“Spend more time together” - why this trite advice never works for high achieving couples.

2 Sept

Written By Katarina Polonska

You’re feeling disconnected with your partner, so you try the classic advice: just spend more time together.

And it doesn’t work.

Here’s why:

Time together doesn’t automatically build intimacy.

In fact - when the emotional gap is big - it can actually make things worse. And it often does.

That’s because the brain’s threat system (driven by the amygdala) can’t distinguish between emotional neglect and physical threat. So when disconnection sets in, the body interprets this as relational danger. And thus your cortisol spikes and defenses go up.

It feels unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and dangerous to your nervous system.

So even when you’re sitting across from each other at dinner, your nervous system is bracing itself for the perceived ‘danger’. Because you’ve been in a state of ‘I am in a danger spot’ for a long time - and sitting there, you’re acutely aware that things feel off.

So it’s not the bonding experience you hoped for, right?

This is especially true if prior attempts at connection - talks, therapy, studying love languages together - have failed.

Your brain starts associating closeness with failure and that uncomfortable feeling of sitting in danger, exposed.

Which means that every “date night” becomes another opportunity to feel unsafe.

And alone.

What actually creates intimacy?

Not time. You can have tons of time together and feel wretched throughout it. It’s creating safety.

And safety isn’t created by proximity. It’s created by tending to the inner parts of you that feel unsafe (and have done for decades) and fixing those. Then it’s about clearing out your own subconscious blocks around love, those blocks that tell you intimacy isn’t safe, either.

And then it’s about building confidence in your needs and your emotional truth. Before creating a structured path to rebuild trust - internally and relationally.

Without that, more time together is likely going to backfire and feel painful.

It might feel like you're doing something good, but internally, it’s not achieving anything.

If you want to reconnect with your partner in a way that works, we need to start with the inner work - the inner landscape. And build safety there.

Which is precisely what I specialize in doing!

As an integrated attachment theory specialist, I help folks creating high levels of safety within themselves, so that they can relax, feel positive around intimacy, and confidently own what they want and need in love - so that they can go out there and create the love and life of their dreams.

You absolutely CAN have a fulfilling, happy, loving life and relationship.

You just need to know how. And I will teach you.

Message me privately today.