Demonstrating affection can either bridge or divide your relationship. Generally, people tend to regard affection as a positive experience. However, the intention behind your affection may dictate whether your partner receives it well.
From the time you were born, affection offered you a physical sense of safety. Research confirms that touch is the primary way people communicate intimacy in romantic relationships, and affectionate touch behaviors are universally observed in partnerships. Affectionate touch is an important behavior in close relationships throughout the lifespan, occurring frequently from infancy through older adulthood. This need for touch did not end in infancy. If you avoid touch, this can be due to learned behavior in childhood or to the quality of touch in your adult romantic relationships.
Touch is only affectionate if it is implicitly meant to communicate love, care, and affection to the person receiving it. Warm interpersonal contact like holding hands, hugging, kissing, and lying close together are prototypical examples of affectionate touch. Research demonstrates that affectionate touch is an essential component of many intimate relationships and is a primary contributor to overall relationship satisfaction as well as sexual satisfaction. Yet you might find yourself guarded when your partner reaches for you. Or, on the flip side, you might feel like your partner slips away from you upon your reach.
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When Carissa and Mitch came to see me, Carissa admitted while laughing, “Yes, it’s true. I do cuddle him more when I want something. Or sometimes, I do that when I know I spent too much on the credit card.” As a result, Mitch did not value their affectionate exchanges.
Sylvia and Don struggled with affection as well. Sylvia said she didn’t trust Don’s affection “because he always wants more.” Don said, “I don’t get it. Wouldn’t you want sex to start out affectionate?”
For these couples, affection became confusing. Their work involved differentiating between physical and sexual touch while helping them understand how intention impacts the quality of their affectionate exchanges. Research supports that affectionate touch is a relatively stable characteristic of human romantic relationships that is robustly and reliably related to the degree of reported love between partners.
Below are four areas on what I call the “affection spectrum” that can produce unhealthy relationship exchanges:
Affection as a Sexual Agenda
If you fit into this area of the spectrum, you use affection to advance toward sexual exchanges. Research on desire discrepancy shows that when affection consistently leads to sexual expectations, it can strain relationships, particularly when one partner experiences lower sexual desire than the other. When affection always leads to sex, affection can feel unsafe. If you experience lower sexual desire than your partner, you may not only engage less in sex but eventually turn away from all touch, including affection. This typically happens because you feel pressured to perform sexually with every kiss, hug, or cuddle.
Affection as a Tool
This describes offering affection only when you want something else. Research on emotional manipulation shows that affection becomes a form of manipulation when it follows periods of neglect or is used to maintain control, keeping victims confused and desperate to fix things. Affection becomes a form of manipulation, used for personal gain. You might offer affection or rein it back in with the flip of a switch. Studies indicate that manipulators use approval and statements marking affection in order to change their partner’s behavior or mental state in their own interests. Affection can feel confusing and disconnected for the receiver because they pick up on your lack of genuine care.
Affection as a Weapon
Here, you withdraw affection as a means of punishment. Research identifies withholding affection or communication as one of the clearest signs of passive aggression, especially after disagreements. You may struggle to verbalize your discontent on an issue. Instead, you may retreat for hours, days, weeks, or even months. Studies show that passive aggression can harm individuals by withdrawing social support for others and ignoring psychological demands and needs, potentially causing depression, stress-related disorders, and self-harm. This passive-aggressive behavior may create a sense of loneliness, isolation, and abandonment for your partner.
Affection as a Plateau
As a couple, you become trapped in your affection. You seem unable to move beyond affection into sexual exchanges. You hide in your affection because affection feels safe and secure. Research on couples with sexual difficulties shows that intimacy factors like self-disclosure and perceived partner responsiveness can help couples adapt to sexual challenges and may serve as compensatory mechanisms when sexual function is hindered. As a result, you jeopardize your intimacy because you minimize risk-taking and vulnerability, key ingredients to higher levels of intimacy and erotic energy.
If you want to use your affectionate exchanges as a bridge to one another, have honest conversations about its role.
In counseling sessions, I worked with both couples on moving away from dysfunctional affection to using affection as a bridge to connection. Research on couples therapy demonstrates that interventions can increase dyadic cohesion, affection, satisfaction, and consensus while improving overall relationship adjustment. This involved strengthening their emotional and sexual intimacy so their physical, non-sexual touch (affection) grew out of healthy intent.
Here’s what healthy affection looks like:
Affection as a Bridge
You give and receive affection generously with each other. You trust your affectionate exchanges. You feel how it strengthens your relationship. Research on interpersonal trust shows that children who grow up in responsive, emotionally warm family environments internalize a sense of safety with other people, laying the groundwork for how much people are willing to trust others in general. Because of this trust, affection can lead to sex or not. Here, you focus more on affection as a loving exchange rather than as a means to an outcome. Studies demonstrate that receiving affectionate touch can bolster relationship satisfaction and positive self-perceptions, particularly among women. Overall, affection helps you feel cared for, safe, and loved.
Nurturing your affectionate touch strengthens the bond between you. Research confirms that affectionate touch may be an untested mechanism at the heart of the interpersonal process of intimacy, with perceived partner responsiveness forecasting behavioral intimacy through affectionate touch. Affection demonstrates warmth and tenderness. Affection generally affirms that you like and love your partner.
Consider the role affection plays in your relationship. If you want to use your affectionate exchanges as a bridge to one another, have honest conversations about its role. Recent longitudinal research reveals a bidirectional relationship between relational intimacy and sexual satisfaction, with interventions targeting sexual well-being improving emotional closeness and communication within couples. Focus on your intentions when you reach out for each other. Notice where you are on the spectrum.
Remember, affection is not only a bridge to each other but also a means of connection between your emotional and sexual expressions. Aim to cultivate health in all of these areas for optimal relationship satisfaction. For nonjudgmental guidance, contact a licensed couples counselor.
Note: To protect confidentiality, names and other identifying characteristics in the preceding account were changed.
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The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org.