Bare Your Soul

Forget the clothes. When it comes to real and lasting intimacy, getting naked with your feelings is the secret to growing closer, boosting happiness and making sure your soul truly has a mate.

- Marissa Gainsburg

I’m taking off my glasses and settling into bed as my on-again, off-again boyfriend of eight years leans over to kiss me warmly. Normally, I’d jump at the opportunity to escalate things into sex, but instead, I brush him off.

Him: “Are you okay?”

Me: “I’m fine.”

Him: “You sure?”

Me: “Just tired.” He pecks my forehead, rolls over and goes to sleep.

The truth? I’m still stewing over a comment he made earlier that day about a girl he’d been seeing before we reconnected. But since he didn’t press me on it and I didn’t want to come off as crazy, I decided to eat my feelings and move on. I just committed a relationship sin.

“Avoiding open, honest communication because we’re uncomfortable with being vulnerable – or worse, not self-aware enough to know when something bothering us needs to be shared – is corrosive to a partnership,” says Dr Marisa Cohen, an associate professor of psychology and co-founder of the Self-Awareness and Bonding Lab at St Francis College in the US. “Being upfront might feel explosive in the short term, but the slow deterioration of a relationship can be much harder to repair.”

Self-awareness isn’t my problem – I’m fully cognisant that I’m being a jealous brat. But I could use a little work on the other end. While many soft-core quotes tell you that vulnerability is a beautiful thing, it only feels that way if your feelings are validated or, better yet, reciprocated. Who likes taking that risk?