When I worked in family based, often times couples issues would trickle down into the family issues. I was told once that this negativity raining down into the other relationships and functoning in the family was called a shit storm and as this person put it to me, he would rather see a family kill their children and hurry up and get it over with than to kill them slowly by puttig them through this shit storm. 

At the time I heard this, even though this person had been a therapist far longer than I ever had, and I saw them as a great resource and wealth of knowledge - I thought he had just made a statement that was the worst statement anyone could ever make. How could he in good conciousness stand infront of a parent and say kill your child quickly and get it over with... and I knew that he would never say anything to me that he had not already done. 

I thought it was crazy, until I did it for the first time. There are many ways of waking people up, and after I have tried putting on the kid gloves, and tried the being your partner, and tried the over abundace of positivity and the family continues to steam roll past the elephant in the room being the struggles in the couples relationship affecting their ability to parent and affecting their families ability to function and ultimately, the reason why I am there in the first place, their child's mental health..... I had no idea what to do to fix it other than to just let them know how much their were slowly torchering and killing their child, and that I was not going to stand for them making the child suffer any longer. 

Luckily, it was a technique that worked and woke the family up to be open to change. so what does intamacy have to do it with it?

There are stages of love, as I have discussed before in other places, but the first is that puppy love, that enfatuating stage where everything seems so wonderful and nothing could ever be wrong with your partner or your relationship because you love them so much. This is the stage where the most false intamacy happens. I can be naked with a person and doing the things that naked lovers do without ever being intamate with a person. You think I'm kidding? The man I now call my husband... we did not have the most healthy start to our relationship... and for the first 3 months that we were doing the things lovers do, he had no idea what my name was. He called me by a name that I was introduced to him as. He knew almost nothing about me until I let him in. 

The second stage is a stage ripe with the most fights as we learn about all the ways that we are different  and these become huge problems and annoyances we can't seem to overlook. This is where most couples stop being physically intamate and start to make the tough choices, or avoid choices by avaioding each other's couples relationship as much as possible. 

There is only one other stae to a relationship, and many people never make it to the good stuff in commitment and acceptance, but those that do will tell you that it is not always the most glamorous thing on earth, but it is love in a deeply intamate way that was never dreamed about in the beginning of a relationship. 

Why does any of this matter? In all the times that I have worked with families stuck in that shit storm, the first key sign that this is what is going on is that the parents tell me about their lack of physical or otherwise intamacy. Often they are considering cheating (or already are) or have found someone else that they find to tell their deep dark secrets to instaed of their partner - giving that emotional intamcy to another. 

When my husband and I are being intamate, physicality is optional, but does occur. Ask yourself, when was the last time you became physically intamate with your partner? Now ask yourself, when you became emotionally intimate with your partner? Is your relationship on the back burner? Is your relationship causing a shit storm in your family? 

Being intamate is a key in a sucessful relationship. Make time to be intamite regularly if you want a healthy reltionship.

Wishing you love in deep beautiful ways for the healthiest reltionships possible. 

:) Susie