For many couples, the level of intimacy dwindles as the marriage goes on. I think this is unfortunate and unnecessary. Such lessening of intimacy will, however, certainly occur if you make the mistake of many couples, who allow the growing number of stressors in their lives to dictate where on the totem pole of priorities they position the important factor of attending to their marriage. As any happily married person knows, this is a mistake. As your years together advance, more and more important areas of responsibility get added to your list of priorities. The list never stops growing: children, mortgages, careers, grandchildren, health concerns, and so on.
If you attend to your marriage only when life allows you time to do so, you will spend less and less time doing so as life goes on. Intimate partners have the same lengthy lists of important areas of responsibility as bored partners, but they continue to place their marriage at or near the top of their list.
Both professionally and personally, I have found that we progress more healthily through life if our needs for intimacy are reasonably well met. We do better in life if we are living in an intimate marriage. Further, it appears that marriages work to the degree that they receive commitment from both parties. The problem that underlies many unsatisfying relationships is lack of commitment to the marriage. Marriage and family life work best if you clearly declare your loyalty to your mate above all other relationships or involvements in your life.
Yes, I mean that you must choose your partner over all else in your life if your marriage is to fulfill its potential. I believe that doing so does not take away from your healthy and loving participation in other meaningful aspects of life. Rather, living in a committed marriage energizes you to be an even more positive parent, friend, worker, relative, church member, recovering heart patient—whatever else is important in your life.
"What a lot of work! I'm not sure this marital intimacy business is worth it," you may say. This is a legitimate point. It is much easier to have a half-baked, lukewarm, functional, but not very intimate marriage than it is to create and maintain an intimate relationship. Indeed, in my opinion no intimate marriages are the statistical norm; most people settle for functionality and give up the hope and quest for intimacy in their relationships. The reason? Most people are too lazy to commit themselves to the work involved in maintaining intimacy as marriage progresses.
The question of whether the work involved in committing to marital intimacy is worth it to you is, perhaps, comparable to the question of whether the work involved in owning a house versus renting an apartment is worth the payoff. Owning your own home certainly does involve more work; you must compromise endlessly on decisions about spending your time and money on a house. However, the rewards of home owning do seem worth the extra efforts for most of us.
Marital intimacy, too, is certainly a matter of personal choice. However, be clear and honest with yourself about the available options in the quality of your marriage. In this age of "lite" everything— lite beer, lite ice cream, lite crackers—we somehow are getting lulled into pretending that there is an option to have a "lite intimate marriage." Where marriage is concerned, either you heavily commit yourselves and thereby generate intimacy, or you get lite marriage minus the intimacy. You choose. But remember: lite marriage tastes like spaghetti with no sauce, cereal with no milk, a bagel with no cream cheese.
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