Intimacy and Long-Term Relationships

Ideally, intimacy in any long-term relationship (which for older people may be within the context of marriage) grows as people age. Some people, however, believe that intimacy is destined to fade with time, particularly where marriage is concerned. Loss of intimacy sometimes does occur, for a variety of reasons. Some couples find it difficult to maintain closeness in the face of life's sometimes substantial challenges. Others lose their sense of need for intimacy with the mellowing of passions that comes with years of living together. Still other couples experience a loss of intimacy because one partner has decided that finding emotional and physical intimacy with a new partner is easier and more exciting than working on solving entrenched difficulties with a long-term partner.

The challenges inherent in long-term relationships, however, usually do not lead to a loss of intimacy but, rather, to changes in the way intimacy is expressed. Society idealizes older couples who, after years of being together, still dance with each other, sit together, hold hands, and kiss. For most people, physical passion and romance are the most appealing of intimacies, but they, like other fires, only rarely are sustained with unwavering strength and intensity. Romantic expressions of intimacy may diminish in importance as couples confront the ordinary stresses of daily life. In many long-term relationships, romantic expressions of intimacy may be more the exception than the rule. Partners regretting that their relationships lack romantic intimacy or who are not as romantic as they were in younger years may have unrealistic expectations or may not be expressing their needs.

Long-term partners or friends may express intimacy in less public and occasionally even contradictory ways. An older couple may not reveal outward signs of affection yet do nearly everything together in quiet companionship. A couple may unwittingly preserve a sense of intimacy, such as when an overanxious partner or friend worries around-the-clock about the other person's health, while the relaxed partner seemingly ignores the worry and attention but does little to discourage it. Partners or friends may constantly bicker—neither conceding defeat nor settling their arguments—but their agreeing to disagree may be the very thing that sustains their relationship and helps them stay together.

Many couples—most without being aware of it—grow comfortable with alternative forms of intimacy that allow them to express familiarity, caring, or engagement with their partners in ways that are equally meaningful and more natural to their daily lives and personalities. Trust, empathy, communication, and the ability to depend on a partner usually grow in importance over time. These forms of intimacy are sometimes difficult for outsiders to detect, let alone interpret. Friends may find that intimacy and sharing experiences and thoughts increase over time.

Moreover, intimacy in long-term relationships must often be renegotiated at times of personal change. Events such as retirement, serious personal illness, or the death of a child or close friend can sometimes bring partners closer together. Other times, however, stressful life events can complicate a couple's feelings for each other, seriously challenge their ability to be intimate, change the way they are intimate, and even result in separation, divorce, or the breakup of friendships.