary answer to that is much of it depends on the hurt spouse's comfort level. The following principles may help you to determine that.

You believe the affair is over.

It is difficult to know for sure it is over, but if the signals tell you it isn't, and your gut warns you it isn't, then it would be appropriate to wait. You don't want to enable his behavior by allowing him to have sex from both of you, to put your health at risk from STDs, and send him the signal that you're okay with it all, that you are over it when you are not.

Fact is, you won't feel safe resuming sex until you feel certain the affair has ended.

You are willing to risk "trust on loan."

Let's face it. You don't trust your spouse, and it will take months, maybe at least a couple years before you can regain a working level of trust. That is, you have enough trust in your spouse to have a healthy relationship.

If you don't let your spouse have sex with you until you've regained that trust, that will be a long time for him to wait. The truth is, few couples ever wait until trust has been restored before sex resumes. So they end up sending the unfaithful spouse the message, "Oh, okay. I'm over it now."

Practically speaking, you end up extending trust anyway. You can't keep tabs on your spouse 24/7 short of locking her in her room, which will get you a few years in your own prison cell. If your spouse wants to cheat, they will find a way to do it.

On my own discovery day, I came up with this concept after my wife asked if we could have sex that day. At first, I wasn't sure I could. She had said she'd stop seeing the affair partner or having any kind of contact with him. But those were just words and intentions. They were tested in the coming week.

I knew I didn't have the trust to give her outright, indicating everything was all right. It was far from all right. But I had the following knowledge that helped me. One, I knew everything she'd done, so I knew there were no more gotcha surprises. Two, she confessed to everything. She didn't know I knew everything, but once I confronted her, she spilled all the beans. So I had a sense she was now being honest with me.

So I told her I was going to give her trust on loan. It didn't mean I trusted her, rather I was willing to take the risk she might default in paying it back to give her breathing room to set things right. She would pay off that trust loan by continuing to be honest with me, hide no secrets, maintain no contact with the affair partner, to institute full transparency. As she did all that consistently over time, she would pay it back.

If, however, she defaulted on that trust loan by doing the opposite of those things, then she'd be stuck in a pay as you go trust rebuilding. In which case, sex would stop happening. Doing it this way, however communicated the message "I don't trust you yet, but I want to." It shows you are committed to rebuilding, but you are not giving the unfaithful spouse a free, blank check either. They are still responsible to address the issues that bought the affair about.

That said, if you determine they are still in contact with their affair partner or keeping secrets and not being transparent, I would not recommend giving them trust on loan. You need at least some semblance that they are on the path to paying that trust loan back. Otherwise your no better off than a bank loaning money for a house to someone on the unemployment line. They've got to at least show they have the potential to pay that loan off before they get it.

Sex as a commitment.

The other message I gave to my wife that day is the need for her to understand what having sex with me again meant. Before that day, her last sexual encounter was with her affair partner. In effect, at that point she was physically divorced from me and married to him.

For me to have sex with her was in effect to remarry her. To take her back from the affair partner. But I wasn't interested in playing back and forth. I wanted her to realize that to have sex with me again meant she was committing herself to me exclusively. That going to have sex with someone else was a deal breaker. That by having sex, I expected us to be exclusive with each other.

She agreed. So we were remarried that evening. Thankfully she kept her end of the commitment up to this day. She's repaid the trust loan. I've had a working trust for well over a year, probably close to around a year and a half.

I didn't know then whether she would keep up her end of the deal. I took a risk, and I won so far. But the possibility for default, for failing, is always a possibility.

But the above strategy did two things for me. It ensured that I put the burden of addressing the affair issues on her shoulders. She needed to take responsibility for the bad choices she'd made, and work to address the issues which allowed her to chose a destructive path. It also communicated the reality that while I was giving her a second chance, she was still making a commitment right then to be my wife, and no one else's. If that was broken again, it would be over.

