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Intimacy: a shared understanding, emotional connectedness, soul to soul nakedness without shame, your inner self knowing and being known, loving and being loved. We all long for intimacy. When God made Adam He said, "It isn't good for man to be alone." That's because we need each other as much as we need air, food, or water.

As a young adult I had a problem experiencing intimacy. A compliment to me was like water rolling off a duck' back. When it came to sharing my feelings I could be like an ostrich with my head in the sand. And listening to someone else share their feelings felt like hugging an octopus! I had to learn how to let care inside of me and I had to practice emotional intimacy. As I did it helped me to become more caring for others.

I've since discovered that many people have problems with intimacy. Learning to invite intimacy is a skill that you can practice. Like anything there are ways to do it and ways not to do it.

Consider how the following four communication styles that are ineffective intimacy inviters can be changed into desirable invitations. I often see people make these mistakes in the marriage and relationship counseling I do.

(1) Talking about your partner instead of yourself. If we think about this mistake is really silly. If you want someone to understand you and care for you it helps if you talk about yourself instead of your partner. A wife says to her husband, "You were frustrated that lunch with your mother went late and then you were pressured to get errands done so we missed the volunteer Sunday School teacher's meeting that we had committed to." Instead she might say, "I'm disappointed we missed the meeting. I thought we had an agreement." In the latter case she's focusing on her own experience and inviting her husband to understand.

(2) Analyzing the situation. This too is common. She said to him, "Well if we would just understand each other's personality differences we wouldn't have these arguments. I'm more of a plan ahead and organized person. You're more last minute and disorganized." The problem here is that he doesn't agree with her opinion so he argued it. Better for her to focus on her own experience and invite him to understand, "I had the afternoon planned out so that we'd have time for the church meeting, but I didn't communicate the schedule to you because I was afraid to put pressure on you. Next time I'll speak up."

(3) Being critical. This is an obvious mistake, but still an easy one to make. Continuing this example, he shot back at his wife, "You were the one who insisted we go to the grocery store. If you would've planned your shopping better we wouldn't have missed the meeting. You're so disorganized!" Ouch! He lost his temper and hurt his wife and himself because he pushed her away from him. So much more helpful if he would invite her to understand his feelings rather than blame and criticize her. "I'm angry with you. I feel blamed when it wasn't all my fault that we missed the meeting. We both had errands we needed to run."

(4) Arguing about what really happened. A fourth common way of communicating that distances people rather than drawing them together is to play newspaper reporter. This may start out benign but tends to degenerate into arguing about what really happened. Each has their own angle on it and is convinced that their version is right. In this case she countered with, "I didn't insist that we go to the grocery store until it was already too late to make the meeting because you took so long at the hardware store." He argued back, "Would you stop blaming me? You're always blaming me for your problems! You said from the start you needed to go to the grocery store and you know it!"

I think you can see how this conflict is escalating and driving the two of them apart. They each need to change their posture from arguing about what happened to taking responsibility for their part in the problem and inviting the other to understand their feelings. She could say, "I feel misunderstood on this. In the beginning I meant for us to go to the store after the church meeting. Then I realized that we were going to miss it anyway."

And he might say, "I'm frustrated with you because I feel blamed in this whole thing. Once we started on our errands I forgot all about the meeting. Since it was so important to you and you were watching the time I wish you would've brought it up again." And hopefully she'd reply, "I'm sorry I blamed you. You're right I was part of the problem too. I was afraid to tell you that we needed to leave the hardware store and go to the meeting. I was afraid you'd get angry."

The bottom line here is that if we want to experience more intimacy in a relationship the most important thing you can do is to take responsibility for your needs and invite your partner to understand you and your feelings or invite your partner to share his or experience with you.