Closeness in a relationship is a great value that speaks about the quality of this relationship. As opposed to dependent relationships. Proximity is primarily a process of approaching and moving away. This is a constant choice of a distance of comfortable interaction with the Other, and this distance is always unstable. There is always a risk of finding yourself without masks and protections, faced with your vulnerability, loneliness and rejection. It's like a dance of two partners, two personalities. Where there is the ability not to depend on the Other. There is the ability for unity and autonomy, there are boundaries between I and YOU. When I love you, but today I want to read a book and be alone, without feeling guilty about leaving you alone. When you want to support your partner, but now he is annoying... intimacy is experienced as the integrity of life in the presence of another person. Intimacy is always a two-way process. The ability to have close relationships presupposes, firstly: the desire to get closer to another person, and secondly, the ability to feel one’s boundaries, distinguish and respect other people’s boundaries, and the ability to be separate. And face your loneliness and rejection, live it without being destroyed. To do this, a positive experience of living alone and being rejected must be formed. The experience of closeness and trust in childhood... with your mother is important. Some, after childhood traumas, do not dare to have such an experience at all. It’s easier to retreat into cynicism, humor, having sex, rejection, running away...into one’s own defenses, in general, doing everything so as not to risk reliving the experience when the one who is so needed not only rejected my proposal or my action, he rejected ME , me in my essence, accusing me at the same time of some of my badness. Therefore, in order for intimacy to happen, it is important that trust is formed in the relationship. It is also impossible to talk about intimacy while ignoring the phenomenon of dependence. These are two different experiences and different experiences. But people often mistake addiction for intimacy, but it is not. In dependent relationships there are no separate autonomous individuals, here I am not separate from the other, there is no opportunity to see my partner as he really is. When there is no me without another person, there is no life, when I cannot be without him. But it is also difficult to be with him. In such a relationship it is safe, there is no responsibility for oneself, and all responsibility is shifted to the partner, he must take care of me, satisfy my needs, where he acts more like a parental figure. In such relationships there are many expectations of unconditional acceptance and love. In essence, this is reminiscent of a child-parent relationship, when he was not separated from his mother, from her boobs... and the partner essentially continues to be this mother.... The road from dependence to intimacy is a whole path of growing up, living the experience of acceptance, rejection, loneliness, disappointment and unjustified expectations to peace and partner. Establishing personal boundaries, thus separating oneself from another. And the risk of experiencing intimacy, feeling it in connection with the Other. Where you are is you. And I am me. If we meet each other by chance, that’s great. And if not, so be it. So intimacy can happen, or maybe not... then so be it. More articles on my website http://www.butsovskaya.com/