Here is a list of four easy things you can do this weekend to improve the intimacy in your relationship.

1. I’m sure it will come as no surprise here to say date night.  Albeit predictable, date night is very, very important.   When two people become a couple they tend to quit dating and it’s a huge mistake.  This weekend, plan a proper date, even if you have to do it in the living room after the kids go to bed.  Put on your makeup, really get dressed, and do something special together.  Dates differentiate roommates from couples.  It’s worth the investment.

2. This one might come as a surprise.  Spend some time apart.  Go your own separate ways and indulge your individual interests for several hours.  The time spent doing something you really love will make you more interesting and the time spent apart is quite literally refreshing for a relationship.  Although chances are high you spend time apart during a typical work week, there’s something very powerful about spending time apart that you usually spend together.

3. Take a trip down memory lane.  Find a way to revisit early days of your relationship.  Make a mix CD, eat where you had your first date, rent the first movie you watched together.  Memory experiences bond people.  The early memories of a romantic relationship are very powerful.

4. Spend some time naked skin to skin.  Skin to skin contact release Oxytocin.  That’s the chemical that creates the feeling of emotional bonding.  I’m not saying you have to have sex.  I’m saying get naked and get real close.  Let nature do it’s magic and whatever unfolds will be perfect.

Food is not a problem, but it’s not a drug.

Men are not the enemy, but they are not the answer.

Addictions destroy, but drugs and alcohol have no innate power.

Time is a reality, but not in the way you might think.

Where there is a villain there is a victim and if you don’t want to be a victim you have to stop making other people responsible or wrong.

At the end of the day, the only thing you can’t walk away from is yourself.

Judgement day is everyday.  You can’t create enough distraction or noise to avoid feeling your feelings forever.  Everyone has a those quiet moments of truth intended to illuminate the reality of life and you have to answer the only question that matters.

Is this all there is?

The answer is yes.  This is everything and you’ve created all of it.  How do you like it?

Do you want less of anything?  Do you want more of everything?

Do want to be loved?  Do you love yourself?

Is life passing you by while you take care of others, check Facebook, or worry about tomorrow?

Are you willing to be both your own best friend and your own savior?  Not one thing or any other person can really make things better or worse.  It’s on you – always.

The only thing you really need to know is this. You aren’t just enough.  YOU ARE MORE THAN ENOUGH, right now. You always have been.  You always will be.

So, stop waiting.

Dear Lisa,

My boyfriend and I have been together for three years.  However, he’s spent the better part of two of those years in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We met at college and I finished school while he was deployed.  I have a great job and started my life without him while he was away, all the while we planned on building a life together when he got home.

He’s been home for six months now.  I was thrilled to have him move in with me.  At first I felt like we were finally getting our dream come true.  As the weeks and months have gone by it hasn’t actually been that way.  He’s had a very difficult time finding a job.  So he’s home all day and seems to be getting more and more depressed.  The “newness” of him being back wore off very quickly and his moods have become very unpredictable.  

He hasn’t been violent with me but he has broken furniture and punched holes in walls during fights.  Last week he was arrested for a bar brawl, but the charges were dropped.  There are days at a time when he seems like himself and then it just seems like something snaps.  I’m not afraid of him, but I am afraid for our future.

The reason I’m writing to you is he proposed to me over the weekend.  This was a moment I’ve waited for, for three years, and when it came, I felt sick.  I said yes, but in my heart, something is screaming no.  I know I want to be with this man.  I love him so much.  I just don’t know how to help him get back to normal so we can have a normal life.

Thanks for your help,

Sara

Nashville

Dear Sara,

The biggest mistake you can ever make is ignoring your heart when it’s screaming at you.  Period.  That kind of knowing is absolute and your words gave me chills, “in my heart, something is screaming no.”.   Please don’t ignore that.

I’m sure you are aware this man is probably suffering from PTSD and his behaviors are escalating.  You say you aren’t afraid of him, but I want you to understand one thing.  You should be afraid.  My guess is you are afraid and aren’t admitting it.  PTSD is very serious and left untreated can have deadly consequences.  The statistics from the Veterans Administration and many other organizations paint a very clear picture of the kind of peril both of you are in.

So the question you’re asking is a very important one.  How can you help him get back to normal?  The answer unfortunately is you can’t.  Even if you were clinically qualified to manage his treatment, as his significant other, you are not able.  Trust me on this one, I am speaking from personal experience.

