3 Ways to Use Touch to Increase Connection
by Amber Dalsin, M.Sc., C.Psych.
How can touch help your relationship?
Touch can give you strength, offer consolation, help you feel loved. In a relationship, touch can bring you closer, restoke the flames of connection, and reinforce the reasons you fell in love in the first place.
My Past Experience
Touch used to make me recoil, but today it is the only tool that can lower the walls I put up around my heart. When someone placed their hand on my shoulder, I would automatically pull away.
I grew up not knowing how to respond to touch. It wasn’t really a common part of our experience. Love was shown through acts of service like keeping a sparkling clean house, making great dinners, or putting a roof over my head. My mother gave gifts. That was how she showed love. But hugs were very rare.
I told people I wasn’t a hugger to prevent them from touching me. Most moved in too fast, too close for comfort, and I was overwhelmed.
Today most people call me and my husband a very affectionate couple. Touch fuels our connection. Keep reading to learn three simple strategies that completely changed my relationship to touch.
Strategies you can use to lower the walls around your partner’s heart through touch:
Ask permission to touch.
Engage in nurturing touch that does not pressure sex.
Talk about your touch likes and dislikes.
If you don’t like to read, you can watch the video to explain the concepts.
Touch isn’t for everyone. Some shy away, and others need touch to feel extremely safe.
How you can make touch feel safe:
Asking Permission
Consent doesn’t have to be a formal, written agreement signed in triplicate in front of a notary public. It could simply be asking, “Can I touch you?”
It can be playful or casual, but still looking for the “Yes.”
Is it ok if I hold your hand?
Can I brush that hair from your eyes?
Do you want me to scratch your back?
There are so many ways to touch in a loving way that asks for permission and feels safe.
Ensure Touch Does Not Demand Sex
The second thing to really contemplate is ensuring touch does not feel pressured. It is true that nurturing touch can lead to opportunities where there is sex, but it is important that touch does not have to lead to sex, especially if we want it to feel safe.
Nurturing Touch
There are many examples of nurturing touch. Think about how we interact with our kids or pets.
For pets, we stroke their fur. This could mean stroking or brushing your partner’s hair or massaging their head. With babies, we have rituals of taking care of them. Bathing them, putting lotion on them, playing with their fingers and toes, or tucking them into bed. We can do those things with adults too. The key is making it safe.
Some forms of nurturing touch—when we do them with adults—are very intimate, very vulnerable. Make sure there isn’t the pressure to lead somewhere else so your partner can just enjoy and delight in having your attention.
With time and practice, it’s ok for these things to lead to sex if you want them to, but make sure that they don’t always have to.
Talk About Your Touch Preferences
The third thing that can help couples feel safer with touch is to talk about likes and dislikes. This is simple as a concept, but it can be hard to do because it feels vulnerable.
When you’re talking about touch likes and dislikes:
Reinforce what you like.
I like that
Do that again
That felt so nice
Be careful and gentle when you are talking about what you don’t like and steer away from criticizing your partner.
Be sure to set firm boundaries about what is ok and what is not ok, while being as gentle as possible.
My Present Experience
My husband takes great care to make touch feel safe for me in a way that it never felt before. Touch for him is one of the things he naturally does well. For me, it is a learned skill. But I’ve learned more from him than from any book I could have read.
In the safe little moments of our early dating, he showed me touch was safe with him. He would ask to take my hand. He would ask if I wanted a massage. And he slowly made it feel safe to accept his touch as a loving way to connect with him.
This will not be everybody’s story. There may be too much history, there may be trauma associated with touch. Some people just don’t enjoy the feeling. But if you’re open to exploring touch, if you’re open to liking it, be sure to start slow, make sure it is consensual, and engage in things that feel emotionally and physically safe for both of you.
This blog is not meant to be a substitute for couples therapy or relationship counselling. This should not be construed as specific advice. See a relationship therapist in your area to address your specific problems.