Things to do when we crave for emotional intimacy

There are times in a relationship when we crave emotional intimacy. It is natural to feel the need to be loved for and cared for, but when we get the sudden bursts of needs of emotional intimacy, it can reflect on the void of the same in the relationship we are in. That helps us to look inwards and introspect on the needs and expectations we have from the relationship, and if things are going the way we want it. Every relationship has its own set of rules – from meeting the needs and expectations to how communication is done. However, the need for emotional intimacy should help us understand ourselves better.

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Addressing this, therapist Maria G Sosa shared a few tips on the things that we need to do when we crave emotional intimacy:

Awareness: It is important to look inwards and get aware about what we truly want. We should be curious about our own needs – this will help us to understand ourselves better and address the emotional intimacy cravings accordingly.

Reflection: After we are aware of what we want, we can start to reflect on the role we play in the relationship. We should be honest with each other and understand what we want and how we can meet each other’s needs.

Communicate: The third stage is to communicate with each other about the needs we have and how we are going to address them. We should be equally bold to have difficult conversations and address the elephant in the room. This will create more clarity in the relationship.

Action: The intention of helping each other out and working together to form a long-term relationship helps in creating a better plan of action and working on it.

Decide: When all of these do not work out, we should be able to accept that the person we are with is not capable of giving us more than that – that’s the time we need to decide if we should stay back in this limited love or move on.