That absence of physical touch from your husband isn’t just disappointing. It’s devastating in a way that reaches into your bones. Touch is how our nervous system gets the message: you are not alone. You are safe. You matter to me. When it’s gone, your body notices. It’s not just loneliness. It’s something deeper and more primal than that.
Here’s what I want you to understand about what’s likely happening on his side.
When someone pulls back physically, stops initiating touch, stops reaching for their partner, it’s almost never really about not wanting to be close. What I see over and over in my office is that the person who has gone physically distant is usually someone who is quietly terrified of one thing: am I enough for you?
They’ve learned, somewhere along the way, that getting close means risking the devastating answer of no. And so they stop reaching. Not because they don’t want you. But because reaching feels too dangerous.
Here’s the tragedy of it. On your side, what you’re feeling is are you even there for me? Do I matter to you? The less he reaches for you, the more that wound opens up. And the more that wound opens up, the more something in your energy, your hurt, your longing, lands on him like confirmation that he’s already failing you.
Two people. Both wanting connection. Co-creating distance.
Now here’s what I want to ask you. When you’re sitting with this hurt about the lack of touch, what happens next? Do you pull away yourself? Do you ask him about it? Do you get angry? Do you go quiet? Because the way you’re responding to his distance matters enormously in terms of what happens next between you.
What I’d want to help you do is get underneath the hurt about the touch and find the vulnerable experience that’s actually living there. Not “you never touch me anymore” but something more like “when there’s no physical contact between us, I start to feel invisible. I start to wonder if I’m still wanted.”
That’s the thing worth saying out loud. Not as a complaint. Not as an accusation. Just as a true, vulnerable, human thing that’s happening inside you.
Because here’s what I know from sixteen years of sitting with couples. Touch returns to a relationship when safety returns. And safety comes back when both people stop feeling like the enemy and start feeling like they’re on the same team.
The moment when you both stop protecting yourselves from each other and start protecting the relationship together. When you can say, this lack of touch between us is hurting both of us, and we’re going to figure it out as a team.
You’re not there yet. But you can get there. The question is, is he willing to be in this with you?
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Figs is a licensed marriage and family therapist with 16+ years of experience working with couples. He’s the co-founder of Empathi, host of the “Come Here to Me” podcast, and author of an upcoming book on relationships and the systems that shape how we love.
Read more: Feeling Disconnected from Spouse? What It Means and What to Do
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