Please confirm this is not normal

[BestDaysAheadOfMe]

I grew up in a family where mum and dad did not kiss or hug or showed any affection towards each other. Dad is suspected undiagnosed aspergers and mom seems to have developed a martyr complex.

I am now in a failing relationship where there is no kisses, hugs or affection (no shit Sherlock!) I’m divorcing, 2 kids. But i still get told by mom that that’s how most marriages are, loveless and affectionless.

But are they, really? Please come and tell me this is not normal and not how majority of families function? Or... do they?

Definitely not normal. My parents were like this and it gave me massive intimacy issues that took years to unlearn.

Fuck. My marriage is like this. Completely devoid of affection and I always assumed dkids never noticed. This is giving me food for thought.

Children notice everything. Sadly, they quite often grow up to repeat the same behaviour. After all, it's their normal.

When my gran died my sister stood up and did a speech type thing and the one thing that stuck with me, was when she said "they were never really affectionate but when they were looking after me, my nan went into the loft and the ladder cam down to quickly and caught her fingers and she screamed, you have never seen anyone moved as fast as my grandad and they way he made sure that she was ok, got everything that was needed was the thing that let me know their love was still there"

I don’t think there is a normal. I would not say my marriage is affectionate. Never has been. No one I know has any open display of affection with their spouse in a group/couples setting, no idea what they like behind closed doors though. I think if we saw anyone doing this we would be a cross between bemused and thinking wtf. Nothing wrong at all about it, I guess it’s just not the normal of anyone I know. We have all been married for well over 20 years but it was like that from the start for everyone I know. Everyone I know is content with their lot, no plans to divorce. Very different to all of our parents who got divorced immediately the youngest of the family settled into uni. So, essentially I guess there are all different sorts of ‘normal’ with none necessarily indicating a problem.

My ex was not affectionate at all and I hated it. We never sat together on the sofa, it was always in separate chairs on opposite sides of the room and I ended up falling out of love with him, there was other issues too but I think this really helped accelerate it. My boyfriend however is so affectionate and I love it, we always sit together and cuddle and it makes me feel really warm inside. Sounds corny but I can't help it it's so sad that you're missing out on this OP, you need to find someone who will show you this kind of affection.

It has become normal in my house.

One of my abiding memories of childhood is the fact that I can never EVER remember seeing my parents touch each other. Not once. Not just affectionately, but I can't remember ANY instance of physical contact at all, even as an accident. You'd need to really hate each other to live in the same house for 40 years and that to be the case

See this is interesting as my parents never show any physical affection at all but they do love each. I mean I'm not a mind reader to know for sure, but they speak kindly to each other, spend all their time together by choice and do things together, don't argue (and not in a detached don't care way, they just don't often disagree).

Unfortunately though I'm like this too as a result, I don't show affection and partners have complained about it.

What matters is what suits you op, not how other people are. You want someone more affectionate so you're getting a divorce and you'll find him. It seems like your mum is unhappy and maybe wishes she could divorce your dad too

Physical touch is so important.
My h was never keen on touch and wouldn't want to hold hands or touch me or rub my neck etc.
It made me so sad and I believe contributed to my depression.
We are now separated.

Saw a couple yesterday having a coffee and she was touching his neck and he her leg and i felt a pang of jealousy as I imagined they had a close relationship and I really miss having physical touch even though I got very little in my marriage.

My parents have been together 52 years and still kiss and hug and are verbally affectionate. When my mum visits without my dad, they have long chats in the phone every day. All my relationships have been physically and verbally affectionate (until they started going wrong).

Neither of my parents is in a relationship where they hug or kiss in front of other people. My mother can also be pretty unpleasant to her dh. But he would do anything for her - he says lovely things about her, which she shrugs off as nonsense, but I would say he means it. I also think that she'd be unhappy without him, and appreciates what he has brought into her life, deep down.

Until my ex-MIL died, my inlaws were in what appeared to be a very successful, long-term marriage - no arguments, they shared the same views, wanted the same things from life. But it was impossible to imagine them hugging. I wondered if they ever talked to each other when we were not there - not that they didn't get on, just that they never really talked to each other. But I don't think they were unhapppy.

