Lack of Trust in One’s Partner or Oneself
Mutual trust is one of the essentials of intimacy. It takes time and care to build this trust. But a different problem arises when an individual does not have a good feeling about himself. This can cause fear of intimacy, because intimacy is reciprocal. To be intimate is to exchange, which means that one must have something to give. A person with a low self-image may feel that he or she has nothing to give and may try to hide this “fact” by distancing himself or herself from family and friends. Sometimes people shrink from deep emotional involvement because they have been hurt by close relationships—often this happened when they were children and too young to understand and work out the problem. The pain that lingers from these experiences can be healed by replacing the remembered pattern of pain with a whole new pattern of pleasure in emotional closeness. This, again, takes time and loving patience on the part of the mate who must woo and win the other’s confidence. But it can be done (and must be done), if the two are ever to enjoy an intimate relationship.
Posted in Hindrances to Intimacy
To Ed Wheat Sr. and Gladys Gibson Wheat, whose commitment, devotion, warmth, generosity, and integrity stood for fifty years as a beautiful picture of genuine agape love.