The one and only thing you can do is take a stand for yourself and your future and hope he’s able to rise to the occasion and join you there.  It goes like this:

I love you very much.  I love you enough to have waited for you for three years.  However, I don’t love you enough to put myself and my future at the kind of risk we’re in here.  Although I’m not a professional, it seems very clear you are suffering from trauma related to things you experienced during your deployments.  If we are going to continue our relationship you must get treatment.  It’s not optional.  I will support you through that to the best of my ability.  I want us to have a future.  However, should you chose not to do this, immediately, you will have to move out.

I know that sounds harsh and might feel impossible to do.  However, it’s the most loving thing you can possibly do for HIM.  Leaving this unaddressed, unchecked, and untreated will not play out well for him having any kind of real future.  Chances are very high he will ultimately take your deal.  This is a man who doesn’t want to lose you.  The proposal on the heels of an arrest clearly illustrates that.   Do this for yourself and do this because you love him.

To be clear.  I’m not talking about making an idle threat.  I’m talking about setting a real boundary you will keep.  If he doesn’t take action, you will need to.  He must seek treatment and stay in treatment.

Here are some resources.

National Center for PTSD

PTSD Anonymous

PTSD Caregiver Support

Sara, more than anything, again, I want to encourage you to listen to your intuition.  Your guidance system is intended to support you.  Don’t ignore that voice that’s saying something is wrong.  The biggest mistake you can every make is ignoring your intuition.  (Tweetable!) There is a lot of support for both of you.  Get some.

I want to express my gratitude for his service and your devotion.  It’s a high calling and the sacrifices are too many to count.  Please understand though, just because he’s home doesn’t mean the battle is over for him.

Big love for both of you,

Lisa

Last week The Hubs and I were on vacation and except for the last day, it was heavenly.

On the last day the hubby got sick, he is much better now, but for a few days there was no color in his face and no zip in his step. I went into over-protective mode and at one point when I asked him if he needed anything he replied that all he needed was for me to calm down.

Several deep breaths later I realized that I wasn’t used to seeing him without his usual energy and zest and he wasn’t used to seeing me acting as “mother-hen.”

Even after over 6 years together, we had crossed into an unknown territory and were learning to
relate to each other in a whole new way.

The Hubs is extremely self-sufficient and super-hero-action-figure kind of guy but when we were
leaving Nicaragua, all he could do was rest on the bed while I organized, packed, and prepared for our departure.

I am a type A kind of girl in many areas of my life (and yes I am almost 40 and yes sometimes I am still a girl) however at home, I often-times go into type B mode because The Hubs has it taken care of so I don’t step in and take charge. I don’t need to and he is so capable, it’s really not necessary. I never thought too deeply about that until this week. When he was pretty much out of commission and I was “General Maggie” on duty and ready for anything.

He is feeling much better now while I am suffering from some kind of stomach flu. The heavenly
vacation of last week has become crackers and Gatorade this week along with some cold sweats and several extra visits to the bathroom later. This is real life.

I write a lot about what I have learned through my marriage and I write a lot about “the good times.” I like to focus on learning through joy whenever I can, but today I wanted to share that just because I focus on the good doesn’t mean that annoying, uncomfortable, I-wish-this-was-over-already kind of stuff doesn’t happen.

I think there is a danger in sharing pieces of your life online when people only see the vacations and never see the lines at the airport or the bugs in your hotel room. I myself have had those moments when I think, “oh, her life must be easier, she has got it all taken care of” or “well that’s easy for her to say, she has no idea what I have to go through.”

The truth is we all go through crappy days. The difference between a terrible day and an annoying one is largely our reactions to it.

We can say, “This sucks” 54 times and analyze every level and nuance of suckage or we can say it once and then say, “Okay, it does, now what are we going to do about it?”

Those of us that have been married for a while know that marriage is made up of real life moments and the kinds of flowers and diamond you see on “The Bachelor” are pretty to watch but it takes a TV Crew and a team of 100 people to make that happen.

At home it looks more like a balloon and cake on your birthday. And it’s even more beautiful because it’s real. It’s not perfect, but it’s real. It’s what you could manage between coming home after work and getting ready for the book club.

However, I know a few single friends who in their heart of hearts believe that if they were married, all their problems would disappear. They would suddenly enter The Land of Perfection, never to encounter a nasty stomach virus or even minor inconvenience again.

