Couples must intentionally seek to set aside specific times for sharing, conversing, pleasure, and intimacy. Practically, this may mean becoming reacquainted with our spouse. It may mean securing a baby sitter and begin dating again. By dating I don’t mean going to a restaurant and arguing about unresolved issues or hurts over your cold french fries. It’s not sitting in a dark theatre together watching an “R” rated movie. It’s also not engaging in fault finding in the car on the way there and back home again. “Date nights” are not the appropriate time or place to resolve conflict. It’s not very romantic. It may however mean long walks or drives together, sending flowers, cards, or providing special favors or just holding hands. Maybe it’s that special eye to eye gaze. Each couple needs to identify their individual “love language.” What might be romantic to one could seem corny to someone else. At first, becoming reacquainted by “dating” may not be possible if the couple is unskilled in effective communication skills which always involve active listening. If this is the case, you may need to start with a counselor.
Without intentionally seeking emotional and spiritual intimacy with each other, the wounds deepen and fester. Time passes, and life’s hectic schedule insidiously consumes our waking existence, all the while eroding opportunities to share and strengthen emotional and spiritual bonds. Our minds begin retreating and we either immerse ourselves in the past which foments rage, resentment, anger, regret and guilt. Or, we may find ourselves furiously worrying about the unpredictable future in which we create and manufacture scenarios and plots which may or may not be. We cannot change the past and we cannot accurately foretell the future (not to be confused with planning for the future). So why live there? By living in the past or future, we allow the “present” moment to escape unnoticed, without joy, without mindful presence, while dark emotional walls grow and thicken, increasing the emotional numbness thus creating even more isolation and despair.
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