There are some very complicated relationships about. I would say that not hugging is pretty common, from my experience. And, separately, I do think some couples are just in it for the kids or whatever. But that doesn't mean you have to be OK with it.

With my ex, we never got into a habit of kissing or hugging, i.e. we never did it from the start. I think this is partly as, like you, neither of us grew up seeing that - we just neither came up with the idea of doing it. Didn't miss it, either. With my current bf, we did start out with hand-holding and kissing hello, and it has stuck. It's really nice. I'd miss it now.

But i still get told by mom that

Part of growing up and becoming an independent adult is to recognise our parents as people with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Your mother's perspective on life and relationships is very different to your own. That's a good thing, you really do know better than her about this

My parents were married for almost 44 years before my Mum died. They still kissed each other goodbye if one was leaving the house. Plus they were kind to each other, they made each other laugh all the time.

My PIL never kissed in front of me, I have known them for over 20 years. But they teased each other and did the occasional hip bump, or a little elbow dig, always when they were joking. They had long standing jokes, so my FIL would always try to make sure that he poured the last drop of wine from a bottle into MIL's glass and make a comment about how much she drank. She was a half a glass of wine with a meal person, whereas FIL was more 2 glasses with a meal.

Dh and I have been married just over 20 years, we kiss, hug, cuddle, hold hands and are affectionate toward each other. Ds1 is 17, hugs us both in a 3 and then Ds2 who is 14 comes running over to join in the family hug. It is lovely. I will kiss the top of their heads, only when they are sat down as I am now the shortest in the family!

I think I once read about the importance of touch, not sexual but comforting touch, when you walk past your partner to touch their arm or lower back. It is a reconnecting thing.

@Pobblebonk

Please don't say that your father "is" Asperger's, whether suspected or note. It's generally viewed as quite offensive. He may have Asperger's. You wouldn't say that someone is flu, measles, or cancer.

Exactly. For the record, people on the Asd spectrum can be affectionate. You know one person on the spectrum, you know one person. Some people are just not affectionate for other reasons, mainly cos they don't want to be.

I feel really sad reading this, my parents hated each other so there was no affection. I grew up knowing that wasn’t what I wanted.

My DH is as cuddly as I am. We hold hands when we go out, cuddle on the sofa and when it’s not so hot cuddle up in bed. He parents always hold hands when we go for a walk and seem quite affectionate still in their 70s.

Some of our friends don’t seem to do any public displays of affection ie handholding or a quick hug which I think is sad, but the majority do.

My mum and dad were never openly demonstrative either to each other or to us. But even then I knew that other people were, that they'd just found a relationship that worked for them (my DM had a very hard upbringing and DDad was probably ASD).

But surely, OP, your mum has seen enough other people to realise that their relationship isn't totally typical? It may become more typical as people get older (I don't know but the older couples I see seem to be less tactile) but she must have met people when she was younger, surely?

I'm happily single now after a relationship where he couldn't bear to touch, or kiss or have any contact outside the bedroom. When I asked him why he wouldn't hug me, he said 'I might get an erection', and couldn't answer why i asked why that would be a problem, as long as he had his trousers on...

My mam has said similar. She knows all about the problems in my marriage and is sympathetic, to the point where she agrees I can't continue in a sexless affectionless marriage. But she also says that after the first couple of years, most marriages become less 'exciting' and it's just day to day working or looking after the house and kids, and you become more friends than lovers.... Well, I had hoped that there would be more to a marriage than this! My mam and dad loved each other and were affectionate, although not over the top, but I knew they loved each other. The truth is, although I want all the cuddles and the touches and the sexy looks and the hugs from behind at the kitchen sink, I don't want any of that from dh. I've never ever got that from him, and now I just don't want it, I feel so empty. I want to be able to find the man that I do want this with. And I want to set a good example to my sons for their future relationships, because they see no affection whatsoever. So, yeah, it's not normal to have an affectionless relationship, but is probably more common than it should be, sadly.
@Livandme I saw a couple at the beach at the weekend who were clearly madly in love and it was honestly like a movie, they were swaying as they hugged, he was cradling her head, I could have cried. And as dh was wandering away down to the sea (on his own...) I could tell he was watching them too and probably felt the same as me - happy for them, but sad that we don't have this.