Established couples are assumed to be completely open and intimate with each other, having abandoned all the polite taboos and inhibitions of normal social encounters.They no longer hide anything, no matter how personal or unappealing. Be it peeing, washing, cutting their nails, removing their body hair, picking their spots or farting, long-standing partners should be open-minded and tolerant enough to let their loved one behave any way they like, free of the usual suffocating public etiquette.
With a lot of couples, this is exactly what happens. They never lock the bathroom door, they pee and shit while chatting to their partners. They carry out every type of personal grooming, however unsavoury or hideous, in full view of the other person. They belch and burp freely at the dinner table, cramming their mouths to full capacity.
Well, that may suit some couples but Jenny and I would beg to differ. We don't believe a close relationship calls for that sort of unrestricted intimacy, in fact we regard it as insulting and tasteless. It's precisely because we respect each other's sense of decency and dignity that we keep certain things to ourselves.
We don't see unabashed intimacy as vital to emotional and spiritual closeness. Closeness doesn't come from cutting your nails together, it comes from knowing each other at a deeper and deeper level, and savouring that knowledge.
There's nothing more embarrassing than the uninhibited middle-aged male who believes his carefree farting, belching, groin-scratching and ear-probing is the sign of an enviable intimacy, while his long-suffering spouse watches in a state of mounting dismay and horror. And finds the idea of divorce increasingly attractive.
