{"id":59,"date":"2012-11-12T10:09:40","date_gmt":"2012-11-12T09:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/?p=59"},"modified":"2012-11-12T10:09:40","modified_gmt":"2012-11-12T09:09:40","slug":"whats-love-got-to-do-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/2012\/11\/12\/whats-love-got-to-do-with-it\/","title":{"rendered":"”Whats love got to do with it?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ett g\u00e4stinl\u00e4gg fr\u00e5n min otroligt framg\u00e5ngsrika v\u00e4n ang relationer. L\u00e4s boken The I Factor.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

By Paul N. Weinberg<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the myth:\u00a0Cupid\u2019s arrow<\/a>\u00a0strikes you in the heart, you\u00a0fall in love<\/a>\u00a0and you live happily ever after.<\/p>\n

But we all know that real life doesn\u2019t quite work that way. A more familiar story goes like this: You meet someone. The two of you have great chemistry, and you really hit it off. You jump into a\u00a0relationship<\/a>\u00a0and you fall in love. This seems like \u201cthe one\u201d \u2026 except that six months or a year later, you\u2019re no longer together and you are once again\u00a0single<\/a>. Now repeat until emotionally exhausted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does this pattern of falling in and out of love sound familiar? I\u2019ve observed it in singles for years so I\u2019m no longer surprised each time I hear that a friend who was in love the last time I saw them is no longer with their partner. And very often, he or she is already in love with someone new.<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0<\/strong>Why Celebrities Fall In and Out of Love So Quickly<\/a><\/p>\n

So if love often condemns us to a series of relatively short-term relationships \u2013 and with all due respect to Tina Turner \u2013 the obvious question is: \u201cWhat\u2019s love got to do with it?\u201d In other words, why isn\u2019t falling in love enough to establish an enduring, long-term relationship. And what does it take to keep us together after the emotional thrill is gone and the sexual excitement has faded?<\/p>\n

Related:\u00a0<\/strong>4 Steps to a Stronger Long-Term Relationship<\/a><\/p>\n

The simple answer is that for most people, the long term glue that binds together our personal relationships is\u00a0emotional intimacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What is Emotional Intimacy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although intimacy and love often go together, love is not intimacy, and love in a relationship does not guarantee intimacy. And although a sexual relationship may lead to an emotionally intimate one, you can have sex without intimacy and\u00a0intimacy<\/a>without sex. So sex is not intimacy either.<\/p>\n

Put simply, emotional intimacy is about connecting and being connected on an emotional level to your partner. It\u2019s the sharing of your innermost thoughts and feelings, coupled with all the ways of being together \u2013 a glance, a touch, a silent moment, a laugh, or just being present and attentive \u2013 that provide the foundation for an emotional connection in a personal relationship.<\/p>\n

Intimacy is the complement to love that requires trust, openness, vulnerability, safety, empathy and honesty and involves deeper levels of\u00a0communication<\/a>\u00a0that are conveyed through the sharing of feelings and emotional needs. Intimacy exists at the deepest level where each of you is able to not only feel and understand the other but also be felt and understood by the other.<\/p>\n

So love is just one part of the larger landscape of connection in personal relationships. And it is intimacy rather than love that brings emotional depth to the connection, permits a deeper knowing of yourself and your partner, and adds longevity to your relationships.<\/p>\n

Paul N. Weinberg is the coauthor of\u00a0<\/em>The I Factor<\/strong>, a new book about intimacy and connection in personal relationships. Available in print and ebook versions through Amazon and the Apple iTunes Bookstore.\u00a0www.theifactor.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2012 by Paul N. Weinberg and Dr. Susan A. Dyer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ett g\u00e4stinl\u00e4gg fr\u00e5n min otroligt framg\u00e5ngsrika v\u00e4n ang relationer. L\u00e4s boken The I Factor.\u00a0 By Paul N. Weinberg Here\u2019s the myth:\u00a0Cupid\u2019s arrow\u00a0strikes you in the heart, you\u00a0fall in love\u00a0and you live happily ever after. But we all know that real life doesn\u2019t quite work that way. A more familiar story goes like this: You meet … L\u00e4s mer<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3476,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-okategoriserad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.improveme.se\/girlwise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}