Writing Wedding Vows–Guidelines for Keeping Intimacy Alive and Well

This is a post about writing wedding vows. But it’s also a post about keeping intimacy alive. Because intimacy is the emotional ‘glue’ that keeps a relationship fresh, and sizzling. Writing personal wedding or commitment vows is a way for a couple outline what they will do to keep and maintain the intimate life of their marriage and relationship.

A while ago I wrote a post about keeping a marriage or relationship alive by activating biochemicals through sex.

I still think sex is an important topic and what I have been trying to get across to couples is that through taking the time to sit down together and get very clear about the dream they have for their marriage by discussing aspects of their life like money, and sex, and children, and in-laws, careers, fun activities, houses, cars, philanthropy, etc. they are better equipped to keep intimacy and their sex life alive.

Intimacy is a big loaded word. I did research a while ago about what women want and what men want and what I found is that men and women want the same things–intimacy. According to the sources I read, women want emotional intimacy and men want sexual intimacy.

However, after reading some of the commentary from a TV show that Oprah did with marriage counselor, M Gary Neuman, author of The Truth About Cheating, it became obvious to me that the reason men equate intimacy with sex is that they don’t know how to go about establishing a truly emotional and intimate connection with their partner.

Here’s a quote from the show: “It’s not just about having sex; it’s about emotional attachments. It’s about showing your private self to others. It’s about going to another person for what you should be holding personal for your wife, and continuing to put your energy somewhere else draws you that much more away and [makes it] harder to get back to your spouse.”

Women don’t really know how to go about creating intimacy either. There seems to be some built-in genetic something or other–that mother thing–that is helpful but women are as hard pressed as men to ‘know’ what or how to do this thing called intimacy.

Writing wedding vows together, however, forces a couple to actually think about, talk about, write about and then pledge what they will do to keep the ‘dream’ alive. That dream has a lot of elements such as money and sex, careers, houses and cars, but it is even more about establishing a conscious intimate connection that they can then build on and keep nourishing.

Writing and pledging wedding or commitment vows is not the end all and be all, but it is a beginning, and by repeating and rereading those vows over and over and over again the couple locks in their dream and it becomes their life operating system.

Rereading their vows together also creates opportunities for conversation so that problems can be solved almost before they begin.

The real work comes in setting up some guidelines to follow. That is what writing wedding or commitment vows are for. To establish guidelines that help a couple create a powerful, intimate, and sustainable marriage.

I want you to have the best life possible and not to have to ‘work’ at it so hard, because working at putting a marriage or relationship back together after it has cracked is where the ‘hard’ work really is.

Create a dream for your life and the life of your marriage, infuse that dream with excitement and passion, getting clear about all the important aspects and elements of what makes up a successful life and relationship. Tell your partner what you need from him or her to help you keep those dreams alive. That should be included in your vows.

Because your vows are all about what you are going to do to keep the dream alive.

See my Ebook, The Secret Life of Wedding Vows, to help you in your quest for the most amazing life ever!

Love, light and laughter,

Rev. Linda Bardes, The Wedding Vow Coach

Helping couples write down the dream and then live it!