ABSTRACT
THE PREVIOUS chapter described different fonns of intimacy-intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal-and how time plays a role in each. The current chapter focuses on temporality in relationships, how couples relate to time, and how time impinges on couples. This chapter attempts to build a systematic description of the big picture, which is often lost to couples in the midst of their daily routine, of how relationships proceed in time, and of how partners coordinate their lives together. From this big picture, I hope readers will derive a sense of the wholeness of transpersonal intimacy (see Quality 3, chap. 2). The enlightened activity of continuing to relate with another person through time (In time mates see }-and the coordination this entails--can be seen as a spiritual discipline. On the one hand, this requires extraordinary effort; a certain degree of faith, self-transcendence, m indfulness, concentration, compassion, patience, and an ability to flow is required. On the other hand, it requires a simple understanding of "all that is ordinary in human life," that is, appreciating the wann security of the routines and the little things (timing, pacing) that are shared together.
