Building intimacy comes from making amends when we hurt someone. The crumpled paper analogy gives a visual to something we do or say but cannot actually see the results. We can heal but often the scares remain. With continued love and support these scars fade over time and often become a distant memory rarely thought about anymore. It’s impossible to be in a relationship with anyone in our lives without saying or doing something at one time or another that may hurt them. The key is to recognize the pain we’ve caused them, apologize and start working on making them heal, scar over, and fade away.
That’s what love is all about – hanging in there through the healing process and celebrating when the joy returns.
Afraid of losing them if you tell them what they did or said hurt you? Don’t wait until one hurt is piled upon another to talk about it together. It’s hard now but once someone is hurt, it’s easy to take offense to what is said afterwards even if it was not meant to cause harm. When the hurt builds, it causes so much distance that it’s becomes harder to start the conversation. This is when you are at a real risk of losing them because someone else may have appeared to comfort them while they were waiting for you to start the conversation and to learn from your actions.
Don’t wait. Be the first to start the conversation. The relationship will not grow; love and trust wanes until you start the series of difficult conversations it takes to rebuild your relationship. It’s a painful process but if you go through the pain, you will become stronger and closer together each time you reach the end of the process. These are growing pains every relationship has to have to reach the next level of intimacy to build a stronger bond between you – one not as easily broken.
Take time to face and heal the pain to grow in intimacy and love.
~Jean
