What is an intimate relationship?

Answer 1

Intimacy means you're willing to expose the most private angles of yourself, while allowing your partner to do the same. “So much of intimacy involves shedding your ideas about who someone is or should be, and honoring their reality,” says Alyssa Mancao, LCSW, Los Angeles-based psychotherapist.

However, there is a swirl of misconceptions surrounding what defines an intimate relationship. “For one, intimacy is not a trauma bond,” she says. "A healthy bond can’t be built on shared trauma alone.”

Intimacy isn’t co-dependency or one partner acting as the other’s savior, either, according to Mancao. A healthy intimate relationship doesn't involve shutting out the rest of the world. Rather, it makes plenty of room for personal goals and fulfillment outside of the relationship, she suggests. cutt.ly/ujtOt4g

Answer 2

Intimacy involves a genuine sense of liking one's partners and a desire to build together a more choesive rapport. It involves sharing one's life with another in a candid, nondefensive way. Trust, patience and tolerance are important aspects.

Answer 3

kissin'