Growing Couple Intimacy E-Book

William E. Krill

• Herausgeber: Loving Healing Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 116

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Is the intimacy in your relationship as rich as it could be?

• Expand your understanding of the power of intimacy in couples.
• Learn new and stimulating ways to interact with your partner to enhance bonding.
• Explore the possibilities of pushing the limits of six kinds of intimacy.
• Advance your relationship with exercises you can do together or solo.
• Relate at a deeper level than you may have thought possible.
• Recharge passion for your relationship and partner.

"This workbook encourages us to take a step back and rethink our intentions and help us remember why we love our partners and continue to strengthen our relational bonds." -- Sarah Davinsizer, B.A.
"Growing Couple Intimacy is well done, filled with concrete ways for couples to explore and grow individually and in their intimacy with one another." -- Pastor Mary J. Hendricks
"A wonderful, practical guide to further develop intimacy, including helpful activities that are both individual and couple focused." -- Melody Ray
"Growing Couple Intimacy sums up many poignant topics most humans could use some help with and presents suggestions in very workable and understandable ways. I will be using this workbook in my own marriage. I also believe this will give me another useful tool in my clinical practice." -- Michael Stubler, MA, CRC, LPC
"Very insightful and engaging! The exercises help to break down walls and explore intimacy in ways you might not have known existed." -- Chris Schneider, Worship Leader, Manchester, CT
"Growing Couple Intimacy is a useful tool that I can apply to individuals as well as couples. I found the practical applications outlined a helpful step towards intimacy growth." -- Nicole Behe, wife and mother

Leseprobe

Growing Couple Intimacy

Improving Love, Sex, and Relationships

William E. Krill, Jr. L.P.C.

Foreword by Lynda Bevan

Loving Healing PressAnn Arbor, MI

Growing Couple Intimacy: Improving Love, Sex, and Relationships

Copyright © 2018 by William E. Krill, Jr. L.P.C.. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN 978-1-61599-387-1 paperback

ISBN 978-1-61599-388-8 eBook

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Krill, William E. (William Edwin), 1958-

Title: Growing couple intimacy : improving love, sex, and relationships / William E. Krill, Jr., L.P.C. ; foreword by Lynda Bevan.

Description: Ann Arbor, MI : Loving Healing Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018020152 (print) | LCCN 2018022422 (ebook) | ISBN 9781615993895 (Kindle, ePub, pdf) | ISBN 9781615993871 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781615993888 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Couples therapy. | Couples--Psychology. | Intimacy (Psychology)

Classification: LCC RC488.5 (ebook) | LCC RC488.5 .K769 2018 (print) | DDC 616.89/1562--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018020152

Published by

Loving Healing Press

5145 Pontiac Trail

Ann Arbor, MI 48105

www.LHPress.com

[email protected]

tollfree 888-761-6268

FAX: [phone]

Distributed by New Leaf (USA), Ingram (USA/CAN/AU), Bertram’s Books (UK/EU)

Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword by Lynda Bevan

Chapter 1: Getting Started – Intimacy

Introduction

Key Truths Concerning Intimacy

A Word About Men

How to Use This Workbook

1.1 Intimacy Maintenance and Development is Hard Work

1.2 Our History of Intimacy

1.3 Defining Contracts

1.4 Personal Rules of Engagement

Chapter 2: Breaking Through Your Intimacy Barriers

2.1 Blocks to Intimacy

2.2 Words Matter

2.3 Changing the Negative Script

2.4 Intimacy Maintenance and Growth Requires Being Intentional

2.5 Clarity of Intention

2.6 Intimacy Planning

2.7 Carrying Out the Plan

2.8 Intellectual Intimacy

2.9 Emotional Intimacy

Chapter 3: Sex and Intimacy

3.1 Physical (non-sexual) Intimacy

3.2 Sexual Intimacy

3.3 Eroticism

3.4 Sexual Functioning Issues

3.5 Spiritual Intimacy

3.6 Difficult Intimacy

3.7 Boom! Intimacy

Chapter 4: Intimacy and Your Partner

4.1 Unilateral Intimacy

4.2 Shared Intimacy

4.3 Asking for Intimacy

4.4 Choosing To Decline Intimacy

4.5 Handling a Declined Invitation

4.6 The Role of Power in Intimacy

Chapter 5: Expanding Intimacy

5.1 Human Intimacy is Limited

5.2 Willingness to Move Outside of Our Comfort Zone

5.3 Misinterpreted Desire

5.4 Clear Communication Feeds Intimacy

5.5 Solitude Feeds Intimacy

5.6 The Clock is Ticking

Chapter 6: Intimacy in the Long Run

6.1 Married Dating

6.2 Structuring Shared Intimacy: Weekly In-House Dates

6.3 Structuring Shared Intimacy: Monthly Out of House Dates

6.4 Structuring Shared Intimacy: Yearly Retreat

6.5 Structuring Shared Intimacy: Yearly Retreat Structure

Appendix: Intimate Acts to Try

About the Author

Bibliography

Index

For Anne

Acknowledgments

My appreciation has to begin with Dr. David Schnarch; without his book Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love and Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships, this workbook would have never been inspired. Thanks to all of the couples who very truly trusted me enough to practice on them in my clinical work, and moved me to begin to create a workbook. Thanks to my publisher, Victor R. Volkman and Loving Healing Press for all of the kindnesses, faith placed in my work, and great editing. Last, but certainly not least, thanks to the woman that I am married with. Anne, without your patience, belief in me, forgiveness (repeatedly) and willingness to give me swift kick when I need it, this book would have never happened.

Foreword

The Couple Intimacy Workbook is an excellent tool to help you understand and improve all aspects of your relationship with your partner.

The author takes you on a journey of self-discovery, from your earliest memory to where you are situated now. He explains the reasons/possibilities of how and why you interact with your partner in the way that you do. Your parent’s attitude and behavior, both to each other and to you as a child, are deeply embedded in your psyche on all levels. Your early learning/observations at the feet of your parents/role models are how you learned to interact with other people. As you grow into adulthood, you will find that the attitude, behavior and interaction you are repeating in your relationship at the present time does not bring you closer to harmony, peace and understanding of, and with, your partner and the issues you are facing. Clearly this early ‘learned behavior’ needs to change in order to achieve a better, more enriching partnership.

This little gem of a workbook contains a wealth of knowledge and information and is written in a format that ensures the understanding of the reader. The author identifies the 6 key truths concerning intimacy and succinctly explains their meaning.

After each level of intimacy is explained in full, there follows a task that you are asked to share and complete together in order to enable and assist you in pursuing your journey into a more fulfilling relationship with your partner.

Another interesting aspect of this workbook is how the author identifies the ‘negative script’ that is indoctrinated in us all. Negative thinking is unhealthy as it promotes negative actions and emotions. There are Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) and Positive Automatic Thoughts (PATs). Accordingly, the job is to swat the ANTS and replace them with the PATS. You need to be diligent and persistent in order to change your negative script into a positive script. Changing our negative script is essential in achieving a well balanced life. Following the author’s instructions will greatly assist you in reaching your goal.

This workbook reminds me of a time when I was experiencing problems in my relationship.I couldn’t work out and understand why our arguments always ended the same. The same old arguments recurring with no satisfactory end result. No decision or plan to put into action. It was at this point that I hit on the idea that if I wanted things to change, I needed to change the things I was saying to my partner in order to get a different response (I knew nothing about negative scripts at this time). So, the first thing I put into action was not to react to my partner in my usual way. I stopped reacting. I was quiet. I thought carefully before responding. At first, I found it difficult to express how I felt and explain myself to him, but I knew that (a) he wasn’t listening, and (b) he would not take on board anything I said. In short, I was wasting my breath. I decided to conserve my energy and make a plan.

In the next part of The Couples Intimacy Workbook, the author explains the theory behind the task of making a plan. Many people will find this confusing and, perhaps, unnecessary. However, it is completely logical. It worked for me and the many hundreds of people I have counseled. Forward planning cannot be underestimated. I want to emphasize that the first part of the plan should identify the process of changing your script by not reacting. You need a period of adjustment and learning as to how to react differently. Making a plan will help to build and maintain a healthy physical and emotional relationship. You plan an engagement, marriage, parenting, holidays, etc. so why not devise a comprehensive plan for your relationship to be intimate, loving, trustworthy, loyal and well balanced? The author makes excellent suggestions for the content of your plan in order to maintain a healthy partnership. This is an essential element of changing your negative script.

In conclusion, I am convinced that The Couple Intimacy Workbook is a valuable asset in guiding you into a deeper understanding of yourself and your partner. I encourage you to engage in this fascinating process. I can assure you that you will find this experience invaluable to your future happiness.

Lynda Bevan, author of The 10-Step Empowerment Series, including Life Without Jealousy: A Practical Guide.

