As a therapist, I am in constant dialogue with my clients and couples about the importance of intimacy. Here I am referring to intimacy as the bond which develops between two people that is forged by vulnerability, communication and openness. Without intimacy, a relationship may survive but it certainly will not thrive.

This fact is fairly obvious to those of you who grew up with healthy relationships and had healthy boundaries modeled for you. It is also probably obvious to those of you who are in the beginning of your relationship or spend quite a lot of time focusing your time and energy on relationship.

However, for those of us struggling with healthy relationship, this simple redirection towards intimacy as the foundation for relationship is an important and needed one.

If there is trouble in a relationship or marriage, more often than not, the couple has turned away from being intimate with one another and have instead embraced anger, avoidance and control. These different coping mechanisms indicate that one or both partners is in pain. Let me say that again: anger, avoidance, and control are indicators that you or your partner are hurt, and this is how the hurt is being communicated.

One of my many jobs as a therapist is to guide people in slowly breaking down the walls that they have built up to protect themselves. What this looks like practically speaking is translating pain and hurt to language and content of vulnerability. From anger to fear. From avoidance to unloved. From control to emotional unsafety.

I have come to realize that when one holds back vulnerability from another, it keeps that person in the position of power (information is power). In the context of intimate relationships, I would say that this is ultimately destructive and is one core reason why a relationship might fail.

So, this is my logic for a healthy relationship: if fostering intimacy is important, then vulnerability > power. Therefore vulnerability = giving up power.

Thus far I’ve written about vulnerability in the context of intimate relationships. What about outside this context? The average person on the street. The abuser. The boss. Well, as always, the context is key.

When fostering intimacy isn't important. Or rather, if being safe is more important than fostering intimacy then it is okay to protect the self. In protecting the self, it gives power to the self - or it withholds the power that the person had to begin with. What I am getting at here is boundaries are healthy and needed! There are times that protecting the self is important. There are also times when people do not deserve your vulnerability. Vulnerability is a gift. And everyone does not deserve that gift.