The Therapy Edit - On 5 things to do when you feel touched out

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

In this episode of The Therapy Edit, Anna considers the common feeling amongst mothers that they are touched out and crave some personal space.If you've ever felt this way and it's impacted your relationships or the way you feel, this is a must listen and we hope you find it a help.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hello, welcome to this solo episode of The Therapy Edit. Today I am going to be talking with you about that feeling of being touched out. I didn't even know this was the thing. I remember very specifically when I learned that it was, it relieved a lot of guilt from me and a lot of questions I actually had about my relationship. So I'm going to share with you in a moment five things to do when you feel touched out. But I want to introduce the topic really by sharing my wanderings about it a few years ago. So I have always been historically a very tactile

person when I grew up. Massages were like a currency, shoulder massages. You know, you do my chores. I'll give you five minutes of massage. My mom was a physiotherapist, and that was what she did as a job. So she was just kind of quite hands-on, touchy-feely. I would walk along the high street with my friends arm in arm. And when I met my now husband, gosh, we've married now like 15 years or something, it's a long time, isn't it? But back in the earlier days, pre-kids, I was just very just cuddly we were just cuddle on the sofa we would we would just sit close together I'd kind of seek that physical touch basically and then I remember having having my first child this is about gosh he's nearly nine nine years ago and just I was so confused as to why I just

didn't seek that anymore. I didn't want that anymore. In fact, I would quite happily sit at the other end of the sofa and often still do. I didn't want to have any limbs touching in bed anymore. I didn't really want to be cuddled. And I would question what the heck, what's happened to me, what's happened to us? Are we growing apart? Am I, what's happened to our relationship? Do I not feel the same way anymore. Why is this part of me just, as it changed so much? And it just, yeah, I just questioned it so much. And he didn't have that same aversion to physical touch that I was experiencing. He wasn't getting a lot of it in his day-to-day life in the office in London, maybe on the tube. His leg might be pressed against someone else's leg next to, you know,

so busy, busy commute. Maybe he'd have a handshake with a colleague at the start of a meeting, whatever, he was not being touched a lot in the way that I was in the day today. And I don't know whether I spoke to a friend or I read something about it, but I just very much remember this light bulb moment of, oh my gosh, it's because I'm touched all the time in my life. And what I'm going to do now is read to you a little chapter of my book called The Little Book of Calm for New Mum. So this is a book all about feelings. It's, it's, Basically, there's a chapter for every single feeling. We've got resentfulness, boredom, tearfulness, overwhelm, tiredness, every emotion that you

might be experiencing a motherhood. And even more so, kind of in those early, early days, months and years, there's a chapter for it, just a few pages to give you some kind of grounding words. So I'm going to read the touched out section. Wanting to sit on the opposite ends of the sofa doesn't spell the end of your relationship. And I think this was the little light bulb moment that I had. And I've written here, crawled over, mauled over, hit, dribbled on, puked on, grab, bum in face, carrying, hurrying, restraining, cuddling, wiping. As mothers, we get touched all the time.

Those of us who consider ourselves tactile, pre-kids, I was one who reveled in snuggles on the sofa as we watched TV. And I'd hug anyone who'd willingly receive one. Very, very true, I would. I still do, to be fair. You know, you can feel confused when we have babies and our children. desire to have physical contact changes. We can start to question the depths of our relationships. Partners might wonder whether our feelings have changed towards them. I think that definitely would have been an element for us. My husband, why are you moving away from me when I'm kind of

sidling up to you on the sofa with my dinner? Why don't you want to, why does it seem to bother you if my leg is touching yours in bed? What the heck is going on? Are you not as attracted to me? Is everything okay? I found it so helpful to imagine. my personal need for physical contact is like a cup. I love me a metaphor. I'm happy when that cup is filled. I feel a bit low when it's running dry. And if it's too full, it spills everywhere. Before kids, it took longer to fill that cup because I wasn't in physical contact with someone all the time. Maybe a hug from a friend, a few handshakes of colleagues and lays on the sofa were enough to have me content. These days, my cup is filled.