Chapter 1: Getting Started – Intimacy 101

Introduction

We live in a hurting world with damaged relationships all around us. The number of couples who stay together once they make their mutual commitment is far smaller than the number that separate, divorce, or simply drift apart. After being in a committed relationship with the woman I am married with for thirty-seven years, and as a clinical counselor for about as long, I have come to the conclusion that issues of intimacy are at the core of couple issues (dare I say, all relationship issues). Intimacy is the central reason why some relationships endure a lifetime, and others seem to last only a brief season. The latter group, if they have children, rarely do the work needed to avoid repeating the same relationship failure again, and essentially doom their own kids to a life of broken relationships. Many people never “get” the central truth about relationship: that it takes hard and persevering work to maintain and grow relationship intimacy, and that intimacy is the tie that binds.

You can only maintain a lifelong relationship through an understanding of the role of intimacy. You can learn the relevant skills needed in counseling, or perhaps a seminar or workbook like this one. Though everyone has the capacity for full, rich intimacy in their relationship, not everyone is motivated to do so. Others lack an understanding of what a healthy relationship is like, because they lack relevant experience. Though some may be able to maintain and enrich their relationship without a spiritual understanding of couple-hood, the deepest possible intimacy between two, I feel, is only attainable with a spiritual sensibility, though that doesn’t need to be religion-based.

I unapologetically have offered this workbook from a Christian, liberal perspective. I believe in marriage as something more than a legal agreement, something that is best sourced in a spiritual context with a public declaration, bound by vows and promises, intimately involving God. However, this can be attained without the benefits of the legal agreement and church ceremony. I also firmly believe that folks who find themselves in orientations other than heterosexual have just as much right and potential for a deep, abiding, holy, monogamous marriage and intimacy as do historically traditional couples.

This little workbook will not save your relationship if it is already in serious trouble. That is like using a squirt gun to try to save a burning home. Yet the paradox is, if those couples who are now desperate to save their relationship had done the work in this book, they might have prevented the fire in the first place through essential maintenance work. The vast majority of folks entering committed couple relationships really didn’t have the information they needed to be successful, or they were presented the chance to read the owner’s manual but opted for the “quick start” instead. Still others may have learned that intimate relationships require maintenance, but have decided that they don’t want to do the necessary hard work.

Those couples who find that their relationship is in shambles will need something far more potent than any book: professional counseling. The material in this workbook may in fact be a part of their healing and learning, but there are more fundamental things they will need to work on if any of these exercises will produce good fruit. Self-help and self-motivated growth is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but most people need some specific support and informed guidance by a skilled counselor to make real progress. Reading about the appendectomy is a good bit different than doing the surgery on yourself.

This workbook came about like most of my workbooks do: clients requested such a structured exercise book to guide therapeutic homework tasks to mend and develop their relationship a bit better and bit faster. Oh, what a delight such clients are!

The workbook is structured to first give a brief introduction to some key truths regarding intimacy, and then to explore some elements that are important to intimacy maintenance and enrichment. For each area, there is a brief reading, then some questions that are intended to be completed individually and then shared with your partner, some ideas on how to do maintenance and enrichment in the key area, a personal exercise (meaning it is not couple focused), and then a couple activity. As you will see in the next section on key truths about intimacy, there is a reason the workbook is structured this way.

Key Truths Concerning Intimacy

Whether or not a couple made their commitment in a religious setting, the vast majority of people live out couple-hood with the ideals of monogamy and yearning for deep unity with their beloved. Even purely secular commitments often hold these concepts of “two becoming one” at the heart of at least the ceremony they choose to commemorate their togetherness. The problem is, these sentiments, vows, and delightfully poetic words don’t come with a how- to instruction book to achieve such intimate unity. Perhaps it is supposed to be achieved through some magical means!

Popular media and magazines touting articles of how to keep love alive will illustrate the shallowness of responses to the deep question of how to hold on to and develop greater couple intimacy. The first key truth is that intimacy maintenance and development is difficult work, which is not as nearly as simplistic as popular culture would have us believe. While love may be considered the primary motivator for intimacy, and they are inextricably entwined, simply having love for someone will not necessarily create a growing intimacy. And low levels of work on intimacy will certainly inhibit the growth and depth of love.

As with any other hard work, there is a need for clear intention. Work doesn’t get done without it. How often do we have good intentions to do something, but lack either the will to carry out the plan, or even lack the plan entirely? To be intentional then, for our purposes, is the package of motivation, clarity, having a plan, and then carrying out the plan. So the second key truth is that intimacy maintenance and growth require intention.

The third truth of intimacy comes from the important work of Dr. David Schnarch on couple intimacy, that intimacy does not have to be mutual or reciprocal to be valid and valuable.