Self-Intimacy. How does it impact your relationship?
Maybe you have heard a great deal about self-love and its importance for your well-being. But perhaps not as much about self-intimacy and its impact on your relationship.
Self-love and self-intimacy have the same impact.
When you have a healthy relationship with yourself, you trust yourself more, and you will find it easier to empathize with your partner’s needs and communicate your needs.
To build a truly healthy, intimate relationship, you must start with your relationship with yourself.
“A problem in a relationship is often actually a personal problem
requiring personal work.” ~ David Richo
When you know your wants and needs, you can work with your partner to create a shared set of rules in your relationship. If one or both partners do not know what they need, things get overlooked. And that’s where resentment comes to play.
Sometimes, when our relationship with ourselves is unhealthy, we project our fantasies onto our partner, which leads to obstacles in building intimacy. When our unrealistic expectations are not met, we are disappointed, and manipulation and control can take over, which will destroy any chance of true intimacy.
When you have a healthy relationship with yourself, you don’t project fantasies or unrealistic expectations on your partner.
A healthy relationship with yourself also means you feel emotions without letting them control your behavior. When you understand and accept yourself, it will be easier for you to understand your partner and make wiser decisions in your relationship.
An unhealthy relationship with yourself may stem from low self-esteem. When you have low self-esteem, you depend on your partner in different ways to feel happy. While it’s okay for your partner to be a source of your happiness, you won’t want to be co-dependent on that source.
The goal is to build your source of self-esteem so that you know how to make yourself happy.