Intimacy Check-Up
Counseling Toolkit February 2017
Peter Cha, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
On Valentine’s Day, people often go to great lengths to shower their loved one with gifts. A CNN article reported that each Valentine’s Day, Americans buy about 224 million roses, and spend 2 billion dollars on candy and 4.4 billion dollars in diamonds, gold and silver. For married couples, regardless of their spending habits on this day, this romantic holiday serves as a special marker of time to stop and reflect on how their marital love has been the last year, both what has been good and what has been tough.
Pastoral and professional counselors know that when Valentine’s Day rolls around, it offers an opportunity to ask married couples about the health of their marriage. As caregivers, we know the importance of assessing the state of a marriage on a regular basis because it never stays the same. Marriage is a dynamic relationship that is either growing or atrophying. In some cases, one or both spouses are unaware that they have drifted apart, seldom experiencing connection on one or more aspects of their relationship. For this reason, a simple marriage assessment can provide the awareness needed for couples to continue to cultivate healthier marriages.
In celebration of this day dedicated to love, Redeemer Counseling would like to offer this “Intimacy Check-up” assessment that we use with clients. It is a basic tool that provides talking points and topics for prayer.
Marriage proposals are also a popular event on Valentine’s Day.
Finally, Valentine's Day can be a very difficult one for singles who might feel excluded, skeptical about love and relationships or that might be struggling with intense loneliness. As a Valentine's gift, those who have subscribed to our newsletter can also download a free talk by Tim Keller on, “Sex and the End of Loneliness.”