I call that “The Myth of Perfection.” The notion that with love all relationships are perfect and
suddenly everything in life falls into place is very dangerous. I think it sets us up for a lot of pain when our expectations don’t match reality and suddenly we are married to the most perfect man ever and yet last Tuesday at 3pm we found him incredibly annoying and wanted to tell him so in at least 2 different languages and a few very un-eloquent run-on sentences.

The Truth of Authenticity is so much better. That truth is that sometimes I can be annoying. I can worry and want to take care of every detail and while in my mind I am trying to help, in reality I am not really helping at all. I am possibly being delightfully cute yet ever-so-slightly-overwhelming at the same time.

Inside that truth there is a mountain of imperfect love. It is devoted and committed and looks like
a diamond before it’s cut. It’s totally imperfect, has all kinds of rough edges and yet it’s the hardest substance on earth and can be absolutely beautiful when you polish it a little.

The Truth of Authenticity is real, and no amount of photo-shopping can change it, but the beauty of it is, you wouldn’t want to change it, because it’s the imperfection that makes it beautiful. It’s doing the groceries or pressure cleaning the roof. It’s going to funerals together or visiting cemeteries with your parents in law.

The Truth of Authenticity is where you re-define marriage so it makes sense for you and you stop paying attention to soap operas, movies and love songs and start writing your own love story.

The Myths of Marriage are dangerous. I think too many people get divorced because they believe these myths are true and when they aren’t, they think someone else will be the answer so they change the person they are with instead of changing the myth they are believing.

These myths annoy me so much I wrote a two part class about them for a Tele Summit I participated in with 11 of the country’s top Latino Relationship Experts. I was honored to be among this group.

While the Summit is over, free download from the class lives on. It includes a list of resources including all the books I used in my research and 7 of the worst myths about marriage (according to me!) and their corresponding Truths such as:

Myth #5 “It means he doesn’t love me.” Usually expressed as: “She didn’t do x. He did y. It means he doesn’t love me. It means she doesn’t care.”

TRUTH: We create meaning and we can re-create it. If you don’t know what something means ask, don’t invent.

You can get the free download here.

Is there a myth of perfection that you were expecting when you got married that didn’t happen? Have you found that real life is more satisfying or less satisfying than you thought it would be? Please share in the comments.

Maggie Reyes is a Life Coach and Blogger who teaches women how to love their lives on purpose. She believes living the life you love with the love of your life is possible when you learn to ask powerful questions that shift your thinking and transform your experiences with your spouse. Maggie is known for her sassy yet practical advice and has been featured on Focus on the Family Canada, Military Spouse Magazine the nationally syndicated radio show, Day Break USA, and was recently a featured guest on Cristina Saralegui’s XM Radio Show, “Between Friends.” She shares marriage advice and life inspiration at modernmarried.com.

By:  Lisa Hayes

I have exceptionally good hearing.  Usually that’s a good thing.  However, on some days it’s horrible.  On some days the normal sounds of living are excruciatingly loud noises to me and I want to climb into a hole and bury myself in it.  On those days I am unruly and short tempered.  I am more than difficult to be around.

Additionally, I am not a morning person.  A lot of people who don’t like to get out of bed say that.  However, I simply do not get out of bed.  I take at least an hour in the morning between waking and walking to read my email, meditate, and pray for motivation.  Don’t get me wrong.  If we’re going on vacation I can be at the door ten minutes after the alarm goes off.  Other than that though, I’m going to take my very slow, sweet time.  There is no rushing me.

My beloved knows these things about me.  He lives with me and all of my many ideosyncticies. He sees me for who I am and yet he loves me anyway.   Because of that I don’t have to expend the massive amount of energy it takes to try to be someone I’m not, leaving me with even more energy to love him with.

In the beginning, when two people meet and “fall in love”, they literally cannot see each other accurately.  The precise biological chemical combination that makes up the feeling commonly known as “falling in love” prevents you from seeing the other person’s flaws.  As it wanes, even when you see them and their flaws you are amused by them or find the flaws endearing.  It’s quite literally a chemical imbalance in the brain that is very similar to insanity.  The phenomenon of falling in love causes you to detach from reality while you bond.

As time passes reality sets in, that original chemical euphoria wears off and the truth begins to emerge.  If nature has done it’s job, by that time, two people are bonded well enough to stay together despite their “flaws”.   Something deeper and more meaningful can emerge.  That something is unconditional love.  There is a dimensionality to that kind of love that changes people for the better.

