Navigating Intimacy And Passion For A More Fulfilling Marriage

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Ever wondered why some relationships thrive in emotional closeness while others struggle to maintain even a semblance of connection? Discover the intricate dynamics of the "Triangulation of Love," where intimacy, passion, and commitment play pivotal roles. Through personal stories, we'll unravel the complexities of intimacy and how disparities between partners can lead to misunderstandings and long-term impacts, especially when one feels criticized or rejected early on. We tackle how these differences manifest across various relationships—be it romantic, familial, or platonic—and explore the underlying reasons for these gaps.

Join us for practical advice and heartfelt anecdotes aimed at nurturing intimacy and ensuring it's a reciprocal journey. We highlight the significance of recognizing when your partner might be holding back and how to gently open lines of communication. By sharing relatable scenarios, from sports rivalries to drink preferences, we encourage listeners to reflect on their own relationships and embrace open dialogue. Tune in to gain fresh perspectives on fostering deeper connections and cultivating a safe environment for emotional vulnerability.

Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships


Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 500,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
For those who are familiar with the, what's the
technical name of the commitment?

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Triangulation of love .

Speaker 1 (00:09):
The triangulation of love.
So if you are a listener andyou're able to like Google stuff
, go into Google, type in thetriangulation of love, hit
images and it should be atriangle.
It has intimacy at the top top,commitment in the lower right
and passion in the lower left,and what I really want to talk

(00:32):
about here more than anything isintimacy.
So, on a on a one to nine scale, nine would be the top of the
triangle, one would be thebottom bottom.
When you measure a couple, youdon't aggregate their results.
Each individual person keepstheir results and it is

(00:53):
absolutely possible, if you'refollowing what I'm saying, if
you're looking at the picture orif you're just otherwise not
looking at a picture but tryingto visualize Think of a line
that intimacy is a straight upand down line.
Higher is better, lower is notbetter, lower is worse, it's bad

(01:18):
.
It's altogether possible tohave one person in a couple, in
a marriage, in a relationship,even a friendship or a parental
to child relationship, where oneperson has a very high intimacy
score, which means that theyfeel that they can bear their
soul, they can expose themselves, they can be their true self

(01:41):
around this other person, tothis other person, they can tell
them anything that person'sgoing to have a very high
intimacy score because they feelfully accepted and then the
other person is like a two or athree they cannot, or at least

(02:01):
they don't feel that they canbear their soul.
This can often relate back to inmany cases you'll find the man
not always.
It's certainly possible thatthis is flip-flop the woman
would be high in intimacy, theman would be low.
I feel that if you were to tryand aggregate a lot of these and

(02:21):
do some metadata analysis,you'd probably find the majority
of the cases where there's ahigh discrepancy in intimacy
between a man and a woman, it'stypically probably going to be
the man much higher than thewoman in most cases, and a lot
of times this can relate back tomen.
We can be very opinionatedabout what's good, what's bad,

(02:42):
what brands, what sports teams,what cars are good, and to us it
does not compute that somebodyelse can have a different
opinion, and especially early inmarriages and relationships, we
can then criticize the otherperson for having a different
opinion, something as simple asa preference for Coke or Pepsi,
a preference between the sportsteam or that sports team.

(03:05):
If you live down in Alabama andyou have a couple where you
know one person roots for Auburn, the other roots for Bama, like
they might need to just starttheir-.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Fighting words.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, they might need to start their marital therapy
like just from the get-go, andso you're often left.
You can can also be.
You can also have a situationwhere early in the marriage the
first year or two it is the casewhere the man is not accepting
and the woman may never recoverfrom that.
Even if he matures later on andbecomes more accepting, she may

(03:42):
not feel it or, because of allthe rejection or criticism she
faced in the first year or twoof marriage, she still may not
want to bear her soul Yearslater, decade later, because
she's like nope.
I remember 10 years ago when Isaid I like Pepsi and I got an
earful for an hour over it, andI remember I would do stuff like

(04:05):
this to you, maybe not overdrink preferences, but just
random crap.
You know, if you screwedsomething up just a little bit,
I'd go on for like an hour andyou would often point out like
chill, I already said I'm sorry,I can't go back in time.
And I would often be like, oh't,go back in time, and I would

(04:25):
often be like, oh yeah, it'strue, I'd be like, all right,
well, I want to rant for 30 moreminutes, but I guess I'll not.
So it's important when you arethinking of intimacy in terms of
, can I bear my soul to thisother person, can I tell them
anything about me and theyaccept me?
Make sure that's a two-waystreet.

(04:46):
And if your spouse, if yoususpect that they may not be
bearing themselves to you, Iactually think you could
probably go to them gently inconversation and say hey, you
know what Am I blocking intimacy?

(05:07):
Are you scared to bear yourselfto me?
Are you scared to tell me aboutyourself and whatever I've done
to cause you to feel like youcan't do that?
I'm truly sorry.
I want you to know that I wantto accept you.
I want to accept all of you,just the way you are.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
And I believe that conversation would probably go a
long way.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
It would be a wise thing to do.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
And it helps to have self-acceptance, yeah, for sure,
and the self-acceptance when wecan look at ourselves and
instead, you know, as women, alot of times we'll look at
ourselves and say, oh, if onlythis area of my body were
skinnier or this area werebigger, instead of just looking
at ourselves and loving andaccepting our body for how it is

(06:01):
, as an example for men, it'sour calves it's your calves and
biceps our calves are not bigenough upper body strength
according according to the bodyesteem, the body esteem scale,
um.
But the yes like, the morelikely we are to see things
within ourselves.
That is a that should change.

(06:24):
That's more likely to translateinto how we see other people,
and I noticed this a lot withour daughter.
So I've had to be reallymindful, as she gets older, of
noticing how I talk about myself, because she picks up on it and
she'll.
I don't want her to think, oh,maybe I should, because she's

(06:45):
heard me talk before about like,needing, like, oh, I want to be
on a diet or whatever.
And then she started usingthose words.
This was probably about a yearago and I was like, no, you
don't.
But it makes you have to lookinward and say how am I showing
those people around me that Ican love and value and cherish
myself and that also helps uslove and value and cherish

(07:08):
others.
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