Emotional Intimacy Exercises for Couples (7 Useful Tricks)

In this blog, we are going to describe eight exercises that can help establish and enhance emotional intimacy between you and your partner. We will first build an understanding of what emotional intimacy is. Then, we will explore these exercises in more detail.

What are Some Emotional Intimacy Exercises for Couples?

Here is a quick list of some exercises that help build emotional intimacy between couples:

• Eye to Eye
• The Magic of the Written Word
• The Daily 3 Things I love About You
• Talking About Trauma
• Optimising Pillow Talk
• Democracy Meetings
• Couple Hobbies
• Emotional Check-Ins

What is Emotional Intimacy?

When people think of intimacy, they picture closeness with someone else. The most commonly known form of closeness is physical proximity and touch. However, emotional intimacy is something far more powerful and intense than any physical intimacy.

You share emotional intimacy with someone when you can comfortably talk about your thoughts, actions, feelings, and insecurities. It allows you and the other person to work on repairing and enhancing the bond you share.

8 Useful Emotional Intimacy Exercises

Emotional intimacy isn’t something that always comes naturally. Typically, it is a skill that needs to be built between two people. One must learn to overcome conditioning and to unlearn habits that cause obstacles for emotional intimacy.

In this section, we are going to discuss eight exercises that you can try with your partner to increase the level of emotional intimacy in your romantic relationship.

Eye to Eye

One of the most popular exercises for emotional intimacy within couples is “Eye to Eye”. This is a sort of game that requires you to be truly vulnerable with each other by holding eye contact. 

You must look straight into your lover’s eyes and start talking to each other about what you’re thinking or feeling. Add to the experience by slowly touching each other through gentle caresses. 

The eyes cannot help but reveal your inner experience. When you trust your partner with that information and proceed to communicate, your levels of emotional intimacy improve. The key is to keep your body relaxed throughout the process.

The Magic of the Written Word

This is a cute little exercise you and your partner can start practising daily. While it’s important to express your affection for each other through speaking, there are many more creative ways to add to that.

By writing cute little notes, long love letters, and random post-its to be found, you can encourage each other to be more emotionally intimate. Try to avoid emails and text messages because there’s a lot more love in a hand-written note.

The Daily 3 Things I Love About You

Another daily exercise that does wonders for emotional intimacy is telling each other three things that you love about each other. The fun about doing this daily is that your answers will keep changing based on the kind of day you had.

As a result, you’ll regularly keep reminding each other (and yourselves) why you are perfect for each other. Hearing your partner appreciate you so often will keep the spark alive and grow more intimacy.

Talking About Trauma

That sad reality of the world is that trauma is universal. A vast majority of people have dealt with various kinds of traumatic experiences. Along with physical violence, disasters, and sexual trauma, people are also susceptible to attachment trauma.

Attachment trauma is a kind of trauma formed by insecure relationships with one’s parents/caregivers. It severely impacts your ability to build emotional intimacy in adult relationships.

Therefore, it is a good idea to build awareness about you and your partner’s history of trauma. It always helps to consult a professional when dealing with this.

Optimising Pillow Talk

Pillow talk is a huge part of any romantic relationship. It refers to the intimate conversations shared by lovers in bed. Particularly after sexual intercourse, two people feel deeply connected with each other, allowing them to be vulnerable.

You can optimise your pillow talk to increase levels of emotional intimacy in your relationship. This can be done by talking about your day, the challenges you face, and whatever feelings consume you. Discussing these personal topics with each other can also lead to good solutions.

Democracy Meetings

A democracy meeting is a tool used by couples and families to ensure harmony within the home. These meetings are also an excellent way to sustain emotional intimacy between you and your partner.

These are held weekly, preferable on a day off, and require each of you to talk about issues within the relationship and how to repair it. Knowing that there’s going to be a meeting soon will help you control those impulsive words you might regret later.

Democracy meetings provide an opportunity to reflect on your thoughts carefully before sharing them. But these meetings can only work if there is listening without interruption or judgement. It has to be a safe space.

Couple Hobbies

A fun way of building emotional intimacy is to sign up for a class or learn a new skill together. It will become an activity you guys not only share but started at the same level. This ensures that the hobby stays fun and the two of you feel like equals.

Designating days for your activity of choice allows you to spend that much time with each other and grow fonder. Some examples of these hobbies include sports, soft skills, dancing, reviewing restaurant, and more.

Emotional Check-Ins

Once or twice a day, you can try checking in on each other to see how you’re doing emotionally. These emotional check-ins help with intimacy because they give you fodder for more meaningful conversations.

They also help you keep a track of your partner’s psyche so that you can support them in whatever way possible. Sometimes, just having someone to speak to about your grievances is a blessing.

Conclusion

In this blog, we described eight exercises that can help establish and enhance emotional intimacy between you and your partner. We first built an understanding of what emotional intimacy is. Then, we explored these exercises in more detail.

The emotional intimacy exercises listed here were Eye to Eye, The Magic of the Written Word, The Daily 3 Things I love About You, Talking About Trauma, Optimising Pillow Talk, Democracy Meetings, Couple Hobbies, and Emotional Check-Ins.

FAQs (Emotional Intimacy Exercises for Couples)

What’s the highest form of intimacy?

The highest form of intimacy is honesty. When you’re able to be absolutely honest with someones, without any fear of judgement or abandonment, you share the highest level of intimacy with someone.

What are the 5 levels of intimacy?

The five levels of intimacy include the following:

• Safe communication
• Opinions and beliefs of others
• Personal opinions and beliefs
• Your feelings and experiences
• Your needs, emotions, and desires

What builds intimacy?

To build intimacy with anyone, you have to prepare yourself to be vulnerable. Vulnerability leads the way to trust, emotional security, and a feeling of belongingness. Intimacy is built up over time and requires patience, open communication, and efforts from both parties in a relationship.

References

• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15299732.2012.642762
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.1975.9923242
• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2010.01311.x
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0092623x.2012.751072
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00926239008405257