Are you touch starved?

And is it a side effect of midlife?

Jul 03, 2024

The ultimate touch-fest - my new kittens

We seem to be hearing a lot these days about adults being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, ADD. Meanwhile, I’m seeing a version not being as openly bandied about. Not Attention Deficit Disorder, but Affection Deficit Disappointment.

I’m seeing more and more women feeling unloved, untouched, unseen, unappreciated, unsupported. That’s a lot of haunting deficit, a gaping hole there in all the un’s.

As The Midlife Coach, I work with and around women and so I don’t hear the male side as much, but I do have male friends who also speak of a lack of intimacy in their lives, and perhaps more so because they are less likely to be affectionate with their male pals so I’m wondering is it more a universal side effect of midlife?

As I continue researching and writing for my next book, Midlife Sensuality, Sex & Relationships, redefined, I’m learning lots about reviving your sex life and how women are finding their sexual mojo again in this extended midlife.

But what about touch?

Touching moments

For my book, I’m exploring the sensuality aspect in terms of sense of self, as well as the wider sense of connecting to your senses and living in your body. A huge part of our sense-ual connection comes through touch, of regular touch and affectionate connection.

I hear so many stories of marriages where women have spent two decades giving her all to a family and now stand, slightly bewildered as if coming back into daylight, to discover that either their marriage is over, and they are alone, or in a marriage where sex has dwindled and touch has disappeared. They feel this surge of potential that this unique and extended midlife is giving us, they want to feel vibrant and valiant and yet there is no-one noticing them, holding them, smiling into their eyes and remembering that along with being a mother, daughter, wife, laundry-loader, organiser-of-everyone’s-life, they are also a sensual woman who wants to feel a hand on her back, and for her skin to come alive.

I’ve experienced it as a single mum… especially to teenagers. The warm cuddles and loving eyes of young children has been replaced by the cold shoulder and rolled eyes of teenagers, whereby I hang on to the occasional grunt of acknowledgement like a parched person savours a drop of water on a hot day. I am a really tactile and touchy person, and so I have felt it at times.… that lack of a handy, on-tap source of skin to skin contact. So I am proactive in keeping the contact present with my girls, squeezing in a hug whenever I can; being the demonstrative one with my dad and brother now my tactile-on-steroids mum has gone; enjoying the warmth and love from my dog and cats (and yes, now we have 4 new little kittens, it’s a sniff and touch fest), grasping my pals whenever I can in laughter or in pain; and even using the bumbling Bumble scene for an extra dollop occasionally. But I’m proactive in the sensual layers of life too because I know how important touch is to me - walking barefoot on the grass and the sand, enveloping my body in the cold waters of the sea, touching the bark of a tree, exfoliating and moisturising my skin with intention, connecting my sense to my self.

But what I’m noticing is that many marrieds are feeling it too. I hear stories of women wanting a sexual and sensual relationship with their partners but the practicality of life has taken over and there is none. I spoke to a women recently who can count - and I mean this - on her fingers how many times she’s had sex with her husband in a 27 years marriage. I have listened to others who tell me there is no affection. There might be a well-worn love and they get on but there are no cuddles, no long, lingering hugs where your back is rubbed (our backs and shoulders - the places we can’t reach ourselves - contain the most sensory nerves that release oxytocin when rubbed), no intimacy of skin contact.

I remember a client a few years ago, who was having trouble managing her over-eating. I asked her to think about what she really felt when she headed to the fridge every evening. Over the course of the next few days, she realised she went to the fridge for three reasons (and none of them were hunger). She was either bored, anxious, or lonely. The last one surprised her because she had a husband and son living in the house, so I delved a little deeper and she said that although they all interacted well, she realised there was no intimacy. Her son never hugged her, and her husband only really touched her on the less than frequent occasions they now had sex. She had to sit a whole few minutes just processing that one.

So I asked her to come up with a plan for each of those particular feelings, then suggested she put a note on her fridge saying “What are you feeling?” If she checked in and realised she was bored, her plan was to call her daughter or friend or go for a walk and listen to a podcast. If she realised she was anxious, her plan was to potter around her beloved garden for 15 minutes pruning or watering just to ground herself again. If she realised she was lonely, her plan was to go and ask her husband for a hug.

