I HATE being touched by my parents, but they won't respect that

In My Humble Opinion
81

Yes - it is.

And actually, I may retract my previous post, not because it isn’t true, but because it’s something I do to make my in-laws happy becasue I love them.

Obviously, if you don’t love, or even care very much for another person, you’re not going to do things you don’t like to make them happy.

I guess I’m not actually clear of the relationship the OP has with her parents. It does seem to be focused on hostility and dislike and if that’s the case I guess I can see why squeezing a hand, or patting a shoulder could be uncomfortable.

Really, perhaps the issue isn’t touching at all.

82

Good point.

83

I know this is confusing to you Dio but people can have flaws and still be worthy of love.

84

See, I agree that the OP has the right not to be touched against her will, but I don’t agree with this. She doesn’t want to touch them, but they don’t have to like it. I think having an adult relationship with one’s parents requires that one accept that they no longer have an obligation to be unconditionally supportive of things you do that hurt their feelings. Now, if I told my mother I wouldn’t hug her anymore, I would expect her not to force herself on me, but I wouldn’t expect her to pretend to like it. It presumes that my feelings are more valid than hers because I’m her child, which treats me like a child and her like a doormat. Having an equal, adult relationship with my parents means I don’t expect them to hide their feelings to make me comfortable more than I would for them, to bail me out more than I would bail them out, or to “suck it up and deal” for me more than I would for them.

85

There are very few people who are going to love you in this world. Why hurt them intentionally?

I went through a short period of time where I didn’t want my dad to hug me. (I may not have wanted my mom to hug me, either, but she’s not a hugger so it didn’t come up.) I think I was between sixteen and seventeen, and feeling a bit meh about this whole life thing. We were also arguing quite a bit. I know I hurt him really, really badly.

My dad is the best dad in the whole world, and the fact that I turned down even one of his hugs makes me feel like the most worthless daughter to this day. It doesn’t matter about the arguments, the hormones presumably racing through my blood, teenage angst, whatever…when someone who loves you in this world wants to give you a hug you damned well TAKE it, because there’s only so much love you’re going to get and denying yourself that is fucking stupid. Whatever little hangup you have about touching, get over it.

Damn, I live 4,000 miles away from him right now and would dearly love one of his bear hugs more than practically anything else. I just got off the phone with him and miss him dearly. I am so envious of those people who can get hugs from their parents whenever they want! Be grateful for what you have…it’s not going to be there forever!

86

But that’s just it. I think that a lot of people who have had hang ups or have them about touching can’t just “get over” them in five minutes. Why does it bother you so much to acknowledge that it might take other people more time to do so?

Also, does the accepting hugs from anyone who wants to give it to you apply to anyone? Or just family? Or just parents? I mean, on this very board I’ve seen people talk about dysfunctional relationships with family–I can see why if someone’s really messed you up but still loves you how you might not want to hug them.

87

No. Because he’s not advocating less child touching. He’s advocating less parental protection and involvement.

88

Diamonds02, you say yourself that there are any number of other issues going on between you and your parents. I don’t think you’re going to be successful in addressing this one conflict in isolation, while you’re still carrying around a ton of other anger.

You can’t make your parents change. You’ve told them how this makes you feel, and they’ve decided that they’re not going to back off to your satisfaction. Your options are to cut them off, or to try to learn some new tools for communicating with them and for managing your reactions.

Therapy can help you with the latter options. It won’t change you, but it can teach you new ways of dealing with the situation. It can help you reduce your stress level. You sound anxious and unhappy, and therapy can be a way to help yourself feel better.

89

To answer some questions:

I recently moved out. They are really against me moving out and don’t understand why I need my own space (physically and mentally) and made it clear that it would strain our relationship if I did so.

This touching thing is one of many things I feel they are trying to control me with. The hair thing, they didn’t let me get haircuts when I was a kid. I think I got my first haircut at 19. Around that same time I wanted to switch colleges really bad, my dad gave me the choice of switching schools or getting a haircut, I chose the haircut. Hair grew back within a year and a half, I cut it again at 27. My parents give me shit about it every time they see me. What actually started the fight last night was when my mom touched my hair and said “look at your hair, it looks so bad now, why did you do this to yourself?” I asked her politely not to touch my hair, she went to touch it anyway, then I walked away she followed me and actually grabbed my hair, not hard but firm defininately not in a affectionate way. I pulled my hair away from her hands, and that’s when hell broke loose and she told me not to speak to her unless I let her touch me.

Whenever we go somewhere, they like to pick out the clothes and accessories I wear. If they are providing transportation, we don’t leave until I wear something that is acceptable to them. My mom took a nice trip a year and a half ago, she told me that I could not go if I didn’t wear the clothes she bought for me. I may dress a little butch, but Christ, I don’t dress like a hobo.

They didn’t want me to get a job until I graduated from grad school. I took their advice and now I can’t get hired anywhere decent because I don’t have a lot of work experience. Now this was my fault and my stupidity and naivete, back then I thought a degree alone would open the doors for me. I had no idea that would fuck me over, but I feel like they took advantage of my ignorance. They want me to be financially dependent on them, until I find a husband, and then I can be financially dependent on him. They are very uncomfortable with the idea of me being financially independent. For one, they don’t think I would be capable of doing so. Two, if they don’t assist me with my financial needs they fear that I won’t come around for anything else.

There are many more things, I just can’t think of them right now.

