What is your bottom line need, without which your relationship with your SO would become just a business relationship?

Many partners in relationships may not share a lot of interests or even like many of the same activities, yet they have a very happy relationship because of one thing they do share. I’m thinking of friends of mine. He likes chess and physical activities. She likes arts and can barely even stand walking. But they love talking to each other. They are endlessly interested in each other. They have found a way around their differences that makes those differences manageable, while focusing on the things that make them love each other.

My relationship with my wife has bounced between love and business partnership over the years. There are times when we are so far apart, emotionally speaking, that we might as well be a part of a corporation whose job is running a household and bringing up kids. At other times we enjoy each other, having dinner together, seeing plays, visiting friends, dancing, hugging, making love.

But my bottom line, I think, is physical. When it’s not there, I lose touch and start feeling alone, even if we are doing all those other things. For some reason, without that physical intimacy, I get blocked from trust and emotional intimacy. My body gets tight and twisted as my muscles clench up. A haze falls around my head, and I lose my peripheral vision. I can’t think. I start feeling like I want to crush something. It’s that visceral.

Does anyone else have a kind of bottom line thing that they must have in a relationship in order to feel fully connected? What is it? Do you get it?