The announcement that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have split after a 20-year relationship has been received with shock and sadness. The actress and her singer/songwriter husband were married for 19 years and had two children – but to me, the biggest surprise is not that this seemingly steadfast twosome have separated, but that they managed to stay together for so long .

In the febrile domains of back-to-back movies, recording albums and world tours, relationships rarely last. Kidman and Urban are mega-successful in their own right, so I doubt it’s a power imbalance that was the problem. But there’s one thing that every successful relationship requires and that is intimacy. And you can’t be intimate with someone you rarely see.

Intimacy is the pillar on which relationships are built

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