The Risk of Love

The reality is that loving someone is always a risk. The more intimate the love, the greater the risk, the more we can be hurt. Too many couples, unwilling to risk much in love, stick to a superficial, selfish, pleasure-seeking based love. They view sex not as a commitment and life-long union with a person they love deeply, but as one among many recreational activities they like to participate in.

Whether a hurt spouse rebuilds with their unfaithful spouse or divorces and seeks another, it will be a risk of getting hurt again. The difference is in the hurt spouse's perceived level of risk from any one person. If the risk becomes too high of getting hurt again, the hurt spouse will not feel safe loving the unfaithful spouse again. They will go look for a lower-risk relationship to be a part of.

The above is a way the hurt spouse can approach resuming sexual relations. But it is primarily up to the unfaithful spouse to reestablish a safe zone for the hurt spouse, and do the things that rebuild trust over the next months and years. To aid in that, our recommendation for unfaithful spouses is to get a copy of How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by Linda MacDonald, and do what it says.

As stated at the beginning, there are many factors beyond what we've listed here that go into a decision of when to resume sex with an unfaithful spouse. It is my hope this will give the hurt spouse some ground work on how to reach that decision in their situation.

Rebuilding Intimacy

In discussing marriage, I listed several levels of marital bonding: social, emotional, legal, spiritual, and physical. I pointed out that the sexual union consummates, or fulfills, the other levels by converting them into a marital reality, demonstrated biologically, biblically, socially. Meanwhile, consummating a marriage via sex without the other levels of marriage in place devalues the bond it creates and abuses it by treating it as not intimate.

Except for the legal bond, which is more about protection, benefits, and responsibilities under a specific legal system, these levels of marriage represent levels of intimacy between two people. This illustrates not only why infidelity destroys these marital bonds of intimacy, but also the focus of rebuilding that intimacy.

First, we need to define intimacy, so we know what we're talking about. Intimacy has different levels. We usually think of these in categories of acquaintances, generic friendships, friendships, close friendships, and best friendships. Properly speaking, spouse should fall as the most intimate after best friends.

Intimacy is based upon how much you share of yourself and how many people to whom you share that reality.

Sure, you may find exceptions, but that is going to apply in most situations and people. The more you let someone into your life and the fewer who abide there, the more intimate it becomes. Here is a simple example that most who've experienced infidelity will readily get.

During an affair, usually only the unfaithful spouse and the affair partner know the affair is going on. Only those two share that secret. No one else is privy to that part of their life. This creates a deep intimacy in that area between the two.

Then the hurt spouse finds out. Maybe one of the participants told their best friend about it. The cat is out of the bag, and now more people see this intimate part of your life. There is still a high level of intimacy, but now that  more people know about it, it becomes less intimate than it was before.

Then you tell or they find out, your family/extended family about it. Now it becomes a "family secret." While still retaining a level of intimacy, it has been greatly watered down. A whole group has had a peek into this area of your life.

Then you do something like what Lenita and I have done: write a book about what happened and put it out for anyone in the world to pick up and read. More commonly for celebrities like Tiger Wood, the news reporters find out about it and it is broadcast all over the world. Now some dude in India may know all about your affair, who you don't even know exists. That makes the information about the affair the least intimate. Everyone can know about it.

Now lets apply this to the four levels of intimacy in marriage: emotional, social, spiritual, and physical. You may notice a correlation between these four and the article on the four loves in our book: philio, storge, agape, and eros respectively, roughly so.

Emotional Intimacy

This type of intimacy is characterized by the closeness of best friends. You get to know your spouse or potential spouses' dreams, goals, struggles, history, family, accomplishments and failures. The more of their life they share, and the fewer people with whom they share it with, the stronger that emotional bond.

There is an important part of your life that you share with such a best friend that is a huge measure of your emotional intimacy with a person: your time.

Both time spent together and time spent thinking about them and their welfare. You have a limited amount of time, especially discretionary time. Who you decide to spend that time with most says a lot about how emotionally intimate you are with that person. It designates who are the most intimate relationships in your life.

