These 4 points can save a Marriage:

Don’t want sex, get married. Intimacy, sex are taboo topics in our culture. People don’t talk about it here, unlike the western world where it is discussed right from coffee shops to board rooms.

In our Family First outings, we talk to families about Health, Relationship, Parenting & Finance but the undercurrent that builds the vibes between the man & woman and bonds them together is never spoken about.

The Dictionary defines ‘Intimacy’ as – closeness and relationship. Its root is the Latin word ‘intimare’ which means ‘to impress’. Let’s probe further into what could impress a man in a woman and a woman in a man.

Why should we encroach on this subject? We have interacted with hundreds of couples who fell in love, were inseparable to shortly later fall out of love. What happened in the interim period that made them distance themselves from each other?

We will discuss 4 points that will make all the difference between ‘falling in and falling out’:

1. Listening:

Vijay is a Mechanical Engineer and Meena is a Commerce student. Their families brought them together through the traditional recruitment selection and induction process. Inevitably, two kids have been delivered with the support of the Gods in the last 6 years. Vijay and Meena have no common interests, be it favorite actors, music, travel, eating; hardly anything in common.

Vijay, due to his parental hangover finds the office going tough. It is difficult for him to navigate the waters of the corporate world. Meena on the other hand is restrained by her two kids and regrets every day of having succumbed to the nuptial eyes.

Does this story resonate with you?

Man is an island. Every human being lives in their cubicle and seldom do we get connected with the person on the other side. Initially, the biological urges of Vijay and Meena let them propagate the fountain of life. Now they are back in their cubby holes, musing over what in the heck brought them together.

Ask yourself – how much do you know your spouse? To what extent have you been willing to hear him and let him vent out from his psychological space, his vulnerabilities, insecurities, frailties, foibles, and inanities.

Listening is a vital ingredient in building lifetime intimacy.

2. Bouncing Board:

The very purpose of man is to solve problems. Man (refers to women too, no gender discrimination) is a goal-seeking animal. Constantly, ideas prop up – sometimes there is excitement, at times there is frustration.

Each thought is a ball that needs to be bounced. The more you bounce it, the more clarity you get on how to play the game of life.

Rajiv and Rekha (our students’ name changed) were passionately in love. But Rekha believed in a 9 to 5 job and despised ambition. Rajiv on the other hand was brimming with ideas. Every other day a project would crop up in his head. His mind was full of Start-up ideas and being a ‘Unicorn’ is what he desired.

Rekha would turn a deaf ear to his brilliance. The very same thing that she found fascinating before marriage was no longer arousing her interest now. Their passions were doused by now and the embers had cooled. While she wanted – certainty & stability in her life, he was seeking adventure.

The chemistry was now missing and the reaction time had slowed down. How many couples do we see on a day-to-day basis who stopped whetting the appetite of their partners by falling out of curiosity? The kick, the fun, and the fizz are gone because one person is not interested in what the other is going through.

Please note if Narayanamurthy and Sudha Murthy are happily married for 40 plus years, it is not because they ooze out the seductive charms and bewitching looks of Priyanka Chopra’s and Nick Jhones’s – it is because they walked hand in hand and supported each other in building the Infosys dream.

This is what is Intimacy. A sharing of thoughts. Each person supports the other as a bouncing board.

3. Spiritual:

Krishna and Raji (our friends’ names changed) are a well-known couple in our town. Every six months they go on long treks to the Himalayas, the western ghats, and deep into the forests.

They savor in the silence, the shining moons, rising and setting suns, the padding of the river waters, the scent of the flowers wafting through the forest, and the birds competing with each other through the chirps to gain their attention.

It is not the bars that hold the cage, it is the space between the bars that hold the cage. Intimacy is not their proximity. Intimacy is a vibrant dance between the spaces. Life is not counted by their years; it is counted by these moments of being.

Have you ever seen a spiritual couple fall out of love?

Intimacy need not be an act of sexual promiscuity. It is not the notes that make the music, it is the silence between the notes that make the music.

4. Physical:

This very word gives us connotations of the dark, raunchy Netflix movies. They depict physical (sex) as something you do. They make you imagine scenes like the AXE intimate perfume – where just a whiff will send hundreds of women running towards you. 

The whole world is stuck on doing. A Physical is an erotic act, holding each other’s hand in the darkness and saying I am there for you through times, good or bad.

Stroking each other gently, softly, and with care and not concerned about the outcome. Stroking is zero outcome.

What is Eroticism, you may ask:

• Eroticism is planning the whole day, if not the evening together.
• Eroticism is wearing the most alluring of dresses that appeal to each other.
• Eroticism is working on your bodies to make yourself attractive to each other.
• Eroticism is bedecking yourself with flowers and putting on the choicest of perfumes to create the atmosphere.
• Eroticism is wearing anklets to bring out the Indianness.
• Eroticism is having a quiet, sumptuous dinner together, under the stars looking at each other in the brightness of the moonlight as the wind tosses your hair.

In this busy world, fixing a day at least once every two weeks, where you are just with each other and nobody else is Intimacy.

Savy and I are married for the last 27 years and are writers of the bestseller ‘Family First’. We constantly work on these 4 dimensions – Listening, Bouncing Board, Spiritual & Physical.

Every year our relationship is getting better. We fervently hope that every couple works on these 4 aspects and makes their marriage rock-solid and thus provides an environment for happy children.

Let’s build intimate families and thus build the nation.

Kindly post your feedback, suggestions, and comments.

We will reply to every one of you in earnest.

By Shiv