Do you realize your parents probably feel the same way? The fact that you know they have an instinctual need to touch you, yet you deny it from them is very controlling. You are ignoring your parents needs as surely as they are ignoring yours.
I have a similar thing to the OP, except only with my mother. It might’ve been with my father, but he’s never been the touchy hug type ever. So anyway, it makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable when my mother touches me.
I’ve never experienced sexual abuse and generally don’t like being touched, but I had to draw the line with her and ask her just not to touch me. She respects my wish although I know it tears her up inside. My relationship with my parents is complicated and generally not one of happiness… never has been, never will be.
To the OP - I personally, obviously, don’t believe that your wish is unreasonable. I think it is unreasonable for a parent to continue hugging or touching when it’s been made clear this is not appreciated. You are an adult and should be respected as one.
I think most people would say that controlling *your own body *is OK, controlling someone else’s, not so much. America may even have fought a war about it.
I haven’t liked being touched since I was a tiny baby (according to my mother), and like you I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. I’m lucky enough to never have been sexually abused - I am just overstimulated/freaked out by people touching me. It’s part of who I am and while I’m sure I could work on it through therapy, it would be a long process and I don’t see the point - I’ve surrounded myself now with people who respect my physical boundaries.
I’m in a healthy long-term relationship and I love touching and being touched by my partner. I don’t mind casual, friendly hugs or pats on the back from most other people too much.
I had problems nearly my whole life with my father’s constant affectionate touching. He never crossed a line into sexual abuse, but his constant rubbing, kissing, and forcible holding of me made me feel extremely panicky and disgusted. He also refused to listen when I asked him to stop (a thousand times - like every time he did it I told him to stop) and got angry when I pushed him away, etc. Now for me, if my dad would JUST HUG ME for a short time, that is a compromise I would be fairly comfortable with. But he seems incapable of that - he has to hug me, hold onto me, and kiss me wetly (ugh).
To me the best solution to this and other family problems has been to live several states away and limit contact. Now that I’m grown and haven’t lived with them for years, when I do see them I am more able to be firm with them when they make me uncomfortable. This may not be an option for the OP - sounds like you are still living at home? I moved out when I was still a teenager, I know this isn’t possible or the best choice everyone.
To all those people who say the OP should respect their parent’s needs - all humans have an instinctual need for human touch, non-sexual and sexual. But these needs must always respect the boundaries of the people they are drawn to touch, which are highly individual! Most parents want to touch their children affectionately. Most men also want to touch women sexually (and vice versa). It’s as wrong for someone to forcibly, under protest, rub and kiss someone in a non-sexual way as it would be for them to forcibly, under protest, rub and kiss someone sexually, IMO.
Fair enough, but does thinking someone is mentally unbalance give you license to disregard their express wishes with regard to their personal space? If they are bona fide mentally ill, do you have a right to ignore their boundaries? My partner is afraid of bugs, but I’m not going to drop a grasshopper on her head because I think her fear is ridiculous. It would be incredibly disrespectful of her wishes.
Sure the OP could probably personally benefit from counseling because touch can greatly enrich communication and relationships. I don’t think anyone in this thread would disagree. Yes, the OP’s insistence is unfair to his/her parents. No argument there. But “unfair” still does not grant them the right to violate the OP’s express wishes about his/her own body. A husband can’t say “It’s unfair that my wife doesn’t want to have sex with me on weekdays because it’s bad luck. It’s irrational, mean, and controlling for her to deny me such affection. So I’m going to have sex with her tonight anyway, even is she doesn’t want to.”
I believe this is completely appropriate. Any partner in a relationship has the right to express frustration with a dysfunctional marriage.
This, however, is over the line.
My daughter doesn’t like me to kiss her and she just tolerates hugs. I think it’s partly that she’s a teenager and partly that I wasn’t very physically affectionate with her when she was little. I also suspect a touch of Aspergers. At any rate, I still get a bedtime hug and just kiss her on top of the head.
Diamonds02 - I’m also not a toucher, and never have been. My parents realized that, and although it frustrated them, respected it. ***But, ***(tell me about your big but), life is about compromise. So when I’d first see them after an absense, I’d give them a quick hug. In a relationship, it isn’t all about what you want, or what the other person wants. You have to come to an agreement. So give a little, and life will be easier for both of you.
StG
This.
In the meantime, if you are articulating your boundaries, your family should respect them. But it doesn’t sound like to me, that your parents are touching you out of a desire to “control” you. As Diogenes, said it is most likely out of love and affection. You could at least recognize that, have a little understanding of their side of it.
I know how you feel, Diamonds02. I don’t have the same aversion to being touched, but personal space has always been a big deal to me. My younger sister is a very touchy-feely person, and she’s constantly hugging me or kissing my cheek or climbing into my lap. If I’m in a good mood and it doesn’t last too long, this is OK, but I hate, hate, hate it when she refuses to stop when I tell her no. Hugs are always a good thing in her book, and my argument that there’s something fundamentally wrong about forcing physical intimacy on someone against their will just flies over her head. It’s not so much the touching as the implication that her desire to touch takes precedence over my need for boundaries that bothers me.