This is an intimacy that naturally runs high at the beginning of a relationship, but as it becomes familiar, and new shiny things attract our interest, we stop spending as much time together. The time we do spend together, tends to be on necessary mundane things that demand our attention. Over the years, what started out as a burning desire to spend most of your discretionary time with a person, dwindles to when you're required to, because you are interested in spending that time in other areas.

That person gets the message that they are not as important to you. You are not that emotionally intimate to share your life, your time, together with them. This happens all too often in marriages. It happened in mine.

When an affair hits, it should be obvious why this further destroys this intimacy. Yes, to many an affair is at least encouraged by a lack of emotional intimacy. This doesn't justify it or blame the other spouse for having one, but it is easy to understand why someone starved of emotional intimacy in their marriage would be attracted to anyone offering a buffet of attention and interest and wanting to spend their time with them.

But it is a death spiral for the marriage. Whereas before, that emotional intimacy was waiting in the wings to be taken, now it is no longer available because it has been given to another without the hurt spouse's knowledge or consent. Intimacy that properly belongs to the one you are united to in marriage has been given to another. As long as that continues, that is emotional intimacy the hurt spouse cannot have.

Likewise, to rebuild emotional intimacy post-affair involves reversing that process. Going no contact with the affair partner cuts off what is feeding the emotional intimacy with him: your time given to him. Going no contact also means cutting off time spent thinking about him.

But you don't cut that off by simply stopping, but by reinvesting that time in your spouse. By purposefully spend time thinking about your love and desire to be with your spouse, and planning to spend your free time with them, no matter what other "priorities" you have on your plate.

That is why a book like His Needs, Her Needs is so critical for rebuilding. You don't just let the emotional intimacy of the affair partner die off, you replace it by reviving your marriage, by making each other important again. By restoring the emotional intimacy with your spouse where it belongs, and not given to another.

Social Intimacy

Social intimacy corresponds with a sense of comfortableness being around each other. It provides a sense of stability and support to one another. It overlaps with emotional intimacy in that social activities are shared and time spent doing them together and being with each other are sought and longed for above any other relationship.

This doesn't mean other relationships, like the kids, are not attended to and important, but that the marital relationship maintains a priority position above any other relationship, even one's children. For the well-being of the children rests in the quality of the marital relationship.

Social intimacy can include several areas. Living together. Financial unity. Inlaw relations. Child rearing. Social activities. How well these and related areas of your life are integrated between two people indicates the degree of social intimacy you have.

Some of these, like living together, may appear easy. You either are or aren't living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed. But are you really living in the same house, or just existing in the same house? Maybe you have an integrated checking account where both of your monies reside, but are you jointly making decisions on how it is spent? The kids might be disciplined, but are you both involved and communicating about how discipline is handled?

Being socially intimate is for both of you to be involved in the decision-making processes, refusing to cut your spouse out of the picture to get your own way. Being the head of the household does not equate to being a dictator. That is the opposite of intimacy. That is cutting your spouse out of your life.

Gaining social intimacy means not expecting to get your way all the time. It does mean acknowledging each other's expectations and being wiling to compromise in order to obtain an "operating procedure" you can both agree to and adopt in any area of your social lives.

If you are having trouble in your marriage with these issues, seek marriage counseling. In addition or if counseling is not a viable option, I'd suggest you both read: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Don't settle for allowing the lack of social intimacy to continue, because it can come back to bite you in the end.

Spiritual Intimacy

If you are one that does not hold to any religious beliefs, you may think this section doesn't apply to you. Yes, if you have religious beliefs, it is best they be compatible, and that you can worship as a family. Living your life religiously divided would be a lack of intimacy. That would apply equally if an atheist and a Muslim were married as it would a Catholic and a Jew (I've met a couple like that before).

But spiritual intimacy is more than religious intimacy. This intimacy involves two things: humility and sacrifice.

Humility in that pride shuts the other person out of our inner person. Pride is wearing a mask. Pride is the fence we build around who we are for fear they won't like what they see. Humility breaks down that wall and says, "Here I am, warts and all. What you see is what you get." Humility exposes the man behind the curtain, trying to act macho to hide how weak and small he feels.

