Hands On

We sat in the pastor’s office with a set of surveys to judge our compatibility. It was one of those fill-in-the-bubble tests where you answered things like “On a scale of 1 to 10, children are important to a happy marriage,” or, “True or False: It is important to me that our children be baptized.” We were given the proper #2 pencils and sent to opposite corners to record our answers and return to compare notes.

My first husband and I were not religious. He had been raised Presbyterian, and I had been raised Catholic, but neither one of us had attended a service in the year we’d been living together. But we wanted to get married, and at the time the easiest place to find someone qualified to sign the marriage certificate was in a church. Someone directed us to a friend of a friend who had a relative that was the pastor of a Lutheran church in a location close to relatives, and we set up an appointment.

Of course, churches have their own rules about marrying people outside of their congregations, and this pastor determined that a few sessions were required to get to know us and to convince her that we were compatible for a lifetime of marriage. Unfortunately, you really can’t judge such things from a scantron form.

As the pastor went through the list of questions with us, we were mostly in agreement. Our Likert scales were within two degrees, our Trues and Falses matched beautifully. Until we got to the red flag that should have tipped us all off.

The question read, “True or False: Sometimes I don’t like to be touched.”

I’ve never been a hugger, though I can appreciate the hug of someone who really knows what they’re doing. There was a boy in high school that I was half infatuated with on the basis of his magical hugs alone. But for the most part, I can take or leave them. If everyone is hugging goodbye, I will hang at the edges until everyone else has gone and hope that they forget me in the crowd. On the other hand, I will sometimes be so excited to see someone that I will spontaneously hug them, causing discomfort and surprise for all. As I was saying goodbye at what I knew would be my last librarian gathering, I went around hugging only those friends who had been the most important to me. One of my friends immediately teared up, saying, “Aw, and I know you aren’t a hugger!” She knew how important that touch was.

It wasn’t that my family wasn’t affectionate growing up — I got plenty of hugs and kisses from parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, you name it. But at some point I developed a very large concept of personal space. Perhaps it was during my 13th year, when my family of four was crammed into a 1950s ranch with my grandmother and uncle, with all of us sharing one small bathroom. Or perhaps it was in high school when I suffered occasional sexual harassment and learned to keep my body shielded from unwanted contact.

Or maybe it’s because of the Crohn’s disease. Let’s face it, when you’re writhing in pain, contorting your body in any possible shape that might relieve the stabbing in your abdomen, the last thing you want is someone touching any part of your body that may increase the spasms. And after you’ve run to the bathroom, barely containing the diarrhea while you disrobe and lower your body to the seat, the feeling of dirtiness and disgust is so strong that you don’t even want to touch yourself, let alone allow someone else to comfort you with a back rub or full-on embrace.

So, of course, my answer was True. My soon-to-be husband was shocked and visibly upset. So much so, that he became angry with me that there would be times when I would not want him touching me.

This should have given me pause. How had he missed those times when I retreated to another room knowing he was angling for a session of cuddling in front of the TV? Did he not notice that I avoided even eye contact after I’d had some sort of bowel related episode?

But he was really angry because the pastor’s concurrence that not wanting to be touched was a normal and healthy part of a relationship shook his elemental ideas of sexual relationships to the core. In his mind, closeness and intimacy were synonymous with physical contact. Any rejection of physical overtures was tantamount to rejection of the person making the overtures.

I find that children often share this sentiment. Any rejection of physical touch is met with dismay and distrust. Working as a children’s librarian, you often get children who treat you like a babysitter or close family friend. They want to give you handmade gifts, bring you cookies, and embrace your legs because it’s the first part of your body they can reach while flying across the room to fling themselves at you. But you never know if the parents will encourage return displays of affection, so you have to remain aloof. Pat their backs until they release your knees. Give high fives instead of hugs. Hope this is enough not to crush their tiny spirits.

I could blame my work in libraries for the physical distance I keep with my children, but it would be a lie. Oh, I loved to snuggle them as babies and hold them on my chest as I reclined in the sun. But I was also always eager to hand them off to a relative so that I could reclaim my body and space for my own sanity. I feel like a bad mother sometimes for being this way, but I know if I don’t get space I will start to feel suffocated, and I will become grumpy and irritable with my kids.

I’ve taught everyone well to keep me at arm’s length.

But sometimes I crave the intimacy of touch. I look at pictures of my children as babies and long to hold them that way again. I think I enjoy babies in that way because they ask nothing in return. They don’t want to sit on your lap in one perfect position that cuts off circulation to your toes. They don’t shift and accidentally knee your groin or elbow a breast. And they certainly don’t ever touch your tender belly because you’ve learned the perfect position to place an infant to avoid all contact with the abdomen.

I crave touch from my children, but also sometimes from my partners. I’ve never been a fan of PDA, and one partner would punish me with inappropriate touch in public because of my lack of touch in private. This created a nasty feedback loop where the public touches made me less likely to engage in private touches, which ensured more public punishment. By the end of our relationship I didn’t want him touching me ever again.

After suffering so long from no touch or intimacy, I jumped right into a relationship that was all touch, all the time. There was uncharacteristic PDA, in flagrant displays as if to reclaim my ability to hold another and take charge of all the touch in this new pairing. It couldn’t last. I’m a person that needs space, and that relationship was far too intense and emotionally draining.

My current husband knows my past, and knows my issues with physical closeness. He’s been gentle and patient and kind. He respects my space, and he lets me make the decisions on when we will do something as simple as hold hands while walking. It’s been wonderful redefining my boundaries with him for the past thirteen years.

Somewhere along the way, I’ve been able to heal and open myself up to more physical intimacy. I affectionately refer to my seven year old sun as “a cuddle bug.” We snuggle on the couch under blankets, and he gives me the best hugs goodnight. My daughter wants to walk right next to me and smash her face against mine to take a selfie. I know now to let her. I’m working on teaching my fifteen year old son how to become the hug master of his own high school. He’s reluctant, but he’ll come around when he decides he wants to date.

And then there’s my husband. He’s waited so long and has done so well with me that it’s hard to explain why I now want to give him back some of the power he abdicated at the start of our courtship. Go ahead and grab my hand. You can put your arm around me when we watch Expedition Unknown. It’s okay to sneak a kiss every now and then.

There are still times when I don’t want to be touched. But they’re fewer, farther between, and even on the bad days I trust my family to know me well enough to give me what I need.