Do your parents know about your reasons for disliking being touched? It might help them understand why you need them to back off if you explained about the links to control and sex, and that it isn’t just them. I agree that there are many ways besides the physical to show love. One of these is choosing not to do things that cause your loved ones hurt, even if this involves a sacrifice on your part. Your issues with touching may not be normal, but so what. They’re real, and should be acknowledged.
Well said.
[Bolding mine] I think this is the source of the problem right here: I suspect your parents would more readily accept that you didn’t want to be touched if you had a good relationship with them otherwise. Then, you could make a convincing case that it’s not personal, because you show that you love them and enjoy their company in many other ways, as you describe.
But as things stand, they already suspect that you hate them for other reasons, and so I imagine it’s next to impossible for them to take your refusal to touch them as anything but another expression of that hatred. You say that “obviously” isn’t the truth, but apparently, it’s not obvious to them. So they repeatedly push for physical contact, so they can reassure themselves that although you may hate them for other reasons, at least you don’t hate them so much that you’re repulsed by their touch.
The thing about touch is that it’s *not *just one of many ways to show affection. It’s usually reserved for the people you’re closest to. If you just didn’t like being touched by anyone, or only tolerated it in a sexual context, say, then they’d have no reason to question you. But since you’re comfortable with some people touching you, it would be hard for your parents not to see it as you putting them in the category of strangers and acquaintences.
This doesn’t make it right or fair for them to push themselves on you, but it’s certainly understandable. And if this is the case, you’re not going to fix things by merely drawing a “No Touching” line in the sand. You need to reassure them, both in words and actions, that your refusal to touch is not a refusal of them. And if it is, then you need to make clear what the real issues are.
And I think it’s possible that *you *might feel more comfortable with them touching you if you didn’t have other issues with them. It’s also possible that you just don’t like being touched very much, and that’s fine, too. Either way, you need to work on the relationship as a whole if you want resolution on this issue.
Wen you say control/sex, do you mean a non consensual experience–I mean, you said you weren’t sexually abused as a child, but I’m just wondering if there was some kind of experience as an adult. Or was it just more coercion…?
Tell the OP that.
you’re comparing a parents hugging their children to sexual assault? That is nuts.
First of all, nobody has said that the OP should have to let her parents touch her. What I and others have said is that she needs to be empathetic with why they want to, and at least find ways to facilliatate that desire for bonding and connection in other ways if she decides that a few seconds of discomfort is more important than her parents’ feelings.
This kind of aversion is NOT normal in a healthy, non-abusive relationship, sorry to break it to you, and regardless of what the OP says, it screams sexual abuse to me. I see a lack of empathy with her parents, even a fear, that does not jibe with her denials. Her interpretation of her parents wanting to touch her as “skeevy” is a very strange place to go if the relationship with the parents is normal. Frankly, I see nothing but hostility towards her parents coming from her posts, and not a hint that she loves or cares about them or even likes them.
To the OP: At some point, you will run into an incident where you are touched by someone, in public, in an otherwise innocuous fashion, and you are going to react in such a way that everyone around you will be taken aback. Maybe your older male boss will unexpectedly grab your hand and give you a hearty handshake for a job well done, and you’ll snatch your hand back with a look of terror, turning you from a competent worker to kind of a “flake” in their eyes.
You have issues with your parents, so I understand that being away from them isn’t necessarily a negative consequence for your feelings about physical contact. But it is highly likely that something else will happen that will have consequences that you do care about.
You really should work on this, and I’ll point you at Heart of Dorkness’s advice on the subject.
Aww, naw, man. No guilt trips; that’s not right.
If one doesn’t want to be touched, they just don’t want to be touched. Mom and dad need to work to find alternate ways of expressing their love, because they have no right to make anyone feel guilty about how they want to live their lives. If Diamonds wants to live in a bubble, folks just have to respect that. Doesn’t matter if it’s normal…I can see if she had some kind of abnormalities that encroached upon the rights of others. But, no one has the right to touch her, regardless of their apparent need to do so.
Why is that no one thinks the OP has to respect anybody’s feelings or be empathetic?
Well, I just don’t see why she has to do something she hates because it makes someone else happy. And what kind of person wants to do something to someone who will be cringing the entire time? If it’s making them unhappy maybe the family can work on it–if they all want to do that. I do think it will take a lot of time and patience and perhaps a lot of waiting while she works up to being comfortable with it.
It’s fine that she should respect other people’s feelings or be empathetic. But that doesn’t mean she should allow people to overstep this boundary and push things on her.
I look at it this way: which is more onerous, being touched when you don’t want to be, or not being able to touch someone? I vote the former. It is wrong to force something on another adult.