Reigniting Emotional Intimacy: From Blame to Oneness

Many couples think they have a communication problem when they actually have an ownership problem.

When hurt, frustration, loneliness, and disappointment go unnamed, it's easy to fall into blame, defensiveness, criticism, and distance. But emotional intimacy grows when two people learn to take ownership of what they're feeling, anchor themselves in truth, and move toward one another with a shared path forward.

In this episode, I'm sharing a simple framework to help couples reignite emotional connection through honesty, responsibility, repentance, and oneness.

Because emotional intimacy isn't built through winning arguments.

It's built through being known, speaking truth, and choosing to move toward one another again.

Transcript

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Welcome back to the High Level Wife Podcast. I'm Chelsea Holm, your hostess, and we do Marriage Godsway here. And today we're diving into emotional intimacy and specifically reigniting that connection and building that deeper emotional intimacy. Because most couples don't have a communication problem. They have an ownership problem because they don't own what's happening inside of them. They blame what's happening outside of them. That's what happens, right? So emotional intimacy is honesty, ownership, vulnerability, and oneness. It's being known and knowing your spouse. This is biblical, right? I am my beloveds, and his desire is for me, right? To and our our innermost drive as humans, where most don't understand or recognize or ever name or ask for, is to be fully known and to fully know others, right? That's that's really what drives us when it comes down to it. But God's design in Genesis was to be naked and unashamed. And it wasn't just physically, it was emotionally, spiritually, it was relationally. Because after sin entered the chat, what did we have? We had hiding, we had pretending, we had blame shifting, right? And we need to understand that the reason that connection starts to break down is because when there's hurt, when there's pain, when there's misunderstanding, what most couples do is they hide or they move into defense, right? Like you can't, if you've ever had those moments or witnessed other people having those moments where you can't even carry a conversation because it's completely just defense mode all the time, or justifying how or what you're doing because of how you're feeling, or blaming someone else for how you're feeling. I frequently tell my kids that nobody else can make you feel any way. You get to decide, right? Like you may feel something because of what they did or said to you, but it's your responsibility to take ownership of how you're anchoring in God's truth and how you're moving forward for that. Whether you're releasing it or you're holding it in as resentment that leads to um just not great things, right? Resentment leads to bitterness, leads to full-blown just division. Okay. Or the easiest one that most couples do is they assume so connection starts to break down. Instead of what we should be doing in order to build up connection is confessing, taking ownership, expressing and inviting. So much of our conversations are put up walls immediately when we say things. And it's it's not, it honestly is just a it's a communication breakdown in that we don't know how to communicate how we're feeling in a way that doesn't feel like an attack to somebody else. And that's a skill that we can learn. Um, we need to understand too that repentance isn't saying I'm sorry. Repentance is turning toward God, turning toward your spouse, and turning away from the self-protection from the very thing that's causing the disconnect in the first place. And ownership sounds, it's not like you make me feel. Instead, it's when this happened, I felt, right? Because immediately when you say you make me feel, what you're doing is you're putting that ownership or that responsibility of how you're feeling on your spouse. And as I said in the beginning, that I tell my kids all the time that nobody else has the power to make you feel any certain way, right? It's your interpretation of what happened that evokes the emotion from you. So it's not saying you're always, instead, it's saying I realized. It's not you need to. Instead, it's can we, right? Just in those simple shifts of what you're communicating can make a huge difference. So we need to look at what actually happened, and we need to do it without accusation. So, what I'm gonna do is what I'm gonna do right now is I'm giving this framework of how to do what I just told you about, like the not this, but instead we do this. Um, so first we have to look at actually what happened, what was said or what happened. And we have to do it through the lens of not bringing not accusation, right? This is where we always go back to believing the best of our spouse and taking ownership of the emotion that we're feeling and naming it. What did I feel? So, first, what actually happened and what did I feel? And then naming that feeling. So it could be hurt, lonely, rejected, overwhelmed, disconnected, unseen. Actually, on my