Emotional Intimacy 🫶🏼

You might want to stop having sex with that man or woman for at least a month.

A woman once opened up to me about her relationship. She had a lot to say, and she complained about how she couldn’t even tell if she was truly in a relationship. She said she didn’t feel any sort of intimacy with the man except when they were having sex. As soon as she mentioned the sex, I decided to probe further. I asked if they had a good sex life, and she answered yes. She added that even when they had serious issues to discuss, somehow the situation would lead to sex, and they would end up ignoring the matter because she would feel like everything was fine again after having sex. However, she admitted that she couldn’t reconcile the man’s behavior outside of sex with how things felt when they were intimate.

It turned out that their best conversations only happened during sex, and that’s the only time they professed love for each other.

There were many ugly instances she shared with me about her relationship, but I won’t spill the details here. After our long conversation, I held her hand and told her that she really wasn’t in a relationship. She interrupted, saying that they had been together for over two years, but she just didn’t know if she was truly in love or if the man truly loved her.

I asked what she wanted me to do for her. She said she wanted me to help her gain clarity on her feelings because every time she tried to talk about it, they would end up fighting, and the fight always led to sex, which made them avoid the conversation.

I then told her that if she truly wanted to know where she stood and understand the state of the relationship, she should stop having sex for a month. Before suggesting this, I had asked how often they had sex, and she said they had sex at least three times a week. Sometimes she would spend the weekend at his place, or if she wasn’t there, he would call her, or she would visit him.

I explained that removing sex from the equation was the only way to gain clarity. She reluctantly agreed to try it. I encouraged her to do so because she could already see that something was missing, even though she couldn’t figure it out. She then asked, “What if he leaves me because he doesn’t joke about sex?” I told her to frame it as a religious fast and not explicitly mention the sex strike. Make it seem temporary, like it was part of her religious obligations.

Without further ado, she decided to embark on the one-month sex strike. She messaged me almost daily, telling me how the man was calling her, how she went to see him and rejected his sexual advances, and how ugly his reaction was. Then, on the 12th day of the sex strike, the man broke up with her and blocked her everywhere. She called me, crying, saying she wanted to break the strike, and I told her that doing so would put her back in bondage. This man had broken up with her, said all manner of hurtful things, and brought up unresolved issues that had been swept under the rug with sex, I comforted her and made her see reason why the breakup is necessary.

Many are in this type of relationship, the problem with many people is that they now use sex as a Band-Aid for deeper issues. It’s true that sex can be used as a way to temporarily “solve” or mask deeper emotional and relational problems. While it may provide a fleeting sense of connection, fact is, it doesn’t address underlying conflicts, communication breakdowns, or emotional distance. Partners may turn to sex to avoid tough conversations, emotional vulnerability, or the painful realization that the relationship is no longer working.

Physical connection may give the impression of a healthy relationship, but it does not necessarily equate to emotional or mental intimacy. Partners may continue engaging in sexual activity even when they no longer feel emotionally connected or supported, creating a dissonance between what they feel physically and what they experience emotionally.

If you relate to this woman, or if you are that man who feels that the only glue holding your relationship together is sex, take action. Be deliberate and withhold sex for a month to see if the relationship can still survive. This is also one reason why many marriages fail so quickly today. Courtships were built on a superficial and shallow sense of connection due to constant sex and when couples get married and sex isn’t as frequent, they grow tired of each other and start seeking their “soulmates” elsewhere.

Many relationships have ended long ago but are still surviving due to sex. In fact, many of you know that your relationship has been over for months or even years, but fear of rejection, starting over, or losing the person makes you continue to patch things up with sex until one day, it will no longer work and by then it might be really messy.

You know I’m talking to you. Close your legs for at least a month, discipline your phallus for at least a month. Stop the free flow between you and that man or woman you no longer feel emotionally connected to but still can’t seem to let go of physically.

Physical intimacy is important, but emotional intimacy is the foundation of a lasting relationship. You don’t want to build your foundation with spit, it will surely collapse.

Written by

Tadé Makinwa