Touch Me Before You Love Me

What is touch?

In relationship terms, I guess the most obvious definition is to have contact with someone. The problem with that definition, though, is that it restricts touch to the physical world and excludes other more abstract and spiritual ways of touching someone. Perhaps a more comprehensive definition would be to affect someone with some feeling or emotion. With this definition, I can touch my wife by giving her a hug and I can touch my wife by giving her a compliment.

I’m not sure one form of touching is any better than another. Perhaps under one set of circumstances a hug would be more effective than a compliment and in another a compliment more than a hug. It probably depends on the situation, timing, moods, needs, etc. It’s probably instinctual in some respect…

Why did I name the blog letsmaketouch and not letsmakelove?

I think that making love is a natural expression of a positive marital relationship. When people enjoy each other, communicate with each other, listen to each other, laugh with each other, and respect each other, making love is a natural consequence of the relationship. A couple with a good relationship can expect to make love with each other.

On the other hand, when couples are in constant conflict, degrading each other, and not communicating, it’s more difficult to have intimacy, bare your inner self, and make love. I don’t have to read academic studies to tell me that couples fighting make love a lot less than couples not fighting. Making or not making love is a consequence of a positive or negative relationship.

I certainly have nothing negative to say about a happily married couple making love. However, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that there is a limitation in making love that doesn’t exist in making touch.

How does making love tell your wife that you appreciate her? How does it tell her that you respect her? How does it tell her that you enjoy her company, or enjoy listening to her, or that you’re attracted to her?

I agree that the physical act of making love is the ultimate expression of a couple, but there are other needs in people that can only be fulfilled in other ways. Touching your wife, in the broadest sense of the word, has the ability to fulfill her various and diverse needs, to build her esteem and confidence, and to give her the happiness and sense of security she needs to enjoy and respect her married life.

In short, touching is more about the process of building your relationship. So, after we make touch… we can make love.