Cultivating Passion, Intimacy, and Commitment
My husband is a wonderful gardener, and I am lucky that he enjoys doing it on his own! Every year I go with him to the nursery to pick the vegetables that we are going to grow, and then I mostly sit back and watch as he tends the garden through the summer, and then benefit from his hard work in the form of fresh garden salsa or BLTs made with garden-fresh tomatoes.
There was one year that I decided to plant my own row in the garden. I wanted to grow carrots and green beans in a back section that was not being used. I was very excited at first. I marked the row with string and planted the seeds. For the first week I was diligent in keeping the weeds away and making sure my seeds were watered. The second week, I started to falter. I let other things take my time, and soon I started ignoring the weeds and quickly watering just to get on with my day. Within a couple of weeks, I could not tell plant from weed and gave up watering entirely. I sat and hoped they would survive by some miracle.
What Gardening Taught Me About Marriage
Why am I talking about my gardening failures? We can use this same analogy with sex and intimacy in a marriage relationship. Intimacy requires cultivating. Most relationships start out with high enthusiasm for sex and physical connection. When life begins to get busy with children and careers, attention and effort toward physical connection can dwindle. This leaves some couples feeling like they are falling out of love.
Dr. Les Parrott and Dr. Leslie Parrott discuss passion in their book Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts: Seven Questions to Ask Before—and After—You Marry. They reference Robert Sternberg’s triangular model, which includes passion, intimacy, and commitment. Passion is the biological side of the triangle (Parrott & Parrott, 2015)—it is what happens physically in our bodies that makes us desire our partner. Though passion is very strong at the beginning of a relationship, it is also essential when linked with intimacy to create a strong bond. Intimacy is the emotional side of the triangle (Parrott & Parrott, 2015). Intimacy requires nurturing, and when this happens, we are able to trust and truly know our partner. Commitment is the cognitive side of the triangle (Parrott & Parrott, 2015)—those committed in their relationship are willing to stay during the good times and the difficult ones.
These elements each fluctuate during the course of a relationship, but the goal is to have a large amount of each to create a large triangle of love. This requires couples to make a conscious effort and put forth work to see results, just like in a garden.
The SYMBIS Assessment, which stands for Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts, can be a great tool for couples considering marriage who want to talk about life beyond the honeymoon stage. The section of the assessment that covers topics like desire and attentiveness opens the door for deeper conversations that help you understand your partner’s views on physical intimacy. Schedule an assessment on Communicating Love’s website and start taking the steps to have a flourishing and healthy physical relationship.
Sources
Parrott, L., & Parrott, L. (2015). Saving your marriage before it starts: Seven questions to ask before—and after—you marry. Zondervan.