The Kind of Intimacy I Didn’t Know I Needed

You don't know what you don't know

I’ve spoken to nearly 200 experts of various kinds on my podcast, and every single time, what comes across is the importance of good communication in a relationship. And while good communication sounds easy in principle, the reality, as anyone who has ever been in a long-term relationship will tell you, is that it’s incredibly challenging to achieve. I’d actually suggest that it’s harder to be completely honest in a long term relationship if you’ve keep aspects of yourself hidden then when you’re in a new relationship where there’s little to lose. Not least of which, as I discovered recently, because sometimes we don’t actually know what it is we want until someone other than our partner, or any man (or woman) we’ve previously been with, gives us what we find out has been missing in past relationships.

It’s hard to miss something you’ve never had, although you may experience a certain emptiness or longing without being able to actually put your finger on it. Good communication isn’t going to change that if you’re unable to articulate exactly what’s going wrong.

This was brought home to me recently.