THE SEXO QUESTION - My partner is not tactile and that bothers me, what to do?

Émilie has been in a relationship for four years and she has a problem that goes so far as to generate questions about her sentimental future: her partner rejects her caresses in everyday life, in the private sphere as well as in public.

Catherine Blanc, psychoanalyst and sexologist in Paris, analyzes this refusal to touch the other in this man.

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Emilie's question

"My boyfriend, with whom I have been for nearly four years, has the defect of not being tactile. He refuses taste buds and caresses, in public or at home, as in front of a film. I ask myself a lot of questions and ask if I really see myself making my life with a man who touches me just to make love to me. "

Catherine Blanc's response

"People who don't like to be touched by their spouse are obviously not the majority of people, fortunately, but some are struggling. It may be related to personal stories, childhood or early childhood. These are children who have not been touched, who have not been cuddled or who have been manhandled or even beaten, for example. These people find it difficult to come and look for what is however basically the search for any mammal and not just humans.

From the moment we were in a womb, we grew under the caresses, in the intrauterine wall.

This is what we are naturally going to seek, which is a source of security and reassurance.

Quite naturally, we all go towards it and when we don't go it captures something that has been damaged and traumatized from a psychic standpoint or a physical standpoint.

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Does that mean he really has a problem?

Absolutely.

For example, I have encountered cases of this kind.

A parent leaves and his child, for one reason or another, will convince himself that he does not like it so as not to suffer the absence.

So, yes, you have to try to understand.

Human nature, however, seeks contact.

As soon as we are traumatized or anxious, as soon as we nourish anxiety, as with the Covid-19 situation, this will create in some people a kind of need to withdraw and distance from the other, perceived as a danger.

Obviously, this is not something that is built in our adult life, but rather in our life as a child where the other has been perceived as dangerous because of what he has done or for what he just didn't.

Suddenly, we protect ourselves from this possibility.

Can this call the couple into question?

If you have two people who are not tactile for similar or different reasons, the couple works very well that way.

Often it is the children who suffer from the fact that both parents were not tactile and who could not find the way to be able to express what they themselves needed.

When there is one who has the desire and the other who has the incapacity, it raises the question of the frustration for the one who has the desire and at which point this frustration borders on masochism.

In which case, should we impose a relationship that will make you suffer all life?

We can also ask ourselves the question 'why did I go to this man who makes me suffer?'

Do you have to force yourself to go towards the other when you are a bit of an emotional robot? 

Obviously, you should not force yourself.

But you can try, little by little, to see that there is no danger in letting yourself be touched and caressed.

Without being stuffy, whoever is more comfortable can show that it can be nice and sweet.

Obviously, you should not come and touch someone who is having trouble while waiting for him to do so, like a claim.

It would be a rather stifling pressure and it rather scares the other than to teach him the relational codes.

We must not force ourselves but try to tame, like the fox in

. "