Unconditional love doesn’t mean you see your beloved as perfect they way you did in the beginning.  Unconditional love doesn’t mean you love every little thing about the other person.  Trust me, life would be easier for my husband if I would get out of bed like other people do, and he knows it.  Unconditional love sees the truth but doesn’t require change.  When you love someone unconditionally you don’t need the other person to be different for you to be happy.

When you are loved in a way that allows you to be yourself fully you quite literally have more energy to invest in the relationship, and in the other person, then the giving is easy.   In that environment love is sustainable and organic.  Love flows freely in a circular nature.

However, in the pursuit of that kind of love it’s easy to want it so badly you compromise too much.  Ask for less.  Want less.  Settle more.  Give more than you should or more than you have.  The problem is, that isn’t sustainable.  Sure, you can live with less.  You can stay in a relationship where you’re needs aren’t met.  However, you can’t thrive.  The same thing goes when people try to give too much to accommodate the needs of another.   Sure, you can do it, maybe indefinitely, but you won’t thrive.  Quite the opposite is true, you’ll end up exhausted.

The key is in the truth.  Can I love this person the way they are and truly be happy?  If the answer requires you to compromise or try to change the other, that is not unconditional love.  It’s something else altogether.  Love, real romantic connection between two people of the “soul mate” variety, can be grown, but it can’t be engineered.

At the end of the day, the greatest gift you can give someone, anyone is to see them, really truly see who they are, and love them without reservation anyway.  (tweetable!) That requires a strong commitment to being responsible for meeting your own needs, but the payoff is worth it because what you get in return is more of everything that person has to give.  

By:  Lisa Hayes

“Relationships are hard work.”  We’ve all heard it.  Most people believe it and that unquestioned belief in and of itself is an evil spell that is cast on most relationships before they ever take root.  The thing is, it’s not true.  Healthy relationships are not hard work.  Healthy relationships make the actual work of living life easier, lighter, and more manageable.

That said, healthy relationships require energy and a lot of it.  If your relationship is a priority and you want it to continue to function optimally, the word “priority” can’t be lip service.  Something that is a priority gets taken care of before other things do.  Simply put for a relationship to stay healthy it has to come before almost everything else in your life.

Relationships need fuel.  They require time and attention.  However, most couples think once they have sealed the deal they can put the relationship on autopilot and focus on everything else.  They focus on houses, and jobs, and kids, and everything else in their lives that feels like a moving target, assuming their relationship will stay strong and stay put.  That assumption is simply false.  It doesn’t take long before a love that was once strong starts to cool off and then gets rocky.  At that point, relationships are incredibly hard work.  Lots and lots of couples live right there, in a cycle of starving their relationship of energy, and then experiencing the pain of a failing love.  Then they “work” on it and it’s very hard.  When a relationship is in critical condition often times there’s not enough energy or attention in the world to keep it alive.

I hear it all too often, “My wife knows I love her.  I tell her everyday.  We just don’t have the time or the money to do the kinds of things we used to.  Life is different.”  Yes, life is different, but saying your relationship is a priority and not treating it like one isn’t good enough.  You wouldn’t tell your child you love them everyday and get too busy to take care of them.  If you want to have a marriage, you can’t assume it will feed itself.  It won’t.  If life is busy, if it’s hectic, or hard, your relationship needs even more energy and attention than it did when things were simple.

If a relationship is hard work, it’s starving.

It’s a sign of systemic relationship sickness.  It’s not normal.  It’s a problem.  If you see it for what it is early enough, it’s probably fixable.  If you decide hard work is what you signed up for, and you’re in it for the long haul, you’re in for something you won’t like in the name of love and that’s not love, it’s torture.

There is a difference between investing energy and being faced with and forced to do hard work.  We all know it.  Taking care of your relationship should be a joy.  It should be something worthy of doing and there’s no point doing the relationship thing at all if you aren’t going to give it the energy it requires.   A relationship on the brink will require much, much more energy than the daily maintenance required to keep it healthy in the first place.

