Intimacy

Communication in relationships is an important key to their health and happiness. It seems also quite elusive, and some relationships seem resilient enough to survive without any semblance of it. I will always remember the answer of a man who was married 35 years, and who was asked what the secret to his marriage's success was : "Don't talk to each other". Archie Bunker would readily have agreed, and his reticence emotionally was a constant source of annoyance and grief to his long-suffering wife Edith in the super popular sitcom of the seventies, "All in the family". That was a comedy, so the talented writers were very able to make us laugh heartily at Archie's complete lack of sensitivity and insight. But I think that when we deny communication in real life relationships, it causes a lot of anxiety and stress, and unhappiness. To feel valued enough that you can think aloud without fear of ridicule, anger, or shame is very crucial to a healthy relationship, whether it be a marriage, a friendship, a parent-child connection, or any relationship between human beings where people who care about each other are trying to make a go of it. Personality is certainly a factor. A shy person will deal with communication in a different way that an aggressive person does. I think the challenge comes when one person dominates the other person, obliterating any chance of a fair relationship by severally limiting or challenging communication. On a large scale that is clearly demonstrated in dictatorships, whether they lean to the extreme right or extreme left. Nothing frightens those tyrants more than free speech. On an individual scale, you end up with domestic violence, where it becomes the most vile when children are beaten into submission. Safety and communication go hand in hand in healthy, happy relationships. Safety to be free to be yourself, to be allowed expression of your  mind, heart and soul in all its colors and shades.To deprive another human being , whether in a personal , cultural, religious or political relationship of their sense of self by severely restricting their communication with you, out of a perverse need to control them, is always wrong. In physically close relationships, the denial of free communication often impedes true intimacy, because that can only exist if you get proverbially, as well as physically naked. Because if physical intimacy was the secret to a happy relationship, prostitutes would be the happiest people around. Facts contradict that notion. Prostitutes are often victims of physical and emotional abuse when growing up, and are often in abuse relationships as adults, apart from their professionally abuse connections, and often drown their lonely hearts in substance abuse. So, no, physical closeness real intimacy does not make. Open communication does. But that takes effort. And so the circle is complete. How much do you value your partner, wife, husband, friend, son, daughter, shows in how healthy your communication is. And when you can say those relationships are valuable enough  to you,to allow and encourage free communication, then you can say you have truly intimate relationships with the people in your life.