Teenage daughter can't stand to be touched by her parents

[Ky2]

My daughter hates any physical contact with me. She rejects any kind of affection from me. She cringes at the slightest touch from me for whatever reason. She's much the same with her Dad but she greets all her friends with hugs. She started rejecting my hugs and affection around 12/13 years old and it's only gotten worse. She's now almost 19.
I had reluctantly accepted that she just doesn't like touch - until at her 18th birthday party I saw happy to hug all her friends.

Tonight she fell and hurt herself and was crying. Naturally I ran to comfort her. Knowing she would reject a hug I put my hand lightly on her shoulder. She cringed away from my touch and gave me such a look of loathing. This is how it always is and it breaks my heart every time that I can't comfort her and she seems to hate me.
My husband says the fact that she likes to watch TV with me and talk my ear off about the cat is proof that she doesn't hate me. But then if I try to hug her or touch her hair she acts like I'm a vile leper.

I don’t have any advice but your daughter sounds like me. I don’t particularly like hugging friends either but I will do if I know they are huggers. I happily hug my husband but I hate hugs and kisses from my parents it feels awkward …I’m in my 30’s now

I remember slipping down the stairs at around 13/14 and my mam running to comfort me and then her spending the rest of the evening crying in her room because I rejected her

like I say, no clue why I am this way but I am so you might just have to accept it’s the way your daughter is, or be braver than my parents and try and talk about it with her?

I didn't like any physical contact from
My mum , but that's because she used to beat me to a pulp for no reason she was a narcissistic

I'm needy because I want to comfort your daughter when she's hurt and crying?? Needy because I'm sad that I have had one or two hugs in the last 6 years?
Or needy because I don't want her to look at me with revulsion if I lay a finger on her?
I guess you think a healthy non-needy mum would be completely cold to her daughter even when she's crying.

@Ky2 what has she said when you spoke to her about this and how her behaviour makes you feel?

I'm not a hugger and have always had a difficult relationship with my mother. In my early twenties I was upfront with her and explained that hugging wasn't something I enjoyed or did with people and it made me uncomfortable. Her response? 'I'm going to do it even more so you get used to it.'

Yeah. Mid-thirties now and I very rarely see her. Total inability to respect boundaries of any sort.

That said, I think outright revulsion at even brief touch is something else and I can understand why you're feeling the way you are, OP. She might not realise how strong (and hurtful) her reactions are.

Fairly normal for a teen and parents, I would have thought? I certainly never touched my parents, or wanted them to touch me!

I guess you think a healthy non-needy mum would be completely cold to her daughter even when she's crying.

She's asking you for a different kind of comfort. DD HATES being hugged if she stubs her toe or is in pain in some way. So I empathise. Because that works for her. And if the comfort is for her, she chooses the form it takes.

I know it's hard. I miss hugging DD. But it's her body and thankfully she sets her won boundaries. That's healthy.

Not much. Only that she doesn't like being touched and she's fine with her friends hugging her because they do it lightly. But I'm not allowed to hug her lightly or even touch her with a fingertip.
She's not good at opening up and saying how she feels or why

Another one to say this sounds bang on the money.

OP, your DH is right - she talks to you and sits with you. She loves you.

I’m like this with my parents. No real idea why. I’m very affectionate with DH (and past boyfriends) and hug my kids to death.
I have and have always had a good relationship with my parents, I love them, I just hate hugging them 🤷‍♀️

I hear you completely, although my DD is only 9, she started to reject physical touch around the age of 5, she is repulsed by it and does the same as you describe, pulls faces, makes sounds and makes a huge issue of pulling away to make it obvious.
She will climb all over her sister 20 and wants to be close and touch her all the time, but won't even sit next to me on the sofa, if our feet accidentally touch she will move herself to the other side so it can't happen again.
I don't know the answer, we made a point of her body her choice who touches etc.. so we obviously have to respect her choices but it's defo come back to bite us in the arse!

I don't know why people are ignoring what you're actually saying OP. I'm not a hugger but put up with it from friends because it's easier than just saying no - but the extreme revulsion from her to any kind of touch at all from you is very unusual. Is she the same with other family members, like siblings or grandparents?

However it is up to her to decide what her boundaries are and you can't make her be ok with hugging you. Given you've tried to talk about it and got nowhere the only thing you can do is accept it, perhaps she will change her mind in a few years, perhaps not. Try not to attach too much meaning to it, surely its better to have a good relationship without hugging than be very touchy feely but with a tempestuous relationship with frequent arguments?

Try to separate what you want to do, or feel like you should do, or what you would want in her position from what she actually wants. If she's upset you want to hug her because that would make YOU feel better if YOU were upset but that's only one way to support someone. Other people like to be left alone, some people like to be distracted (eg with humour), others like physical exercise to get endorphins, others turn to drinks and drugs etc. Imagine if you were sad and someone kept saying to you "come on let's go for a really long run that always makes me feel better ooh look its lovely and cold outside we will get such a rush, itll be so hard to breathe you won't be able to think about anything else, here I've got your trainers come on let's go"....you'd be yelling at them to go away.