Spiritual intimacy involves seeing each other as you truly are. No secrets. No pretense. No masks or walls. Just who you are in all your vulnerability.

But the other leg this intimacy stands on is sacrifice. Being humble opens yourself up to the other person. Sacrificing your own agenda for their needs gives of yourself to each other. Letting each other into your lives and sacrificing for each other fosters a spiritual intimacy that exist at the core of your being.

How does that type of intimacy grown? By submission to one another in love and obedience. "But I don't want to be seen as inferior, as some type of slave." That's not what we are talking about here. We're talking about mutual obedience to each other in humility, doing what is beneficial for each other. I spell this out in my article on using humility to gain self-esteem.

Failure to do this, however, will mean a lack of spiritual intimacy, no matter how often you attend church together.

Physical Intimacy

Most would understand this to speak of being sexual with each other. Certainly it involves this. As I've said in other places, by the time many people get married, sexual activity is no longer that intimate. Or not as intimate as it should be. Remember our definition of intimacy at the start? The more people you share your body with, the less intimate it becomes.

But this intimacy goes beyond general sexual experiences. It focuses onto the one sexual act that forms the basis for marriage as I discussed in my July articles on this topic: sexual intercourse. This is the most intimate of sexual acts in that it joins two people into a union with the potential to create life together. It is this specific sexual act that turns the other types of union into a marital union. Without it, you're left with an intimate friendship, but not a marriage.

This also explains why an affair that results in adultery, whether mentally or physically, create such a cancerous illness in a marriage. For the unfaithful spouse is divorcing his spouse and marrying his affair partner in having sexual intercourse with them. Likewise, if he is having sex with his spouse too, he is continually divorcing and remarrying each of them over and over again. Doing so with no intent to foster the other types of intimacy devalues the marital bond and commitment that sexual intercourse inherently contains. When it is used merely for recreation and entertainment, the marital bond it creates is cheapened.

Yet, it goes beyond this. Yes, in the proper context, sexual intercourse is an intimate act. The most intimate physical activity we can do with someone. Any involvement of sexual activity, for most of us, isn't something we invite just anyone to join with us in. So unless we run around naked and participate in sexual activities with anyone who will have us, the number of people we are involved with is a limited number, and so has some level of intimacy, even if not the ideal of one.

Doing the act, in and of itself, doesn't necessarily foster full physical intimacy. For the physical intimacy to be complete means the previous intimacies above are firing on all cylinders, and a commitment to make each other the most important person in each other's lives is manifest. Then the intimacy inherent in sexual intercourse and other sexual activities are fulfilled and meaningful, making physical intimacy complete.

It should be coupled with emotional intimacy, keeping that romantic spark alive. Social intimacy lives out the reality of the physical intimacy. Spiritual intimacy keeps love as the motivation, and its purpose a giving of yourself rather than merely taking. Only then does physical intimacy rise above bodily intimacy and become a complete marital intimacy.

The quality of one's sexual intimacy should be worked on as well. Few of us take classes on this topic, but there are some good books. A book I've read and recommend is Sheet Music. Sometimes problems in the bedroom need a counselor to untie issues you are too close to see or deal with.

We should also note that physical intimacy is much broader a category than sexual intimacy. While a hug or even kiss is not nearly as intimate as sexual activities, it is a selective act. Rubbing a shoulder, scratching a back, massaging a foot can all be very intimate to a person and make any sexual intimacy that much richer. It should be considered a problem if the only physical intimacy that happens is during sex. That indicates a lack of intimacy physically.

As you can see, building intimacy in a marriage takes a holistic approach. It isn't as simple as tweaking a thing or two, or going out to eat together more often. It requires a complete evaluation of the dynamics in the marital relationship and a willingness to modify and/or adopt some core values that foster this intimacy rather than fight against it. I hope the above will give you a decent start on doing just that.