By:  Lisa Hayes

There is a village far, far, away, with a name none of us can pronounce in a part of the world we know nothing accurate about.  In that village a boy lives with his angry abusive uncle because his parents were killed two years ago in a mortar attack.  A mortar attack is the kind of experience most of us will never understand.  This boy understands it all too well.  For the first time in his life last year he went to school, but three months ago his school was destroyed by a mortar attack.  His Uncle talks hate all day long.  His Uncle’s friends do too.  As a boy, he is filled with fear and anger.  As an adult it’s hatred through and through.

We get this – sort of.  But most of us take comfort in thinking “we” are better than that.  We are different.

Except…

In the town you’ve lived in all your life, just down the street, or maybe a few miles away lives a boy.  He’s learning from his father it’s OK to hit women.  He knows not to use the “N” word at school, but it’s common vernacular at the dinner table.  His father has been out of work for two years and he’s angry and ashamed.  It’s because of those other people, you name it, mexicans, blacks, orientals…  They are hungry a lot of the time, literally.  Sometimes his mom has to go to the foodbank and his father belittles and shames her for it.  This boy has started ditching school because he gets beat up and bullied almost everyday he goes.  No one cares.  As a boy he’s scared and filled with anger.

Who do you think he becomes as an adult?

Not all hateful, angry, fearful people grow up to be terrorists.  But some do and other’s grow up to be mass murders that kill children in schools or people in malls and theaters.  Some become rapists.  Others become the abusers of future generations who breed more abusers.

You and I sitting in our homes watching the news, cannot possibly understand the mindset that drives the kind of behavior makes the headlines.  When I say do not rush to judgement, I’m not suggesting these acts of violence are not worthy of being judged for the horrific crimes they are.  I’m simply saying the world is a complex place and trust me, you don’t want to understand those complexities.  Understanding wouldn’t make you feel better, or safer.

When our sense of safety is threatened we lose our sense of rationality.  Quite literally, being afraid makes you a little, or alot crazy.  And guess what.  We’re all afraid and we’re all a little more afraid today than we were yesterday and the truth of the matter is maybe we should be afraid.

It’s natural and quite possible appropriate to be terrified.  That is the product of a terrorist act.

But if you want to be the hero today, be afraid, and let it be just that FEAR.

Stop yourself dead in your tracks from going to the next easy and logical places like anger, judgement, and hate.  Just stop.  Let fear run it’s course, but meet it with love and compassion rather than anger and rage.  I’m not suggesting you have to love the terrorist, but if you can just love yourself through the fear, you will not be able to engage in anger and all that follows it and the energetic trail of things to come, yet uncreated, but tangible.  Love and anger do not live in the same house.

For each and everyone of us, the buck stops right here.  Cycles of hate and violence in our families, neighborhoods, country, and the world can stop with you today.  Will it prevent another attack?  Today maybe we can think big and believe in something bold.  I believe in my heart of hearts that it might prevent another attack, another murder, another rape or beating.   Maybe, just maybe if each and everyone of us can lay down the insulation of love as we feel the raw fear of it all, we can do something bigger than ourselves.  That would feel heroic, wouldn’t it?  At the very least, which is actually huge, we can stop the corrosive effects of anger and hate in our own souls.

Fear in and of itself is neither good or bad, it just is.

So be afraid, be very afraid if that’s what you’re feeling.  If you let fear be a free standing emotion without giving it the legs of anger, hate, and revenge.  The fear won’t last long without the fuel.  Insulate yourself with love.

Want to be a hero?

Feel the fear and be love anyway. 

By:  Lisa Hayes

Many years ago I wrote a thesis paper on the broken promises of feminism.  I outlined a case about how the generation of women before me, who only wanted us to have choices, inadvertently took my choices away.  They pressed into the workplace, opening doors, making more and more opportunities.  Then the economy closed in around them.  Before long the promise of choice became the necessity of a two income family.  The choice to stay home with children became not only outdated, but nearly impossible for many mothers.  Women had to succeed in the workplace AND continue to run homes and care for children.  The professor who graded that paper was 20 years older than I am and was so offended by my lack of appreciation for her struggle she nearly failed me.

So, I get it.  I get the debate.  And yet, the debated itself is what feels outdated to me.  The recent book, Lean In, written by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg has caused a firestorm with women.  The media is at a fevered pitch with a renewed conversation about feminism.  Every woman I know has an opinion about the book and/or the topic of women in the workforce and quality of life.  Her words have ignited a spark in boardrooms and bedrooms alike.  The fuel for that fire is the familiar reprisal of the question that haunts us.

“Can women have it all?”

