Learning to trust unfamiliar affection

Cultivating the vulnerability to receive love that sounds like a foreign language

photo by Hoi An

A friend of mine once told me that he found it difficult when his wife was affectionate.

“She comes and hugs and kisses me,” he said. “I hug her back, but I don’t feel anything.” He was convinced there was something wrong with him.

I knew he loved his wife and found her beautiful. I knew he was constantly thinking about how to improve their relationship and determined to be a good husband.

I asked, “What do you think it means when your wife shows you affection?”

Naively, I thought the answer was obvious. But it wasn’t.

I can’t reproduce his response to this question. It was a series of half-formed thoughts. What came through was an image of a man locked inside his mind and his wife reaching towards him from beyond an impenetrable barrier.

I suggested we try an experiment where he would try to tell me what I was communicating as I looked at him without speaking. I did so for about ten seconds, making no special effort to send him secret psychic messages, although I couldn’t help smiling. He laughed.

Seeming a bit embarrassed, he said, “It seems like you’re happy to be here with me.”

I told him he was right. I hadn’t specifically been thinking that, but, as soon as he said it, it rang true.

“So what is your wife communicating when she hugs and kisses you?” I asked.

In response, he told me again about the thoughts in his head when she does this. Her behavior didn’t make sense to him because he felt he didn’t deserve her love.

“Really?!” I said. “I don’t think she thinks she’s making a mistake!”

He then remembered a conversation with his wife about another couple. They had both observed how the woman was demonstrably affectionate while the man barely responded. He and his wife agreed that the man behaved poorly.

I asked him what he imagined that woman thought about that man if she acted that way despite his lack of reciprocity.

“She must think he is wonderful!” my friend said.

But when I suggested that perhaps his wife felt that way about him, it didn’t compute.

“People” didn’t find him wonderful, he asserted. He had often been bullied in the past. He didn’t connect well with his peers at a recent business conference.

The more he talked about it, the more it became clear that “people” treated him a certain way - not the way his wife treated him. That was why, he explained, he was always trying to “make sense” of her affection.

It sounded like a lot of work to me. “What if you didn’t make any sense of it? What if you just received it? What if you just felt it?”

He seemed horrified at my suggestion, so I tried another angle.

What if, I proposed, he was working with his business partner on a report and the due date was approaching and everything was a mess? What if it seemed likely that it wouldn’t be done on time and there would be consequences?

But then, what if his partner suddenly walked into his office, handed him a new draft, and said “It’s done,” and he saw that there was nothing he needed to do because it was entirely perfect?

“Oh my God, what a relief!” he said.

I asked what he might say to his partner now that he could let go of his stress.

“I’d tell him, ‘Wow, you’re amazing! You’re a superstar! You’re the best!’”

I smiled. “Maybe this is what your wife is saying to you. Maybe she’s telling you that there is no more effort needed because, for her, you are already perfect.”

He remained doubtful, but admitted that his whole body relaxed when I told him that his business partner had completed that imaginary report.

What if he let go like that with his wife, I wondered? Still, I admitted, I didn’t know for certain what she thought about him. She would have to convince him, not me. But “convince” wasn’t the right word. I reminded him of something he had said to me about “the feeling of her skin touching my skin.”

What would happen if he paid attention to that communication above all, regardless of the voice in his head? What if he allowed himself to communicate with her that way too, and let go of all the words?

He exhaled loudly. “Oh my God.” But he said he would try.

Love never attacks, it only communicates. But, for some, it seems to speak a foreign language. Strangely, if you are starved of love, it can be frightening when it finally arrives because it is so unfamiliar. Sometimes salvation requires a leap of faith.

A relentlessly unkind inner voice must eventually be challenged. Sometimes the idea that the world is a friendly place must be embraced as a genuine possibility even before there is definitive “proof.” Sometimes listening differently reveals a melody you never previously heard.

Challenging negative narratives is at the heart of the Relentless Kindness workshop this Thursday at 7:30pm EST. I’ll be offering guided somatic, contemplative and relational practices to help you build a new foundation for how you relate to yourself and others.

I’d love to see you there.