Dying for the Essential Touch of Life

Published June 27, 1985. Each semester at Brigham Young University I teach a course on preparation for marriage. We have a unit on self-esteem, which I believe is important for both dating and contemporary marriage.

One assignment is for each student to build the self-esteem of another person for seven days. Most students choose a roommate, friend, co-worker, family member, or a fiancé. They are to avoid criticisms, put-downs, and sarcasm during the week. They are supposed to pay genuine compliments, do good deeds, smile, and generally do anything of a helpful nature for the seven-day period.

Then comes the most difficult part. Each day they are to touch the person in a non-demanding way. The students report they can do everything else with ease except the touch. I explain that the touch does not have to be an embrace or even a hug. It might simply be just a gentle gesture of touching on the arm or shoulder. Even at that, some students have great difficulty touching another human being.

One of my students, a muscular football player, did everything in the self-esteem exercise well except the touch part. He told me he was doing the exercise on his roommate, who was also on the team. Finally, he said the only way he could touch was to give a playful slap on the back as they left for school each day. I said he had completed the assignment. Even a slap on the back is a form of touch.

Other students who have a difficult time with touch have developed something similar. They call it the “love punch.” They will, in a jovial moment, give the other person a punch or jab as a gesture of saying, “I care.” The tendency to be non-tactile is both interesting and understandable with many single students.

During the engagement and the early years of marriage, many of us touch our partners often and feel comfortable doing so. But I am interested in the trend of non-tactual marriages after several years of matrimony. Many, many couples seldom touch, other than for routine sexual relationships.

If I could do only one thing to help married couples improve their relationship, I think I would teach the importance of touch. Touch is one of the most significant forms of communication we have.

It has been observed that infants in institutions can literally die from lack of touch. The phenomenon is known as marasmus. If young children need touch to stay alive, perhaps we never outgrow our need for touch as adults. Marital marasmus can be deadly.

One physician, Dr. Ed Wheat, noted, “A tender touch tells us that we are cared for. It can calm our fears, soothe pain, bring us comfort, or give us the blessed satisfaction of emotional security. As adults, touching continues to be a primary means of communicating with those we love, whether we are conscious of it or not. Our need for a caring touch is normal and healthy, and we will never outgrow it.”