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How do you boost intimacy? You find out what the two of you already know about each other and what you already know how to do—and do it better and more often.
You can find out a lot about yourselves as a couple by trying this assignment. Do you know your partner? Do you care enough to do something about feeling closer? Does your partner receive your moves towards intimacy well? Are you both excited to discover how much you can offer each other?
The assignment is simple. I tell my clients:
Think of something you can do more of (or sometimes less of) that you KNOW would be really meaningful to your partner. Then, between now and the next time I see you, change this behavior—but don’t tell your partner what you’re doing or that this is the “surprise task.”
You’ll each have to guess at what the other person’s behavior change was when we meet next week—that’s why we call it a “surprise.”
And here’s my advice: think small and think unique. Any guy can probably pick up a dozen roses and make his wife happy, but this works better when you figure out something that only you know is meaningful to your partner. And it doesn’t have to be a trip to Tahiti. It can be just not playing your music so loud if that bothers her or calling him during the day to check how his meeting went with an important client.
The purpose of the surprise task is to identify the strengths that already exist in your relationship—and to celebrate them. This technique was first developed in 1982 by Steve de Shazer at the Brief Family Therapy Center. It helps to uncover an area that you may not have been highlighting: the already-existing strengths in your relationships.
Let’s take an example in which Doug’s surprise task for Chris involves his increased attentiveness to home security issues. A running argument in their relationship takes place when Chris perceives Doug as being careless about keeping her and the family safe: making sure that all the doors are locked in their house, setting the security alarm at night, taking unusual noises seriously, etc. He thinks she is too anxious about all this, and she feels betrayed that he is not sensitive to her anxieties. She feels unsafe—not just because of possible unlocked doors but because she worries that her husband does not really have her interests and needs high enough on his list of priorities.
Knowing this, the surprise task that Doug comes up with is to make sure that he locks the door behind him when he comes home at night. He does a double-check of all doors and windows before going to bed. He makes sure that he sets the alarm. He will even get out of bed if he realizes that he has not made sure about these things. And he doesn’t say anything about it—he just does it.
Later, when they try to guess at the surprise task, Chris identifies it right away. And she tells him that this really meant a lot to her. Doug, of course, feels damn good too.
When couples do this task right, like Doug and Chris, the following positive and encouraging things must have taken place:
1. Doug had to know Chris well enough to identify something that would be really meaningful to her, something that probably no one else would have known. This deep knowledge of the other person is one of the cornerstones of intimacy.
2. Doug had to care enough to override his old and more comfortable way of doing things, paving the way to generously offer this behavioral gift to his wife. Author Terrence Real calls this “relational heroism.” Caring this much is another indicator of intimacy.
3. Doug had to have the skills to execute this behavior change successfully. That’s not much of a challenge when it comes to checking for locked windows, but it can be when it means responding with more empathy or being less controlling. Proper execution of behaviors that are meaningful to the other person is another key component of intimacy.
4. Chris had to be receptive to this change! I have worked with many couples where the surprise task failed even though Doug did his part great—because (for example) Chris was either so angry, so untrusting, or so self-centered that she refused to notice or refused to acknowledge the significance of his behavioral gift. In this example, fortunately, Chris took it in. She chose to see Doug’s behavior as a sign of his fundamentally loving nature and as a possible harbinger of more to come.
More examples:
Scott is upset with Shannon because she has always seemed to be threatened by his friendships.
Surprise task = Shannon responding enthusiastically when Scott plans to get together with his friends.
Melissa freezes up when Marco starts touching her because it seems like he always wants this to lead to sex (and subsequent resentment when she doesn’t want it to go there).
Surprise task = Marco is physically affectionate without communicating any other expectations, and he makes sure she knows that.
Sometimes the surprise task doesn’t work, and we all discover how much intimacy has deteriorated in this relationship:
1. She reports that she “forgot” to do it. This makes us wonder how much commitment she has to enhancing intimacy.
2. He reports that he was too mad at her all week to do anything positive for her. Most couples are able to set aside their resentments, at least temporarily, to offer something positive in their relationship. The inability or unwillingness to do this suggests that the resentment has killed any sparks of life for this couple.
3. He puts effort into the surprise task, but he picks something that means very little to her. She politely shows her appreciation, but is quietly hurt and disappointed that he didn’t know her well enough to know what would really make a difference to her.
Make a contract to try the surprise task now! Check back with each other in a week and see if you can guess each other’s surprise.