Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us.
Surrendering to your husband may make you feel more vulnerable than ever before. Even your own survival instincts will scream at you that being vulnerable in your marriage is insanity. You risk heartbreak and disappointment when you reveal your true desires and feelings without masking them with anger or control. The reward for taking that risk, however, is that your husband will have the opportunity to respond with tenderness instead of defensiveness. When your iron curtain comes down, he will feel safe to reveal himself, too. Instead of breaking your heart, he will hold it tenderly.
Some people may tell you that surrendering is appalling because it is “so sexist and antifeminist.” They will claim that the mind-set I am suggesting is a throwback, and that you will be giving up the equality and independence women have gained.
Their underlying message is don’t let yourself be too vulnerable.
I understand this because I once thought of vulnerability as something to avoid. I thought that people who were vulnerable were weak, which was a terribly unattractive quality for an able-bodied and strong-minded woman to present to the world. Today, however, I strive to be vulnerable in my marriage, and I consider my ability to go to that tender place one of my best qualities. I no longer think of nay vulnerability as repulsive; instead I recognize that it’s attractive.
The most attractive part about it is the glow that comes from having that magical feeling of knowing that you are passionately and tenderly loved and that you love back completely. When you’re intimate, you know traits about each other that you never show to the rest of the world, and you find each other even more attractive and wonderful because of those qualities. You feel certain that he will never use what he knows against you, because you shared it with utter trust and confidence that he is honor-bound to hold in safe hands.
Sharing that kind of intimacy naturally clears the way for affection and love because it removes the barriers of defense. Your passion was there all the time, but you couldn’t feel it through the distance between you and your mate. The same urgent impulse to intertwine that you felt when you first met is still there, and when the conditions are right, you feel it all over again.
This primal and spiritual state perpetuates a healthy sex life, the willingness to hang in through hard times, a spark of excitement in what would otherwise be an ordinary day, and that enduring look of affection you sometimes see from couples who have been together for a very long time.
