Five Key Points for Intimate Loving Relationship

Dear Fr. Ruhnke,

My wife Wanda and I were college students when we met and married. We had to learn a lot of things by just working through them as best we could, talking and learning from each other. And of course that included our sexual relationship - in fact especially that. After reflecting on our experience of 27 years, we have tried to share the fruit of our learning with couples we have been blessed to sponsor. We came up with 5 key ideas that help us have a loving intimate relationship. We wanted to share it with you. Perhaps other sponsor couples and engaged couples may find these thoughts useful.

May God continue to bless your ministry,

Rick and Wanda Workman, St. Cyril of Alexandria, Houston Texas.

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FIVE KEY POINTS FOR DEVELOPING AN INTIMATE LOVING RELATIONSHIP

1 - Gentleness is always right. We associate gentleness with physical kindness and tenderness and that is a fundamental and essential ingredient for intimacy. But gentleness is not limited to this. It includes emotional and spiritual gentleness too. This includes how we speak, being mindful of our partner's nature, likes and dislikes. It includes how and when we discuss aspects of our sexual relationship.

2 - The right to say "no." Another fundamental and essential component for true intimacy is a deep trust in each other - the kind of trust that we need to truly place ourselves in our partners hands, to be open, to be vulnerable, to take risks, to grow. Either partner should feel the right to say "no" or to change the manner of sharing intimacy at any point, without fear of frustrating or angering their partner. This is not always easy but it is of great importance to work at. If your partner wants to stop or wishes to be intimate without sexual intercourse, you must treat them lovingly and gently even though you may feel some frustration. Your partner will come to trust you deeply - not just in matters of intimacy but in all aspects life.

3 - Put your partner first. We are surrounded by a culture that usually looks at sex as "something for me". It is thought of as something "taken", not something "given". Yet in fact it is giving oneself, one's time and tenderness and love, to make your partner feel loved, cherished, understood. It is a celebration of the relationship and at the same time it builds the relationship. Most of us are willing to spend time and effort in choosing a gift to please our partner - not what we want but what would really make them happy. So it should be in our sexual relationship too - only even more so. You will find that the most memorable and most beautiful episodes in your relationship will be those in which you know your partner felt truly loved emotionally, spiritually as well as physically. Putting your partner first is not denying your own pleasure, but in realizing that your pleasure is enhanced by that of your partner more than anything else.

4 - Patience. Patience is a virtue in dealing with our partners in every aspect of our relationship. But it is a very important part of our sexual relationship. It is related to some of the other points made here, such as accepting our partner's wishes with tenderness even if they don't coincide with our own at the moment.

Men and women's sexual responses are not all the same. They differ in how they view sex. We have to be patient with each other so that we have an opportunity to learn about each other. It takes time. A couple's intimate relationship grows, evolves and changes over time. We change so the need to learn never stops. It takes patience to work through changes and risk growth.

Every intimate encounter is not the same as the last or the best or the ultimate. It takes patience and love to accept that sometimes it "ordinary" or we are in different moods or we are worried about work or a loved one. Each must be patient in these instances so we can help our partners feel loved - that is after all the real goal of intimacy.

5 - Communicate. None of us automatically know how to make our partners feel loved, pleasured, and fulfilled. Our culture would have us think we should however. We are supposed to just know. The reality is that we don't. Even if we come to the marriage with some amount of sexual experience that doesn't assure us that we know how to make our lifetime partner feel truly loved. We are all different. We need to learn about each other, what our partners like and don't like, what is loving and pleasuring and what is not. So we have to communicate those things to each other.

We have already said that our relationship, intimate and otherwise changes. We have said that the need to learn never stops - we don't get to a point where we know everything because we change. There is no other way to learn but to communicate clearly, honestly and lovingly. It requires gentleness, it requires trust, it requires a willingness to grow, and it requires an overwhelming desire to please and to love your partner.