desk, um, because you know, if you guys had met me just a few years ago, I didn't do feelings, I was that person, and I have this emotion wheel on my desk in full-blown collar because I thought the only emotions you could feel were happy and sad. And I didn't realize that there were so many layers of all the things that you could feel. And then, so I actually have this tool on my desk. I teach this inside high-level wife because when you have self-protected for so long and survived, you forget how to name your emotions and how to express them. And so it's relearning a whole new skill. Um, so then the next part of the framework, so we have what happened, what did I feel, and then what is true? This is where we anchor into God's truth, and this is where it differs from the rest of the world in therapy, because they're they're taking your feelings as your authority. Well, we don't do that in the kingdom of God. Our feelings are not our authority, God is our authority and his word. And so we have to look to truth. So, what is true here? That two became one flesh, we are on the same team. That we have an enemy. We don't war against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and yada yada yada, right? My spouse is not my enemy. God is working, his word tells us that he who began a good work in us is faithful and will complete it. So if Jesus hasn't returned yet in you or you're not dead, God is still working in you. I am loved. We see it over and over and over in every stitch of the old testament to the new testament of I am loved. And the truth of I can respond differently. And I think that that's such a key that we forget because we get tunnel vision, we put blinders on and we're focused on only what we can see right in front of us and what we're experiencing. And what we don't realize is how those experiences have been shaped by our whole life and other experiences that we've had and and what we've learned, like learned behavior and patterns. And, you know, we walk in these dysfunctional patterns. So just the truth of I can respond differently is powerful. Okay. So the framework again is what happened, what did I feel? What is true? And then the last part of that is what is one path forward? Because this moves us out of that victim mentality, out of that blaming. This this helps us to move forward together as oneness, right? And it's not 10 different things, it's one. It's simple, it's specific, and it's together. So I want to give you a couple of examples. I'm gonna give you a wife example and I'm gonna give you a husband example. Um, and then I'm gonna tell you why this works. So, for example, for a wife, when you came home and went straight to your phone, I felt disconnected. The truth is we're on the same team and I know you're carrying a lot. Can we sit together for 10 minutes tonight after the kids go to bed? Right? So, what did you do? You started it with what actually happened when you came home and went straight to your phone. I felt it right. So there's that. And then what did you feel? You felt disconnected. Okay. So then we need to anchor into truth. We're on the same team and I know you're carrying a lot. Then we're doing one specific thing to move forward together. Can we sit together for 10 minutes tonight after the kids go to bed? Right? Easy. Husbands love simple. They are simple creatures, they want you just to tell them what to do. It not in the sense of being a controlling wife, but in making specific requests that they can actually follow through on. Okay, for husbands, when intimacy hasn't happened for a while, I feel unwanted. The truth is, I know you love me and we're both caring a lot right now. Can we talk about how we can reconnect this week? Or I would say even more so than that, like get more specific about that. Of um really you taking ownership of what's going on behind the scenes, right? But remember, emotional intimacy is what what's really going on under the surface that you're sharing. That's what emotional intimacy and connection is. So, why does this work? It's because feelings become information instead of ammunition. And that is such a huge key in emotional intimacy and honestly maturing in emotional intelligence as we walk forward and how we interact with one another. Um, and so the high-level marriage mindset is what I want to bring it back to because sorry, I got distracted there for a second, because somebody's here. And I'm oh, I know my daughter's coming home from her sleepover. That's what it was. Okay, anyway, I just got gotten so distracted. Bird, squirrel, whatever. Okay, so let's bring it back to high-level marriage mindset, right? A low-level marriage assigns blame, but high-level marriages take ownership. This is something that we do uh all the time. And uh it said instead of asking the question of how do I get my spouse to change, we're asking the question of how do we move toward each other and forward together. So this week, I want you to ask, what am I feeling? What is true, and what is one path forward? Because emotional intimacy grows when two people stop defending themselves and start moving toward each other in truth. I'll see you on the next episode.