Increasing intimacy in marriage is something that every married couple should strive for. Intimacy is not easily achieved and you and your spouse must be intentional in your decisions to strive to increase intimacy in marriage.

So how can we actively prepare our marriages for a lasting foundation of intimacy in the spiritual, physical, and mental aspects? Today we are going to share three simple things you can implement today that will help increase intimacy in every area of your marriage.

3 Simple Ways to Increase Intimacy in Marriage

1. Open communication.

This is so important. Closing off verbal or non-verbal communication in marriage is a recipe for disaster. Your spouse will begin to feel as if you are not willing to communicate with them. Be as open as you can in all areas of your marriage with your spouse. It is better to be vulnerable in marriage than to be closed off.

You married your spouse with the intention of staying with them until death do you part – so be sure to do everything you can to create open lines of communication off the bat. Even if this is not your strong suit, your spouse will see and feel your efforts and it will give them the feeling of safety they need to open up in return.

2. Physical affection

It is a well known fact that holding hands, hugging, and kissing are all forms of physical affection that actually make people feel happiness. It not only produces the release of the calming hormone oxytocin; kissing also slows down your heart rate and relaxes your body.

In order to be intimate in every area of your marriage – both parties need to feel relaxed. Make affection an intentional part of your time spent together and you will both be more open to each other.

3. Dating

For some of you, when you read the word “dating” you instantly said or thought, “That’s impossible.” However we are here to tell you that you absolutely can date your spouse in any season of life.

Early on in our marriage we realized we had to “redefine” what dating meant in our marriage. Our quest began to make dating work for the particular season of life we are in. For instance, when we had babies and toddlers in the house, our date night consisted of a late dinner at home by candle light after the children were asleep.

When we were going through any of our 5 year-long deployments – we had “phone dates” where we gave each other 100% of our focus. In the early days of our marriage we would just sit together and watch a .99-cent rental movie with a bag of popcorn and some water and call it a date. And we have learned to enjoy every single second of it.

Remember the “type” of date is not important but rather the time spent together. Every marriage is different, so find out what works for you and stick with it.

The three ways mentioned above are certainly vital to increasing intimacy in marriage. However, there are many other ways to continuously build intimacy together with your spouse. Some other ways include: prayer (lots of it), reading the Bible (daily), commitment to one another (unconditional love), honesty, humility, and by actively using Christian resources to help counsel and guide you along the way.

More to Consider…