A marriage counselor may tell you to ask your husband for attention or physical affection if that’s what you want. Or you might learn to say things like “When you went to bed while our friends were over, I felt angry.” Or the counselor may suggest that you say two positive things for every negative thing you say. All of that will do more harm than good.
Intimacy skills let you express and honor yourself in a way that nurtures intimacy—without criticizing, complaining, or trying to control. You’ll get to feel desired without having to ask your husband to do anything. And you won’t need to repeat yourself or say more than a sentence or two to get your point across effectively while still preserving your connection.
“In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage.”
—Sir Robert Anderson, Author
Before I learned the Six Intimacy Skills, I didn’t think of myself as a nag. Looking back, though, I often said the same things over and over—which is the very definition of nagging. So yeah, I was a nag.
I felt justified in doing this because I didn’t think my husband was listening to me. I really believed that if I delivered my message in a slightly different way, if I got him to really understand the urgency or the importance, he would do what I wanted. Naturally, that never worked. That’s because what I was really doing was trying to control his actions.
Now, communicating with my husband means chatting about the movie we saw together or making plans for the weekend—not the dreaded “we have to talk” conversations I used to rope him into. This is always astonishing to my coaching clients at first, because they’re also in the habit of trying to talk their way into having their husbands see their perspective.
These days, I’m confident that I can say what I mean in one sentence or sometimes just a single word, and I no longer repeat myself like a trained parrot. In some ways, I say much less than I did before, and that has helped a lot. Saying less has led to greater communication, in that my husband understands me much better.
I had heard about communication being the key to a good marriage so often that I was constantly trying to get John to talk more. And I talked more too—I figured I just needed to talk until he saw things my way. I used the “have good communication” advice as a license to keep talking until John was a beaten-down pulp who didn’t dare disagree with me. That wasn’t exactly bringing us closer together.
But today, I know that talking less and choosing among my real thoughts—the ones that pertain to me and all that concerns me—will be what gets me the connection and passion I crave.
I recently asked one of my coaches if she and her husband would be willing to participate in a TV show. The producers wanted to film the interactions in a home where the wife was practicing the Six Intimacy Skills. My coach agreed to be on the show, but she said, “Wow, they’re going to really think this is boring because there is very little conflict in our house anymore.”
That’s my experience too. There’s just not much to argue about once you learn these skills and give up the need to control everything. Once you know how to advocate for your desires and your feelings, and you’re doing it in a respectful way to a man who loves you and wants you to be happy, the drama vanishes.
Most of the time our marriage is really peaceful, so I have to find my drama somewhere else, like on the volleyball court. Sometimes I suggest that my clients take acting lessons as a drama outlet. We all have our minimum drama requirements, so if you don’t want that drama to manifest in your marriage, consider providing it for yourself somewhere else.
Your husband really wants you to be happy. When you’re happy, he feels successful as a husband and as a man.
No matter how bad things are in the relationship, your husband’s desire to make you happy is alive and well. If it doesn’t seem like that right now, that’s because when you’re in conflict or a cold war, your husband’s need to defend himself will supersede his drive to please you. But as soon as he feels respected again, he’ll be looking for any chance to delight you.
The more he knows about what will make you happy, the easier it will be for him to feel successful as a husband. That’s why it’s so important for you to know your desires and express them clearly. If your husband knows how to make you happy, he can do something about it—and then you’re both happy.
That’s why it’s important to take your own happiness seriously. If mama’s not happy, nobody’s happy.
My job in my relationship, therefore, is to know what I want. My feelings help point the way to what I desire, so I’m always asking myself, “How do I feel? What do I want?” Once I know the answers to those questions, I express them as clearly as I can, without attaching an expectation. If John sees a chance to make me happy, he takes it, which is a win-win. I don’t need to control anything, because John’s got my back.
In addition to everyone being happier this way, it has completely changed the way we negotiate. As long as I’m focused on my own emotions and yearnings and I’m respecting his thinking, we can negotiate practically anything together without compromising.
