Language of Love No. 5

SESSION 7 LANGUAGE OF LOVE NO. 5 PHYSICAL TOUCH 5.30

AV Requirements Acetate: Questions Music: ‘Sometimes when we touch’. . Handout: Personal Profile

DAVID We’re now going to take a look at the final love language – that of physical touch. As a gesture of love, physical touch can reach to the very depths of our being and is one of the key ways to keep our emotional love tank ‘topped up’. It’s a powerful form of communication, from the smallest touch on the shoulder to the most passionate lovemaking. I’d like to take a few moments to tell you a short story of how the power of touch can bring life and convey love. In England during World War Two, there was a special hospital set up for orphan babies. It was provided with the best equipment and most up to date medicines available. The babies were kept in two wards next to each other, were fed the same food, received the same medical treatment and the environment seemed the same. However, the babies in one ward were healthy and developing well, whereas those in the other ward were unsettled and failing to thrive. A study was set up to try to explain this. The conclusion was amazing. The only difference that could be identified between the two wards was that in one, the ward sister insisted that the nurses picked the babies up to cuddle and talk to them for long periods each day, whilst in the other ward, the babies were fed in their cots and rarely nursed and cuddled. As a result, a new prescription began to appear on the records of all the babies. It read, ‘This baby must be picked up and cuddled regularly throughout the day and night.’ That story illustrates so clearly the power of touch as a language of love. 2

JEM We’d like you to listen to a reading from Scripture now – it’s taken from Luke Chapter 8: vs 43-48. Once again, just try to put yourself in the story. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak and immediately, her bleeding stopped. ‘Who touched me?’ Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, ‘Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.’ But Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me. I know that power has gone out from me.’ Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had instantly been healed. Then he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.’

GLEN We’ve just heard two stories about how powerful physical touch can be, but when we talk about physical touch as a love language, it’s important to remember that this has a broad spectrum. I’m sure we can all think of different expressions of physical touch that show love - the couple walking down the street, or sitting on a park bench or at the cinema, with her snuggled up close to him and his arm around her shoulders. Maybe like me, you had an Auntie Mabel who just had to pinch your cheeks or pat you on the head every time she saw you - it was her way of showing love through physical touch. Just like those babies, we all thrive on touch - and kisses and hugs are a way of showing our love for each other. But sometimes, this type of physical touch is misinterpreted as sexual touch, yet sexual intercourse is only one dialect of this marvellous language – touch encompasses so much more. It is possible, of course, to have physical touch as our primary love language, without including sexual touch, for whatever reason, just as it’s possible to have a rich and fulfilling sex life, without physical touch being our primary love language.

JEM I love to be touched. Nothing demonstrates love more clearly to me than being physically touched. If Glen and I are sitting together on the sofa and she runs her fingers through my hair or gently touches me on the back of my neck, I experience her gentleness and her love for me, just as surely as 3 when she caresses me during our lovemaking. If my neck is tense and she rubs it, or massages my shoulders, or gets hold of my hand, I experience her love for me in such a powerful way.

GLEN And if Jeremy gets hold of my hand when we’re driving along in the car, it tells me that he’s aware of me and that I’m not just part of the upholstery to him – I see his touch as an expression of his love. Sometimes, he’ll walk through the kitchen where I’m working and either kiss the back of my neck or put his arms round me and hold me. When he does, I still get a tingle down my spine, even after all these years. And when he cuddles up to me after we’ve turned out the light, I realise just how much he loves and needs me and it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. These little physical touches mean a great deal to me and I know that our relationship would be impoverished without them.

DAVID This is the love language I find most difficult. In Western society, there comes a time when physical touch for a male becomes taboo – a sissy thing to do. The seminary system just builds on that and, as a priest, I was left with the attitude that physical touch is at odds with my celibacy and may also be a serious threat to it. There was almost a sense that if I touch a woman, I’m a philanderer and if I touch another man, I’m gay! But as a sexual being, it follows that for some of us priests, physical touch will be our primary love language and if we suppress that, the chances of us keeping our love tanks full are very remote indeed.

JEM Physical touch can make or break a relationship. We can perceive the sensation of touch as pain or pleasure, or we can interpret it as something loving or hostile. A slap can be detrimental to child, but it is devastating to someone whose primary love language is touch. On the other hand, a tender hug communicates love to most of us, but for someone whose primary love language is physical touch, it will fill their love tank to overflowing! As a child, I have wonderful memories of sitting on the floor with my back against the chair my dad was sitting in. He would ruffle my hair or just put a hand on my shoulder. I have carried this into my adult life – in fact, nothing 4 demonstrates love more clearly to me than being physically touched. Yet I have another memory, a painful one this time, when at about 8 years of age I was told that I no longer should kiss my dad goodnight. It was only when I lived in Spain that I rediscovered the freedom to touch another male in welcome, in any other way than with a handshake.

GLEN But all touches are not equal. A hug can say, ‘Welcome home, I missed you’, but the same hug could be saying, ‘I’ve had a terrible day and I need you to hold me’, or ‘I was worried because you were late’. Even the same touch can be received differently on different occasions. For example, if we are sitting relaxing, I would usually interpret Jeremy taking hold of my hand as saying, ‘I am really enjoying this time together’, whereas, when we stood up to begin the first presentation today and he got hold of my hand, I interpreted that touch as saying, ‘I know that you feel nervous, but it’s O.K. I’m here with you and I love you’. In our society, physical touch is probably the language in which most people are almost illiterate, yet spoken well, it is the most expressive and widely understood.

