If Love Disappears When You Disagree, Was It Ever Intimacy?

If love disappears when you disagree, it was probably never intimacy.
Intimacy can feel meaningless or even uncomfortable when survival mode is out of control.
When narcissism, people-pleasing, emotional numbness, or other survival patterns are guiding your relationships and the goals you work toward, your nervous system is focused more on protection than connection.

You may still deeply want closeness.
But intimacy also requires emotional skills.
You need enough awareness to notice what you feel, enough compassion to stay with difficult feelings, enough boundaries to remain a separate person, and enough honesty to let someone know who you really are.

Without those skills, intimacy can be difficult to practice even when you want connection.

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How does closeness become transactional?

Closeness can instead become transactional.
You give people what they want so they will accept you.
You control how they see you so you do not have to feel shame.

Your nervous system keeps you emotionally numb so rejection, disappointment, shame, or vulnerability do not hurt as much.
The relationship becomes less about deeply knowing another person and more about managing what happens between you.

That is one reason cult-like relationships can feel deeply emotional while still lacking real intimacy.

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What does conditional love look like in a group?

Cult-like relationships are built around conditional love.
You are loved when you obey.
You are valued when you support the group [or religion].
You are praised when you think, speak, and behave in the accepted way.

Sometimes the group even creates its own measure of spiritual worth, then gives extra honor to the people who follow it most strongly.
That can make people chase status while believing they are chasing spirituality.
But when you question something, set a boundary, disagree, or become more independent, the warmth can disappear.

That is not intimacy.
It is a transaction:
“Give us loyalty, obedience, agreement, and proof that you share our values, and we will give you belonging, approval, and honor.”

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What does healthy intimacy look like?

Healthy intimacy works differently.
Intimacy means two people can become deeply connected while remaining separate people.
You can tell the truth, disagree, have boundaries, admit fear, shame, confusion, sadness, or hurt, and still remain in relationship.

You do not have to erase yourself to stay connected.
The relationship can survive honesty.

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What makes spirituality authentic?

This also helps explain what authentic spirituality means.
Authentic spirituality comes down to what helps you become more capable of intimacy with the Creator.
It is not mainly about how intense an experience feels, how loyal you are to a group, or how perfectly you perform religious behaviors.

A deeper question is:
Does your spirituality help you become more capable of awe, love, sadness, joy, honesty, responsibility, compassion, trust, and intimacy?

Awe means increasingly feeling that you are living before the Creator.
Love means increasingly wanting closeness with Him and wanting your life to express His goodness.
Sadness can come from feeling where His goodness, closeness, or your relationship with Him could be more revealed.

Joy can come from feeling and trusting the goodness and closeness that are already present.
Healthy spirituality should gradually help your nervous system experience all of this more deeply inside the relationship.

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This is one reason Chabad Chassidus places so much focus on using intellectual tools.
It teaches you to think deeply and carefully about the particulars of the Creator’s nature, how He guides what happens, and how He makes Himself known in the world, in Torah, and in our lives—to the maximum extent that the human mind can understand.

At the same time, Chassidus is careful not to confuse the ways the Creator relates to creation with the Creator Himself.
Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael explains that the sefirot [the ways the Creator relates to, creates, and guides the world] do not define G-d. They describe the ways He creates the world and guides what happens within it.

That includes thinking about what creation means, what the soul is [the part of your personality that allows you to feel awe and love], why you are here, how the Creator relates to the world, and how He makes Himself available for a relationship with you.

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How does understanding become felt awe and love?

The purpose is not intellectual knowledge for its own sake.
The purpose is daas [felt knowing].
You use understanding until these truths begin to shape the way your nervous system experiences reality.

You begin to notice wisdom in creation and think about the Creator behind it.
You study the wisdom He chose to reveal in Torah.
You speak with Him about your gratitude, fear, sadness, confusion, desires, hopes, and joy.
You practice noticing that your choices are happening before Him.

Over time, knowledge can become felt awe.
Awe can deepen love.
Sadness can help you feel where greater closeness is still missing.
Joy can help you feel and trust the closeness that is already there.
And responsibility can begin to feel less like a transaction and more like participating in the relationship.

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You are no longer only asking:
“What do I have to do so the Creator will give me something?”
You begin asking:
“How can I know Him more deeply?”
“How can I become more aware that I am living before Him?”
“How can my choices express His goodness?”

Chabad Chassidus teaches a spirituality in which the deepest relationship with the Creator is not built by losing yourself.
It is built by becoming more aware, more honest, more responsible, and more capable of felt awe, love, sadness, joy, trust, and intimacy [improving your personality].

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Are strong feelings the same as intimacy?

Survival mode asks:
“What do I need to do to stay safe, accepted, admired, or in control?”
Transactional religion asks:
“What do I have to give so I can belong or receive something back?”
Intimacy asks:
“How can I become more present, truthful, responsible, and capable of relationship?”

Strong feelings are not intimacy.
Obedience is not intimacy.
Belonging is not intimacy if belonging disappears when you become honest.

Authentic spirituality should help your nervous system move from managing relationships for survival toward becoming more capable of truth, awe, love, sadness, joy, trust, and intimacy.

Questions people ask

Why does love disappear when you disagree with someone?

The love was probably conditional. You were accepted while you agreed, obeyed, and gave people what they wanted. Disagreeing and setting a boundary are emotional skills: being honest about who you really are, and remaining a separate person. If practicing them makes the warmth disappear, the relationship was a transaction, not intimacy. Real intimacy can survive honesty.

What emotional skills does intimacy require?

Intimacy requires emotional skills. Awareness means noticing what you feel. Compassion means staying with your own difficult feelings. Boundaries mean remaining a separate person while deeply connected. Honesty means letting someone know who you really are. When survival patterns like people-pleasing or emotional numbness are guiding your relationships, intimacy can be difficult to practice even when you want connection.

What is the difference between intimacy and a transactional relationship?

A transactional relationship means managing what happens between you: you give people what they want so they accept you, and control how they see you to avoid shame. Those are survival patterns, not emotional skills. Intimacy uses the skills instead: two people become deeply connected while remaining separate, and the relationship can survive honesty, disagreement, and boundaries.

What does daas mean in Chassidus?

Daas means felt knowing. You think deeply about the Creator until understanding shapes how your nervous system experiences reality. The emotional skills practiced are awareness and responsibility, noticing that your choices happen before Him, and honesty, speaking with Him about gratitude, fear, sadness, and joy. Knowledge can then become felt awe, and awe can deepen love.

“If honesty threatens the relationship, the relationship is probably transactional.”

Explore the NextSelf Blog. Start with this post explaining the world of souls. And my Youtube. Content is published to this facebook first and a few days later, to the blog.

The blog lists all the difference patterns to study, understanding patterns is how one can develop 'Daas' [felt knowing].
Update: As awe, trust, and love deepen, they can allow greater openness and intimacy with the Creator. That intimacy can include sadness when you notice how much more of His goodness can be revealed.