no affection...comments?
Find a Conversation
| Fri, 04-07-2006 - 9:52am |
Hi everyone,
I have a little bit of a question for you all and I wonder if anyone is in this situation. My bf and I have been together on and off for 2 years and everything has been going GREAT since we got back together 4 months ago. My only issue is that he does not like affection at all. I am a really affectionate person, I crave his touch and to be near him (and not just when we have sex) and love holding hands etc...but he does not enjoy it at all. He will hold my hand and cuddle with me but ONLY because he knows it will make me happy. However, something caught my eye yesterday when I was at the airport. I saw this man waiting for his girlfriend/wife and when he saw her he ran to her and cuddled her and kissed her...and it made me feel envious because I know no matter how much my bf loves me, he will never do that. Now I know it isnt just a "guy thing" because I have female friends who don't like affection themselves...It's just rough sometimes when I have had a bad day and all I want to do is cuddle up to him, but when he has a bad day, he withdraws and does not like to be touched...anyone is this situation, anyone who does not like affection? Any advice on how to deal? Thanks everyone.

I think everyone needs affection to a certain degree, including your BF...but also everyone needs to feel they have their space, too. I don't know your situation at all, but my guess is that this could have to do with issues going on with him and nothing to do with you.
If I were in your situation, and I've been there before, I would focus on myself for a while. Give it some time and breathing space. If I come home stressed out, I make myself a nice hot cup of tea and soak in a bubble bath. When I'm feeling blue or unloved, I treat myself to a massage or some item I've had your eye on for a while. Sometimes we look to our partners as the responsible party for our happiness. I think there are a lot of signals out there that are telling us and our men to behave in that way!
...next time you see a boyfriend giving his girlfriend a warm embrace, remember we really can't know what's actually going on there. A nice piece of advice I was given once: don't judge your insides by other people's outsides.
My bf and I are the couple you saw at the airport. When we first met, he told me that he wasn't a touchy feely person. At first, he wasn't. Then he discovered he actually liked it and confessed that he didn't think he was that type of person, because nobody had ever really been affectionate like that with him before. Now he's the guy with tears in his eyes when I get on the plane, or when I arrive.
Your bf is not that kind of guy. He's like my ex, who thought being affectionate and showing he loved me was cleaning my car, or resting his hand on my knee while we watched tv. LOL that didn't cut it for me. I put up with it for 7 years, because I thought, well he's a nice guy, he doesn't treat me badly, we get on just fine, we have every (material) thing we need, I can live without the affection. What I was doing was trying to convince myself I was someone I wasn't in order to save the relationship that (if I was honest with myself) I wasn't happy in.
He is who he is, and he's not giving you what you need. Consider that he'll always be like that. Could you live with it indefinitely? I couldn't...