I know I should be more empathetic, but I feel such resentment, that it clouds my judgment. Yes, I believe that my parents love me, and mean well, they just have a fucked up way of showing it. I feel there’s been a long history of co-dependence, manipulation, and insecurity (on their part) in our relationship, and I’m at the end of my rope.

90

Whoa.

Okay, I wouldn’t want them to touch me, either. But that has nothing to do with touching and everything to do with the fact that they’re fucking nuts.

I stand by my original statement, though, that you’re not going to get them to stop touching you until you deal with the other issues first. And frankly, I’d say the touching is the least of your problems. This is a seriously, seriously messed up situation, and you need to get help.

ETA: After reading Anaamika’s comment below, let me amend that: if you feel you can’t resolve this situation on your own, then please do get help. I think it’s certainly within your power, but you have to take charge, and set the terms of your relationship with them.

91

Looks like it’s a good thing you moved out.

92

Ok, I read your whole final post and that clears up a lot for me. Oh my, the hair. My mother had the same thing. If I didn’t cut my hair the way she wanted, she FLIPPED OUT. It was a personal insult and no less.

You have a right to be touched in the way you want, and yes, your parents are trying to control you. Many people in this thread assume that parents always only touch & hug for love. They do not. They do it for possessiveness.

Thankfully my mother was not very touchy-feely, actually, I wished she was more. You have the opposite problem. I think you’re doing fine standing up for yourself.

Here is the baseline question? Are you financially independent? Then yes, you can do whatever you want. If you do not want to be touched, then you do not need to be touched. You will literally need to reeducate your parents, however. The comment about how bad your hair looks, my mom does that, too. I just roll my eyes now. I don’t care what she thinks.

I think you need to have a come to Jesus talk with your parents. Sit them down and tell them all of this stuff, or put it in a letter and read it to them. Set ground rules for the conversation and be prepared to follow them. “I want to have my say, and then we will discuss this calmly. If you cannot let me talk, or we cannot be calm, I am leaving.”

Be aware I have never had one with my parents, so I don’t really know if it will work. My parents are so crazy I just withdrew and am much happier now with the distant relationship we have.

I don’t know that you need help so much…only you can know that. But you do need to not bend over for them anymore. They don’t want you to grow up, how familiar. Do it anyway. And if you do need help, get it, if you can.

Oh, and what they are doing? It isn’t love. It’s poison. Read the book “Toxic Parents” by Susan Forward. They have convinced you it’s love. It ain’t.

93

No, it’s not about feelings, really, it’s about rights. You have the *right *not to be touched, and no one has a right to touch you if you don’t want to be touched. Anyone that runs a guilt trip about that, is doing something really slimey, in my opinion. The whole idea of guilt trips came to my mind because Koxinga started in with the visions of parents laying in graveyards, and I was like, no, let’s not start this.

94

One more thing. Of course they piss you off. They know how to push all of the buttons because they installed them all. Most likely you will NOT change them - what you need to change is yourself, and how you react to them. They say something, you get upset - it affects only you, not them. You need to not get upset at them, for your own sanity. You need to have it be that anything they say is unimportant to your life…it’s YOUR life and you need to live it.

95

Right here. It’s not the touching, it’s their whole controlling relationship. They are screwed up in their interactions with you.

96

It is often, but not always, a desire to control. In the case of your parents, their insistence on touching you may be a control thing now. Or it may have been a control thing when you were younger, which led to issues between you and them, and those issues are causing the problem now.

But wanting to touch someone, even after they’ve said “no,” is not necessarily a desire to control them. As evidence, I offer the example of an affectionate cat or dog or child, who, even after you’ve pushed them away, keeps trying to touch you or hug you or sit on your lap. I don’t think they want to control you; they just want to be petted.
In case it still needs to be said: it is not at all normal to associate touch only with sex or control. It’s not totally unheard of, and it is, at least stereotypically, more often associated with men than women (“My husband only touches me when he wants sex” kind of thing). But touching can also be used for affection, love, fondness, or connection. And for someone who means it that way, to refuse the touch may well feel like a rejection of them and their love.

If you want to learn to appreciate non-sexual touch, one thing you might do is spend time around dogs or cats or children.
It’s also normal to not want to be touched by people we hate or distrust or find creepy or have some animosity towards. At the risk of playing amateur psychologist, I suspect your reluctance to be touched by your parents may be a symptom of some animosity or issues you have with them (and your reluctance to be touched by other older people either an extension of that, or some issues you have with older people in general). And this animosity may or may not be justified; I don’t know your situation. — ETA: After now reading Post #89, it’s clearer to me what those issues are, and that they are at least somewhat justified.

97

Thudlow, it isn’t normal to associate touch only with sex or contol; agreed. But, if you know for a fact that someone doesn’t want to be touched, to the extent that it causes them distress…wouldn’t you say it is a tad controlling to try to touch them anyways? We need to exclude cats and dogs from the equation, because they don’t understand that the touchee is distressed by being touched.

98

What’s your cultural background, Diamonds? Is this sort of parental behaviour generally considered acceptable in your culture? Cos it seems way of base for any western culture I can think of. Is there a religious component to these issues, especially the cutting of the hair?

99

Fundies?

And I remember your earlier thread, now that you’ve brought it up.

100

I specifically said that the OP has the right not to be touched. All I was saying is that her parents don’t have to like it, nor should she expect them to withhold their complaints. I just don’t happen to find guilt trips that slimy because it takes two people to get a good guilt trip going.