Yes.  We can.  Those of us who really understand that question know we already do have it all whether we are stay at home mothers, clerks at Walmart, or Fortune 500 Executives.  We know we have it all whether we chose children or not.  Whether we have nannies or not.  Whether we work 24 hours a day at home or 12 hours a day away from home.  Enlightened women of today know our successes are all in our heads and cannot be defined by anyone else.

Balance is a myth.  Work, life balance is a marketing gimmick.  It’s a phrase that is intended to make us think we aren’t doing things right.  Balance is such a finite point or moment in time where everything is perfectly and proportionately weighted that the pursuit of balance is crazy making.  Balance isn’t even necessarily healthy.  It’s nearly impossible to be growing and balanced at the same time.

Life is frantic.  Kids are demanding.  Husbands do not always do their part.  We don’t live in a world with an eight hour work day anymore.  24 hour a day cycles are the norm.  Women are juggling so many balls in the air that they can rarely take the time to feel fulfilled and when they do it registers as boredom.

A few days ago I took a hike with my family in a deeply wooded rain forest.  The group was moving faster down the trail than I would have liked.  We got off course and our 1.9 mile loop trail turned into something else.  Everyone wanted to get where we were going.  On the other hand, I wanted to meander.  I wanted to ponder.  I wanted in the worst way just to sit.  I felt this driving desire to BE somewhere, be in the forest, rather than be going somewhere.

Most of time that secret nugget of wisdom eludes me.  That nugget is the knowing that you are somewhere right now, and the pursuit of any other moment is an illusion.  The pursuit, the competition, the chase, the battle in the boardroom or the bedroom are all an illusion.  Whether I think I like what I’ve got or not, I’ve already got everything.

The enlightened woman CAN have it all by loving everything she has. (Tweetable!)  I can have everything by loving every load of laundry and every runny nose needing wiped.  I can have everything by loving my career exactly the way it is.  I can have everything by loving my husband who works too much and the marriage we build around that.

I stop having everything or even anything worth getting up for when I start thinking what I’ve got isn’t enough.  I can choose to love what I have or not.  But when I do love it, that is all there is.  That is everything.

The feminism of the 70’s and the popular feminism of today both hold a seductive promise.  Do more to have more so you can be happier.  Enlightened feminism is less seductive, but the promise actually delivers something more tangible and real.  It delivers something you can actually have right now.  Be more present.  Love more deeply.  Stay in the moment, do your best, and let your best be good enough.  Be willing to be precarious and relinquish the demand for “balance”.   Then and only then can you love what you have right now.  That is what having it all really means.

One of the most common questions I’m asked by couples is how to keep their sex lives alive.  Even the idea of just keeping something alive brings up imagery of life support.  It seems like setting the bar a little low.  The reality is intimacy of all kinds between couples needs to thrive for a sustainable, healthy, happy, long term relationship.

I use the word naked a lot.  When two people are trying to turn up the heat in the sack, I will often instruct them to make a practice of ditching the pj’s and always going to bed naked.  There is something about flannel, or cotton, that comes between people.  It’s a barrier.  It keeps people from actually touching in a full body kind of way.  Bodies respond to other bodies that are naked.  The visual is different.  The smells are different. The touch is complete.  If you want more sex or sexual contact be willing to be naked.

Sounds simple.

It’s not.

Layers create an illusion of safety.  They create distance.  Layers hide shame.  They create a buffer against resentments.  When you think about everything layers represent it seems like a tall order for flannel, doesn’t it?  However, at the end of the day, layers of clothing are representative of more kinds of emotional distance than I can name here.

Being naked isn’t about the clothes you wear or do not wear to bed.  Being naked is about a willingness to be vulnerable and be seen.  It’s about allowing someone to actually touch you physically or emotionally.  Emotionally naked is the sexiest state of all.

The number one thing most couples who have been together for more than two years complain about is lack of intimacy.  Intimacy is about being naked.  It’s about being raw.  It’s about being seen.  It’s about the kind of honesty that sets you free but scares you nearly to death.  You can’t have intimacy without those things, you just can’t.  You have to allow yourself to be undressed, literally and metaphorically.  You have to be willing to be present, uncovered, without layers between you and the other.

Your love life, and the love in your relationship can only will only expand in direct proportion  to your willingness to unpeel yourself.  If you want more love, be willing to reveal everything. (Tweetable!)