Here’s what I mean: We bought our home in Southern California in 2007, just before the financial collapse. Suddenly our house was worth less than we owed on it, and the payments felt high because our income and investments went down at the same time.
My husband was very concerned. He said, “Looking at the numbers, I think we should sell the house and downsize so we can save money.”
My first reaction was to feel sad. I said, “I hear you, and if that’s what you think is best, I’m willing to do that. And I would really like to stay in this house. I love it here.”
I said “and” instead of “but” because I wanted to honor both his thinking and my feelings at the same time.
He took in what I said and went to think it over. When he brought it up again, he said, “I think we can stay for a while longer. Let’s see how things go.”
I didn’t compromise, but neither did he: My desire influenced what he thought. After hearing what I wanted, he thought we should wait and see what unfolded. If he had come back and said “I think we should move,” I would have gotten behind that, because I knew he’d taken my happiness into consideration. That would have influenced what I thought about moving and made it seem like a better option to me.
If I had said, “I think it’s best that we stay here because the market will go back up again and then we’ll wish we had,” we would have had a completely different conversation. And by conversation, I mean argument. It would have been all about who was right and who was wrong. Instead, I didn’t question his thinking or try to insist that mine was better. I just went with my authentic desire, which is in a different realm altogether from thoughts.
If I had said, “Can’t we figure something out so we can stay here?” I would have been implying that he wasn’t handling the finances in the most efficient way. Then we would have argued about how to best spend our resources, and that’s not much fun.
In my answer, I focused on two things: letting him know I respected his thinking and expressing my pure desire without manipulation or expectation.
We had that conversation a few times over the following year. Each time his message was the same, and each time my message was the same. In the end, we stayed put, the economy rebounded, and we never stopped holding hands and snuggling.
Not long after that, I told John that I wanted a new car. His response was, “I don’t think it’s a good time. I’d like to wait until we have more cash on hand.” While I was taking that in, he asked, “Why do you want a new car?”
I told him that the leather on our car’s seat had started cracking and was chafing the backs of my legs. That was my motivation for wanting a new car.
“Would seat covers fix that?” he asked.
“Yes, that would do it,” I agreed. At that moment, my desire for a new car diminished. He didn’t think it was a good idea to get one, and he presented a perfectly good solution to my problem.
That time, what he thought really influenced what I wanted. I didn’t even want a new car anymore. I wanted seat covers.
That’s how we negotiate everything now. I never feel like we’re compromising. I often hear that compromise is a big part of marriage, but that’s just not my experience. I find that what he thinks colors what I want and what I want colors what he thinks. When we each represent our own areas of strength, a solution emerges that we’re both on board with.
When John tells me what he thinks, I know he’s taking my happiness into consideration because that’s a big part of what makes him feel successful. If I’m clear on my desires and I let him know what they are, they serve as our North Star. He knows I trust what he thinks, so he can operate from the confidence of knowing that I have faith in him. In this way, we’re both at our best.
Communicating this way would have seemed like mystical sorcery to me before I learned the Six Intimacy Skills. It took me quite a while to figure out that I could negotiate like this in my relationship and not have any drama. But after all these years of enjoying the intimacy and peace we get from this approach, I can’t imagine it any other way.
I watched a TV show that featured a couple seeking investment funding for their product called “The Elephant in the Room.” The idea was that a woman could use a little stuffed elephant to let her husband know she was mad at him without saying anything. She could just put the elephant out, and when he got home, he would know she wanted to talk.
What a terrible idea! Just uttering the words “We need to talk” is an intimacy killer because it’s the same as saying “You’re in trouble.” Your husband hears that as, “I’m about to tell you everything that’s wrong with you,” and immediately he’s on the defensive. Forget about connection and intimacy—they have no chance of thriving when you make that kind of overture.