Everyone is different you just have to accept her way of reacting to things even if you dont like it. If you love her surely you don't want her to feel uncomfortable which, for whatever reason, hugging you would make her.
Don't over interpret it - she doesn't like hugging you doesn't mean she doesn't love you, it just means she doesn't like hugging you.

@OP It doesn't seem you are being listened to much. Most save for a few, seem intent on projecting their own experiences and completely or purposefully ignoring the point you are making and the more you try to explain the more they come back with, 'You're just needy!'.

I am very sorry for what you are going through, it sounds very very tough and your DD seems like she is being very unkind. Her behaviour is unexplainable and to be frank sounds rather 'attention seeking', I think all you can do for now is not touch her at all and leave out all conversations about why? as you have already explored this and nothing has come from it? Leave her and hope one day she might reflect.

I was like this as a teen. For many reasons.

Firstly as someone said above there was a lot of ingrained what felt like negative touch I had no control over when younger - things like cleaning my face with a hanky without asking permission, the weekly brushing/nit combing of hair, telling me to give aunts/uncles hugs hello/goodbye etc etc and I hated it. As I become a teenager I wanted to assert control of my own physical space.

Another was I was brought up in quite a strict household. Do as you are told. This was my way of getting some control back.

And lastly, she constantly invaded my privacy and wouldn't respect my space. She would open my mail, or want to know what was in it. She would look in my room and comment. If I told her to keep out of my room I would be told it was her house and she was just helping etc. Again it was something I could control.

I am embarrassed to say it formed into a habit and I then never hugged my mum until well into my 30s and she had cancer and we nearly lost her.

Don't know if any of above rings any bells. But I would really say that the only thing you can do is give her space and let her come to you when she is ready.

Asking her if she feels like you’ve molested her because she doesn’t want to hug you is all kinds of fucked up and I’m gobsmacked by that, what were you thinking?!

I'm like this. I love my mum but she has no sense of personal boundaries - she always wants to know everything and I know it comes from a place of love and protectiveness but my personality just isn't wired like that - I find it intrusive and just too much, as I need a lot of personal space.
I don't mean to hurt feelings.

OP, I don’t know really but no, I never wanted her to touch me when I was a teenager. Sometimes I felt like I hated her because she had done something that wound me up or I thought was unfair. Sometimes I didn’t hate her. Any time she touched me I‘d feel enraged.

Similar to other posters I think I found her intrusive, lacking in boundaries (barging into my room etc) and it was all on her terms. So assume that ‘put me off‘ her or I was trying to regain some control for myself.

My daughter was like this as a teen and still is up to a point, in her 30s. She'll offer a cheek when I say goodbye, that's as much as I get.
One memory that really hurts is when she was about 19 she found a close friend of hers who had taken her life. She called me and we called the police. I tried to hug DD and she pushed me away but allowed the police officer to hug her.
It's something I find hard to forget, but obviously in that moment she didn't want comfort from me.
Our relationship is fine but not physical at all. (I am not like this, I hug & kiss family & friends).

I understand that this is hurtful for you OP but you know she doesn't want you to touch her and she knows you know this, so from her perspective you waited until she was vulnerable (sore and crying) to do something to her that she didn't want (touch her). Of course she was upset.

My 16yo DD is exactly the same. Now I just pop into her room once a day and ask if she would like a hug today and occasionally get a yes. Other times she looks at me like I've asked her to roll in pig shit.

I hug and kiss my dog, my kids and my husband and that. is. it.

As a teen I hated hugs because I felt awkward within my own body. I’d endure social hugging but would wish the hug aspect was over and done pronto so we could just chat

I was like this with my mum. I would hug my friends to say hello/goodbye that sort of things. My mother on the other hand, would touch me unexpectedly, I would flinch if a friend had done that too.

DD18 was extremely cuddly and affectionate when younger but around 12-13 she refused any touch or affection and can even take upset with a smile or a look in her direction.

She isn’t like this with friends. Her brother 19 when home from Uni will give us a kiss goodnight or when leaving but not DD. I wonder if she is autistic but can’t broach the subject with her as being in her company is like walking on eggshells frightened to say or do the wrong thing for fear of her kicking off.

My DD went through puberty at 10 and has been like that ever since. Very different from the tiny Klingon she used to be, who wouldn't ever let me put her down. Every so often, when feeling insecure, she'll lean on me, or link her fingers round my wrist, but that's as much physical contact as I ever get.

No advice, I'm just giving her space and hoping it might change as she gets older and isn't such a churning mass of hormones.

In the meantime I hug her younger brother as much as he'll let me, and also got myself a very affectionate dog!