Successful Marriage: Connecting Emotionally during Sex

A successful marriage includes time for connecting. There are many ways to connect with your partner, such as spending time together, laughing and having fun, affection, talking, being emotionally vulnerable with your partner, sexual contact, and any other way that makes you feel close. In this article, I’ll focus on sexual contact as one way for partners to connect. Sexual contact includes different things for different couples. For some, it includes intercourse and for other couples, it does not. The important thing is that both partners are in agreement about what sexual contact is.
For some couples, sexual contact is mostly a physical experience to express sexual feelings, to release tension, and/or to feel good. For others, it includes an emotional connection. If your sexual experiences with your partner are primarily physical, I’m writing to invite you to consider exploring this emotional dimension of your relationship. Emotional connection means showing your partner your emotions and, in a loving relationship, your partner responds with caring; perhaps with words, or a gaze, or a touch. Emotional connection is a form of intimacy between partners. Consider the secret, and not so secret, desires of adults: to belong, to be loved, to be wanted, to be appreciated, and to be accepted for who we are. Having these desires met by your partner can be a very intimate experience. Yet, at the same time we crave it, intimacy is scary. We may purposely, or unconsciously, do things to avoid intimacy: we may look away from our partner’s gaze, we may fantasize about someone else during sex, we may keep our eyes closed, we may keep emotion separate from sex, we may want sex with someone we hardly know, and we may avoid sexual contact.
The interactions between couples outside the bedroom definitely effect what happens inside the bedroom. There are some qualities of a relationship that tend to make sex more emotionally satisfying: equality, understanding, trust, communication, and caring.
Another aspect of emotional closeness which may make sexual contact more satisfying is mindfulness. Mindfulness means we allow ourselves to be in the present moment. We notice and can experience all of our senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell). We are thinking about what we are experiencing right here and right now. It also provides the chance to be so focused that we lose track of time. When we are with our partner in this way during sexual contact we take in all that we are experiencing through our bodies and other senses right here and right now. Other thoughts, preoccupations, memories, expectations, and awareness of time are put aside. Who we truly are in our heart is allowed to arise and be noticed by the one we love. Who are partner is in his/her heart is allowed to arise and be noticed by us. Noticed, experienced, and taken in. Perhaps you have experienced this intimacy with another human being when you looked into their eyes and could see their soul, or when your heart felt as if it was reaching out of your body and connecting with your partner’s heart, or when your bodies were as close to one another as is physically possible and it felt as if your souls were joined. Sounds like romance? Sex within marriage can also give us this opportunity. When we are emotionally connected and mindful with our partner during sexual contact, this intimacy is available to us.
When couples have an emotional connection during sexual contact, this can bond couples. It is one type of glue that holds couples together. A bond of any type greatly helps couples weather the inevitable conflicts of the relationship. You become more able to tolerate the ups and downs because you know that right alongside the anger and hurt you sometimes feel is the love between you. The love you’ve given and received during moments of bonding with your spouse. Connecting sexually and emotionally can be part of a successful marriage.