No wife ever got happier from starting a conversation with “We need to talk.” Seeing someone trying to create an entire product that would wordlessly destroy intimacy drove me batty. Fortunately, none of the investors on the show thought the product was a good idea either. One even said, “I think if I saw that elephant when I walked in, I would turn around and go hang out at the local bar until I thought the thing had blown over.”
The moral of the story? Saying “We need to talk” is communication you’re better off without.
Helen and Paul were on opposite work schedules for a while. One day they agreed to meet in the parking lot of a restaurant that was on his way to work and on her way home so they could see each other for a few minutes.
Helen arrived first, and when she saw Paul driving up, she struck a sexy pose and waited for him to come over and give her a passionate kiss.
Instead Paul pecked her on the cheek.
She encouraged him by saying, “Come on, kiss me like you mean it.” But he still didn’t. He just pecked her again and said, “I don’t want anyone to think you’re having an affair. Let’s just go inside.”
Helen was shocked. “How can we be having an affair? We’re married!”
Her husband said, “But people don’t know that. They might see you meeting a man in a parking lot and giving him a big passionate kiss and think something fishy is going on. This is a small town, and I don’t want anyone to think that about you.”
Helen was hurt. She wanted to enjoy that brief moment together, and she thought it was silly to worry about what other people might think—especially because she and Paul weren’t doing anything wrong.
They went inside, and she let it go so they could enjoy their time together, making a deal with herself that if she was still upset later, she could bring it up then.
When she got home, she relayed the story to her friends, explaining how weird she thought Paul’s behavior had been and how hurtful. One by one, her friends weighed in with their support and thoughts. They acknowledged her disappointment: “Sounds like you didn’t feel desired.” They brought in Paul’s perspective: “It seems like he’s trying to protect you.” They asked, “Did you have a certain expectation you were attached to?” They also reassured her: “Maybe he’s a little more prudish about a public display of affection, but clearly the man is crazy about you and loves you to the ends of the earth. This small incident probably isn’t worth bringing back to him as a criticism.”
By the next day, Helen had a totally new perspective. She told me, “I can see now that Paul was just looking out for me. I was so fixated on wanting him to give me a big kiss and show me how attracted he is to me that I missed that piece and got my feelings hurt. But now I can see that he just wants to protect me, and that feels like love too.”
By delaying a conversation about the incident until she’d communicated with other like-minded women, Helen completely avoided NET (Needless Emotional Turmoil). Twenty-four hours later, there wasn’t much to say. Once she fortified herself with the perspective of women who support her happiness and her marriage, she felt complete.
As Helen’s story illustrates, it’s normal to feel a sense of urgency when there’s a breakdown in your relationship. It takes some self-restraint to put an upset aside until you can get another perspective. If you already have other women to lean on, being able to turn to them instead of your husband can bring just as much relief and better perspective, with fewer potential pitfalls for your romance.
I’ve found it invaluable to talk to my girlfriends early and often in support of my marriage. They hold me accountable for my part of what might seem like a conflict, and they can also serve as listeners if I just need to be heard. My husband can’t be the be-all and end-all when it comes to communicating, because no man wants to listen to all the talking I want to do. That’s not uncommon—women are often more talkative than men are.
Another reason my husband can’t be the only person I talk to about my relationship is that sometimes he’s going to appear to be the problem. In that case, I need someone else to talk me down or help me clarify my message so that it’s about how I feel and what I want instead of what’s wrong with him. It takes more than one person to support a great relationship, and girlfriends are wonderful for that.
But be judicious about which girlfriends you discuss your relationship concerns with. You want to pick women who won’t laugh at you when you say “I want to feel desired, cherished, and adored every day.” Some women will think that’s not possible. We’ve all had girlfriends who are quick to say “Divorce him!” when we mention anything wrong with the relationship. Avoid sharing too much with those particular friends. You want to share with like-minded women who are committed to their own success and to yours.
That’s one of the reasons that I’ve created programs where you can not only train in the Six Intimacy Skills but also join a community of women who support you in the process. To find women who will hold you accountable in the best possible way, visit the community tab on skillsforlove.com.