An intimate relationship is a particularly close interpersonal relationship, and the term is sometimes used euphemistically for a sexual relationship. The characteristics of an intimate relationship include an enduring behavioral interdependence, repeated interactions, emotional attachment and need fulfillment. Intimate relationships include friendships, dating relationships, spiritual relationships, and marital relationships and there are individual differences in both the quality and quantity of these relationships. Several stages in intimate relationships have been identified: the beginning or development stages (e.g., attraction and dating), relational maintenance and repair (e.g., forgiveness), relational stressors (e.g., conflict and betrayal), and relational termination (e.g., models of dissolution).
Intimate relationships play a central role in the overall human experience. Humans have a universal need to belong and to love which is satisfied within an intimate relationship. Intimate relationships consist of the people that we are attracted to, whom we like and love, romantic and sexual relationships, and those whom we marry and provide and receive emotional and personal support from. Intimate relationships provide people with a social network of people that provide strong emotional attachments and fulfill our universal need of belonging and the need to be cared for.
Physical intimacy is characterized by romantic or passionate love and attachment, or sexual activity.
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| couples sharing moment(intimate relationship) |
INTIMACY:
Intimacy generally refers to the feeling of being in a close personal association and belonging together. It is a familiar and very close affective connection with another as a result of a bond that is formed through knowledge and experience of the other. Genuine intimacy in human relationships requires dialogue, transparency, vulnerability and reciprocity.
Intimacy is considered the product of a successful seduction, a process of rapport building that enables parties to confidently disclose previously hidden thoughts and feelings. Intimate conversations become the basis for 'confidences' (secret knowledge) that bind people together. Developing an intimate relationship typically takes a considerable amount of time (months and years, rather than days or weeks).
Different Forms Of Intimacy:
- Emotional intimacy
- Physical intimacy
Love is an important factor in physical and emotional intimate relationships. Though the term is notoriously difficult to define, any thoughtful inquiry into the subject will show it to be qualitatively, not only quantitatively, different than liking, and the difference is not merely in the presence or absence of sexual attraction.
There are two types of love in a relationship; passionate love and companionate love.
With companionate love, potent feelings diminish but are enriched by warm feelings of attachment, an authentic and enduring bond, a sense of mutual commitment, the profound knowledge that you are caring for another person who is in turn caring for you, feeling proud of a mate's accomplishment, and the satisfaction that comes from sharing goals and perspective.
In contrast, passionate love is marked by infatuation, intense preoccupation with the partner, strong sexual longing, throes of ecstasy, and feelings of exhilaration that come from being reunited with the partner.
People who are in an intimate relationship with one another are often called a couple, especially if the members of that couple have ascribed some degree of permanency to their relationship. Such couples often provide the emotional security that is necessary for them to accomplish other tasks, particularly forms of labor or work.