And a wonderful thing happened. While we thought the big change would come from her not automatically spooning the contents of her fridge into her mouth every evening, the most impactful change was her relationship with her husband. After 20 years they had fallen into a mostly non-affectionate relationship even though they got on well. The act of going to him and asking for a hug every evening, often led to them now having a chat, or going for a walk or just connecting. She told me a few weeks later, that after a few days where she realised she wasn’t lonely and had been going out for walks and feeling energised, he had come to her, forlorn, asking her why she wasn’t coming to hug him anymore. It surprised her because she hadn’t realised he’d been lonely too and had enjoyed her proactive bursts of affection. They began to make a greater effort to hug, hold hands and cuddle at night. (And she visited the fridge less).

I had watched a lack of regular affection in my own parent’s marriage and just assumed it was them, but I am hearing more and more stories of women in touchless marriages and I wonder how many midlifers are so caught up in living, they’ve forgetting all about loving?

It has a name. Touch Starvation.

We now know that babies need skin touch for their survival. The term being ‘starved’ of love and affection is telling, because it is literally a basic of survival. We see campaigns to connect with old people who perhaps live alone and are isolated from human contact.

And I see it in some midlife women. While maybe not in wholly loveless marriages, they can be in affectionless ones.

Human touch is vital to our tribal survival…. hugs, embraces, high fives, kisses, shaking hands. The first thing we do when we meet someone is touch them with a handshake or a hug as a sign of acceptance or welcome. Even eye contact is a form of touch, gazes reaching out and being held, even for a few seconds.

We think of loneliness as being alone, but I know from my own marriage, I was lonelier in it than out of it. And I sadly see it in the work I do…. Not all women, and not all marriages of course, but too many. Too many where they feel part of the furniture (ageist sexism, ageing in an age of anti-ageing propaganda and fears of being invisible not helping in any way). Too many where the pressures of running a family, perhaps juggling a career has taken all the purpose and passion from the relationship, but they yearn to be seen, to be listened to and to be touched. They’ve become so practical, they’ve lost the art of being playful.

The science of sense

Skin is our largest organ, constantly sending signals to our brains. When the signal is positive - even the smallest, gentlest touch of a hand on our arm - and our brain releases oxytocin, often referred to as the cuddle hormone. It makes us feel good and emotionally connected. We know how important touch is to the survival of young babies, but science is showing that as adults, human touch helps regulate our sleep and digestion, build our immune system and fight infections.

A 2021 study found that a lack of physical touch from an intimate partner can lead to higher levels of anxiety and loneliness. Being touch starved is also associated with mood swings, irritability, sadness and depression. Yet research has shown that even a small amount of touch can have a transformative effect, reducing perceptions of loneliness and neglect.

Invisible touch

It is a silent sadness, and one that is so easily rectified. Yet so hard to ask for. Women in midlife can feel a cloak of invisibility descend on them, when in fact we want to surge and sway our sassy hips and feel, and feel, and FEEL!!!

In Sam Baker’s latest fabulous podcast The Shift episode with author Kathy Lette, Kathy calls post 50 the most liberated time of life when we cut the umbilical chord that ties us to domesticity. As I say in my last book Midlife, redefined: Better, Bolder, Brighter it’s like having given birth to a family / relationship / career, we now get to give birth to ourselves. And like newborns, we need to be held, and touched. And if it isn’t happening in an intimate relationship, what can you do to bring it back? How can you be more proactive about touching up your sensuality:

Touch others.

Touch yourself.

Touch nature and fabrics and food, and animals and trees. I personally think tree touching should be a midlife staple along with slowly melting dark salted chocolate in your mouth and sun on your Factor 50’d face.

In this interview I gave on the fabulous Sile Seoige Podcast Ready to be Real, I talk about how I shed the self-critical voice of my 20’s to learn to be loving and kind to myself. That includes the fact that even morning I wake up and before I even open my eyes I stroke my arm and say “hello lovely” That morning embrace means I start my day with touch and love, whoever else is around. I’ve had so many responses to that interview, and many have mentioned they have started this practice.

Let’s embrace (see what I did there?) this magnificent, messy, extends midlife, fight the sexist ageism every day, and embrace what we need in the most touching ways we can.

I’d love to know how you feel about touch in your life, so please join me in the comments below (if you’re reading this in an email, please click on the link below to go through to the website to join the conversation.)

Are you touch starved?

And is it a side effect of midlife?

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