pretty quickly. And come the evening, I am all tactile out. My personal space has been so non-existent that I lean towards separate sofas and prefer to feel like I'm entirely alone when I sleep. Anyone else want to feel completely alone when you sleep. Don't want to be. I just want to feel it. My husband, meanwhile, tends not to get touched at work much, a professional handshake and awkward leg graze with a besuited man on the train. He's more likely to crave that physical closeness when he gets home so different totally different pages we're on similar pages have kids totally different pages and when our needs change and we don't acknowledge verbalize or understand them it can feel so confusing we may fill in the gap with self-judgment and assumptions and that is

exactly what was happening to us before i recognize this so i've got five ways to navigate these differences, five ways to act on it when you're feeling really touched out. Number one, just notice that you're feeling touched out and voice it. There's so much power in that just to acknowledge it, to voice it, to label it, to speak it out, be it to a friend or your partner. Number two, know that this will change again as your child grows and needs less physical contact. I'm still in the phase of my youngest is now four. The boy is definitely less physical. contact with the boys now. They do love a hug though. And they love, they will literally sit right next to each other on the sofa. So they give that they they give each other that physical

touch as well. My four year old is often lying on the sofa. Some part of her body is like kicking me. It's kind of quite annoying at times. kicking me or holding on to me and I like that. I like this snuggling. Not so much the, uh, the kind of the kicking against me just needs to be physically in contact. So I'm still, I'm still in that phase. a few years later, but know that this will change and shift again. And it's so true. Different seasons of life, different ages of our children. There are moms probably of children that are older, listening to this and thinking, oh, I miss those days. My cup is empty. I want my kids close to me. They don't want to hug in the same way. They don't want to sit quite so close

to me on the sofa anymore when they're watching something. It changes. But know that this will change sometimes that very that very knowledge that it will be different and actually one day you might want to snuggle up against your partner again one day you might feel a little bit more huggy with your friends if that's how you know yourself to be and you've been questioning that number three recognize your differing needs and understand them again this goes to to communication and talking through that elephant in the room perhaps that the stories that we we make up sometimes we just need to speak them out and have them either affirmed or question by someone else. I might say, or my husband might have said, you know, you don't want to, you don't want to be

close to me anymore. I feel like maybe you don't like me as much. And perhaps that's a story that's been made up. And I can then say, oh, no, it's not that. It's just that I'm so touched out. I am full to the brim where the kids just touching me all day and then I need some space. So instead of it being about him, he gets more insight. Sometimes we need to have those conversations with the people close to us. Number four, talk about those assumptions you have so that the other person can clarify their feelings just as I was saying. I stole number four. Am I explaining number three then? And number five, make effort where you can and get space where you need it. Sometimes it is that sense of, I do just want to cuddle up to my husband a little bit and it has to be that

intentional right. At the other end of the sofa tonight, Anna, you're all right. You're all right. at the end of the sofa, just have some of that physical contact, but also acknowledging where you need that space. So sometimes in relationships, we do compromise. We do encourage ourselves to kind of move towards the other person, even if we can't be bothered, even if we're a bit tired, just because it matters to us, what matters to them. But also, sometimes we need to voice the fact that we are done in, and that's the reason we're off down the other end of the sofa. So some helpful words, I hope, for when you are feeling touched out. But the main thing for me was just recognizing that it was a thing and that we have capacity limits for everything and capacity

limits for the amount of noise that we're processing, the amount of information we're processing, the amount of energy we're outputting. And again, the amount of touch that we're processing as well. So totally understandable. I hope that's helpful. Thank you so much for listening. Please do take a moment to subscribe, rate and review as it really helps get these words out to benefit more juggling parents like us. And head to anamatha.com to find my resources on everything from health anxiety to people pleasing, starting at only £20.

And finally, don't forget to pre-order my new book, Raising a Happier Mother, How to Find Balance, Feel Good, and See Your Children Flourish. As a result, I can't wait for you to have that. Take care and we'll chat soon.