guest blog by Samantha McGovern, LCPC, CRSS
What is Bonding in a Relationship?
Bonding is the process of developing a close interpersonal relationship between you and other people, whether the relationship is romantic, familial, or platonic. Bonding is more than just liking someone or enjoying their company. It is building a strong connection based on mutual trust and intimacy, fostering mutual support, and creating a sense of belonging. Bonding is mutual and interactive, requiring engagement from everyone involved.
Bonding is linked to developing attachment, which applies to your closest relationships: parent-child, close friends, and romantic partners. Attachment styles are how you think about and behave in relationships.
Types of Relationship Bonding
Bonds take various forms: teammates, close friends, family members, and romantic partners. Shared experiences, both positive and negative, strengthen your bonds. Trust and credibility are cornerstones of a strong bond, built over time through a pattern of actions that mirror your and the other person’s beliefs and commitments. And, of course, you tend to trust those whose actions consistently align with their words.
Here’s a breakdown of different types of bonding in relationships:
Intellectual Bond: a “meeting of the minds,” sharing a love of expressing ideas and opinions with one another, forming a deep connection of appreciation and mutual respect
Emotional Intimacy: Emotional intimacy is the glue that binds you to your partner, fostering a sense of closeness, understanding, trust, and companionship. This is accomplished through sharing thoughts and feelings with each other. It’s about feeling deeply connected and understood by your partner, which is the foundation of strong relationships.
Supportive Bond: also known as “The Rocks”; supporting each other through life’s ups and downs. This sort of validation and support plays a key role in mental health.
Physical Bond: The power of touch puts a romantic spark into your relationship. Physical touch and intimacy are expressions of love. This not only includes sex, but other forms of physical touch and closeness, too – holding hands, snuggling, and massage. An erotic sexual connection blends physical attraction with emotional depth, communication, and mutual respect. It enhances your relationship by fostering intimacy and pleasure – if partners are on the same page with desires, boundaries, and consent.
Family Relationships: Family relationship is the first interpersonal bond you form, beginning in infancy as you depend on your parents and caregivers, including siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Related Reading: Married to Someone with Childhood Trauma? How it Affects Relationships
How to Foster Bonding
Bonding is fostered in many ways. These include:
- Communication: Open, honest, respectful, and healthy communication is crucial for building trust and understanding. Using I-Statements and Fair Fighting Rules can help strength communication skills and foster connection.
- Quality Time: Making time for each other, whether through shared activities or simply spending time together, is essential.
- Shared Activities: Spending time together and connecting through new adventures and exploring together creates a strong sense of couple identity and joint sense of purpose.
- Active Listening: Pay attention to your partner’s needs, thoughts, and feelings, and respond thoughtfully. Although it can be tempting, avoid thinking about your response to particular points as you listen. Having your attention on your own response not only interferes with hearing what your partner is attempting to express, it interferes with bonding and connection. See the Active Listening handout for more information.
- Empathy and Support: Empathy is feeling with another person. It requires you to touch that emotion within yourself to understand and feel what the other person is feeling. This can be difficult at times, especially when empathizing with discomfort in another person, because empathy requires you to experience the discomfort with the other person, without trying to change it. Instead, you validate their emotions and offer support. Watch this YouTube video on Empathy Vs. Sympathy for more information
- Shared Goals and Dreams: Working towards common goals and aspirations can strengthen the bond with another person and create a sense of shared purpose.
- Respect and Individuality: Acknowledging and respecting each other’s individuality, particularly allowing each other to maintain their own interests and goals, strengthens bonding.
- Affection and Intimacy: Physical affection and emotional intimacy are important for maintaining strong bonds in your closest relationships. See the Relationship Maintenance worksheet for behaviors that build healthy relationships.
- Conflict Resolution: Learning to navigate disagreements constructively and find solutions that work for all parties is critical for maintaining bonds. See Relationship Conflict Resolution for tips.
- Gratitude and Appreciation: Expressing gratitude for your partner and for the relationship and acknowledging the other’s contributions keeps close bonds in good working order. See the Relationship Gratitude Tips.
- Rituals and Traditions: Creating shared rituals and traditions strengthen your bonds and create a sense of belonging and community.
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Related Reading: What is Emotion Focused Therapy?
Samantha combines professional experience and education with her own lived experiences in trauma and recovery to foster hope with empathy, validation, and unconditional positive regard for her clients. She works with individuals of all ages, couples, and families, using strategies from Emotionally-Focused Couples Therapy, Gottman Method, Family Systems, Motivation Enhancement Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Strengths-Based and Positive Psychology, and Play Therapy. Sam offers services in English and Spanish in the Glen Ellyn office and by telehealth.
