Christian Counseling Helps With The Need For Bonding In Romantic Relationships

Our basic needs include food, shelter, and clothing. But beyond those needs, we have a need for closeness, nurturing, and communication. We easily identify these needs when looking at a parent/child relationship, and we call it bonding. However, the need for bonding in romantic relationships – like marriage – is equally as important, and Christian counseling can help.

Lori H. Gordon, in her book, Passage to Intimacy, says, “The most powerful of these creature needs is the need for bonding – a combination of physical closeness and emotional openness that extends throughout our lifetime.”

It is well documented that adopted children often display RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder). This is a direct result of a lack of bonding in the early formative years. RAD is characterized by certain “symptoms” in behavior, responses, and an inability to create healthy relationships with others. Bonding is lacking.

As children, we need other people to provide for our needs, from our basic needs to our bonding needs. Our experiences in those early years often determine what our relationships in the future will look like. Were our needs met? How were they met?

Gordon says, “Now that you are an adult, however, you can fulfill all of your needs yourself – except the need for bonding. All of the feelings, attitudes and beliefs about how your needs were responded to by other people become attached to the one need that you still have of others, that of bonding.”

Remember that bonding consists of physical closeness and emotional openness. We cannot have one without the other. In romantic relationships, it is no different. Physical closeness without emotional openness is only lust. Emotional openness without physical closeness in only friendship. Like Gordon says, “Bonding is the heart of intimacy.” When people lose one of these components, they begin to feel as if something is missing in their relationship and they do not feel satisfied.

Let’s look at Gordon’s words as she describes bonding, “It’s a closeness that fills both skin hunger and the need to feel safe in the world, to feel that you can trust another person with your whole being, your laughter, your tears, your rage, your joy.” Then she adds, “It’s essence lies in total certainty that your partner is emotionally fully there with you and for you – open to you in body, heart and mind – and knowing that you can offer the same to your partner. It’s the ability to lower your defenses and share yourself fully with another human being, knowing that you are accepted and loved for what you really are, and knowing that you don’t have to pretend.”

Isn’t this the romantic relationship we all long to have?

Often times, it is the desire to have this relationship, and the reality of the actual relationship that causes conflict between a marriage or couple. What makes us trust the other person? In what areas do we feel judged? Can we be completely open and honest yet be fully embraced and accepted?

Our early years, and what we learned about relationships and bonding have a direct impact in how we treat our partners and the level of intimacy that we develop with them. If we felt rejected as children if we did not perform things to perfection, we will naturally approach our romantic relationship with the same misconception that we are to be perfect in order to be loved.

Yet, that is not what bonding in relationships is about. True intimacy and bonding develop when we love and accept despite of our shortcomings. It is a result of physical closeness and emotional openness.

We all have a need for bonding in romantic relationships. If you are unhappy in your  relationship, it could be a result of a lack of physical closeness, or a lack of emotional openness. During Christian counseling, we can explore your past experiences in bonding, and discover how that is affecting the way you bond with your spouse. Together, we can explore new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that will allow you to establish a loving bond.

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