JEM Some touches may be simple and only require a moment – a touch on the cheek, a kiss on the hand, a squeeze as we walk past our loved one, yet sometimes, the physical touch needs to be explicit and requires our full attention. Just before I left my last job, I arrived home one evening feeling so stressed that I couldn’t eat. All I wanted was to hold Glen and for her to hold me - and it was as if she knew that. She suggested that we shelve our meal and I remember that she even went upstairs with me whilst I changed into something more comfortable. Then she took hold of my hand and led me into the living room. Her physical closeness and little love touches, helped me to start thinking straight again and to put things into perspective.

GLEN If our spouse’s primary love language is physical touch, we need to experiment and learn their particular dialect. We have to discern which love touches tell them they are loved and which they find uncomfortable. We must become aware of what pleases and what does not, of what’s appropriate and what is not. Society has rules for outside the married relationship, but each 5 couple should set up their own rules. However, it must be said that abuse is never to be tolerated or condoned. What is most important is that the person who is being touched has the freedom to give feedback on whether the touch is pleasurable or not. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that the touch that brings you pleasure will necessarily give pleasure to your spouse! Almost instinctively, in times of crisis, humans physically reach out to one another. It is at these times that our greatest need is to seek the reassurance of love. Last year, I developed a problem with my eyes and when I saw my G.P. he told me I must go to Eye Casualty immediately. I panicked – was I going blind? But when I asked the question, he said that as far as he could see, there was no growth at the back of my eye, but he wanted it checked out. When I told Jeremy, he took me in his arms and held me close. I was still in crisis about my eyesight, but his physical touch filled my love tank and gave me the support and encouragement to face whatever was in front of me.

DAVID Since I made my ME Weekend, I have gradually become aware of how much I need the love language of physical touch. At first, it was very difficult for me – it was a foreign language, one that I didn’t understand or speak, but over the years I have seen the gift it is for me. There have been times when I’ve just wanted to erupt into tears, like when I shared at the last Convention about how much both these people here beside me mean to me and how much I was going to miss them when I was in Chicago. I can still remember the hands reaching out to me in love from Jeremy and Glen. It didn’t get rid of the feelings of sadness but I knew I was not alone. I was/am loved and that makes all the difference!

JEM Of course, just like any other love language, physical touch can be controlling, manipulative and even cynical. If a husband’s primary love language is physical touch, but the wife has not developed this language, any use of physical touch, especially in sexual intimacy, could leave the wife feeling used. This is why good sexual communication is so vital in marriage. Dr. Chapman says, ‘The body is for touching’. Whatever there is of me resides in my body. To touch my body is to touch me – to withdraw from my body, is to distance yourself from me emotionally. I would endorse that. 6

When Glen touches me, I experience being touched by her love, but when we are at odds and there is no physical contact between us, I experience an emptiness in my life and a terrible feeling of loneliness and isolation settles inside me.

GLEN Making a request in any of the love languages can be easier said than done for most of us, but most especially in the language of touch. As a child, I don’t remember being hugged or kissed by my mother, so the language of physical touch wasn’t part of my upbringing. This means that although I desperately want Jeremy to show his love by touching me, I find it very difficult to ask him to hold me, for example. My reasoning is that if he wanted to, then he would. And I find it doubly difficult to ask for intimate, sexual physical touch. I usually expect him to initiate any sexual intimacy, although since our original weekend, I have managed to overcome some of my inhibitions and found the freedom to make the first move more often than I used to. But it has only been as we’ve explored our love languages that I have come to understand how much Jeremy longs to be touched and what a powerful expression of love this is for him. I’ve also begun to realise how much I crave for him to speak this love language to me, how his physical touch can fill my love tank to overflowing. It’s helped me to see that this is a language that is so good for our relationship, but one that I need to concentrate on giving, instead of just waiting to receive it, as I’ve done in the past.

DAVID We are only going to give you dialogue time for this session - we’re not going to give you group time. But before we do, we’d just like you to take a few minutes to do a little exercise, using a rating scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is not at all pleasurable and 5 is highly pleasurable. You’ll see that there are some empty spaces at the bottom of the sheet, so please feel free to put any physical or sexual touches in there that aren’t on the list but are important to you. The right hand column is marked ‘your rating’, so put in your personal rating of each physical touch. On the left hand side, the page is marked ‘your spouse’ – and there’s a box to write in how you believe your spouse would 7 rate this touch. Has everybody got a sheet? O.K. We’ll give you a few of minutes to do that.

Allow time to do this.

Now we have a 10 + 10 for you. The question is: What do I consider a very pleasurable physical touch? How do I feel telling you this? So you have ten minutes to write and then ten minutes to dialogue with your spouse.

Allow 10 minutes to write and then 10 minutes to dialogue.

Just before we play our final song for today, perhaps you’d like to exchange the assessment sheets about physical touch with each other and see how well you did when you assessed your partner’s preferences. We’ll give you a couple of minutes to do this and to talk about what each of you have written.

Allow 2 minutes here.

O.K? Now we’ll play the song, ‘Sometimes when we touch’ and we’d like to invite you to touch your spouse and then close your eyes and listen to what you are saying to each other in that physical contact. Usually, if we do anything like this, we ask our priests to just look at the couples, but you’re not getting away that easily this afternoon. We’re inviting you to join with a couple you feel comfortable with and to experience physical touch with them.

Play ‘Sometimes when we touch’.

DAVID Well, that’s it for today. Our evening meal will be served at 7 o’clock in the dining room and then the rest of the evening is all yours, to explore your love languages. Enjoy each other!!!