The Dangerous Misconception in Relationships: The Untouched Hand

This blog post is written in response to The School of Life’s Who Initiates Sex: and Why It Matters So Much

At the end of a long workday, a couple turns off the television and make their way into the bedroom to unwind and enter a slumber. One person, often the male party of the couple, turns on his side and slides his arm around his partner. His slow and light rub on his partner lower back or the placement of his hand on hers signal the initiation of sex. His gestures are his demonstration of request, but sometimes, the request was reciprocated with "not today."

This gesture of "request" can sometimes unintentionally transform into gestures of "demand." When a person's demand is refused, he often becomes flooded with emotions of shame and defensiveness. His mind begins to look for cues to justify this refusal, and often ended up with something negative —never the simple reasoning of "she might be just tired today." His mind begins to think, "Is she cheating on me?" "Does she not find me attractive?" or even worst, the feeling as if he deserves a consensus, "I worked all day for this family and I get a no?" -When in fact, the truth may be that the partner was tired from errands, housework, or putting the kids to bed.

Unfortunately, the hard truth of all works are equal may not appeal to all. He might think, "how can she said she is tired when all she did was grocery shopping while I am in the office grinding 50 hours a week?" The nature of having different roles is the household entitles its participants to engage in different levels of work and different duties, with all on a leveled playing field.

The man, furious, turns around, with both peoples' back facing each other -and the room grows quiet. No physical contact and no emotional crossover. "The real problem in the ambiguous darkness of the bedroom is not a lack of reciprocation per se, it is the way that that ambiguity is interpreted...For one person never to initiate, or else merely to respond half-heartedly to caresses, is tantamount to declaring that they cannot possibly love the person they are with." (School of Life) The simple refusal as a way of declaring tiredness turns into something much bigger —a dangerous misconception.

As the friends at The School of Life put it, "Unreciprocated touch becomes properly dangerous when it comes into contact with a high degree of self-suspicion or self-hatred on the part of the person who has dared to slide their hand across. What might merely have been judged an innocent or temporary lack of enthusiasm comes to be taken – silently and automatically – as evidence of something far more catastrophic: proof that the other person finds one disgusting"

The issue embedded in this altercation is not the statement of: "Not today," or the roaming of thoughts, it is the lack of communication and the assumption that the other person "should know better". More often than not, we assume our partner understands or he/she should understand. This dangerous ideology characterized the relationship based on the principle of demand: "He Should" or "She Should." When, in truth, a relationship, like a fragile life of a seedling emerging from its embryo, requires constant care and effort to build from the ground up.

The caring approach for the relationship and the self is to express one's concern in a calm and kindly way. The expression of one's concern, paired with the initiation of a calm discussion, is the groundwork for relationship development. The mishandling of this feeling of shame and defensiveness can make us bitter and fragile. All this could be avoided with a simple switch to turn on the lights and spark a discussion.

The School of Life concludes, in an amazingly insightful statement, "In the tensions around unreciprocated touch, we catch sight of a more general problem in love: the difficulties created when we aren’t able to ask for what we want in a relationship, when we suffer from a sense that we don’t deserve to be content and cannot handle frustration or respond to our misery adequately"

We ought to remember, all relationships involve two beautiful human minds. Let not your relationship be built upon assumptions and demands; rather, nurture it with communication and emotional expressions. The willingness to be open about one's emotions and concerns is the first step on the avenue of a healthy relationship.

While your hand rests on top of hers, cold and unresponsive, let the untouched hand be just an untouched hand.