Hugs can be romantic or disconnecting, depending on your intent in hugging.
Has the romance gone out of your relationship? Has work and/or parenthood left you no time for romance, connection and intimacy?
A major challenge for parents, especially new parents, is finding the time to be together in ways that foster romance in their relationship. A question that a reader recently asked me is: “Is it the quality of time versus the quantity of time that is significant in ‘we-time’?”
Romance is determined far more by the quality of the energy between two people than by the amount of time they spend together. If two people spend all day together, but they are not open to each other regarding the sharing of learning, laughter, play and creativity, they will not feel romantic and intimate. They will feel far more romantic if they spend a few minutes together and that few minutes is filled with the intimacy that comes from being open-hearted and emotionally connected with each other. If two people hug goodbye in the morning and the hug is perfunctory with their minds already elsewhere, that hug will do nothing to foster romance later that evening. But if the hug is filled with love, warmth, tenderness and caring, that hug can do much to sustain the romance through the day to be further expressed in the evening.
