If Your Wife Has A Physical Touch Love Language, It Will Be Directed Towards The Baby
How a new mom with a physical touch love language reacts to this transition.
Over the years that I have been working with couples, I have come to recognize that there are positives and negatives about all love languages, including physical touch. Men think that a woman having a physical touch love language is only a positive, because sex falls into the bucket of “physical touch.” A physical touch love language is especially useful once a woman’s spontaneous desire recedes with monogamy and age and is replaced by responsive desire. However, once a baby comes into the picture, women with a physical touch love language can, even more than women with other love languages, become focused on being in constant physical contact with the baby (and if there’s a second baby, the small child AND baby), rather than their husbands. Understanding that this is normal, expected, and time-limited can help husbands empathize and be supportive rather than feel blindsided and hurt.
There are many different ways to parent, and infinite combinations of parent-child temperaments that yield infinite different results. When you have a physical touch-oriented mother with a physical touch-oriented baby (yes, some babies are more “cuddly” than others, as anyone with multiple babies knows!), this can lead to what seems like Infinite Cuddling that lasts up through a child’s elementary school years. A husband can feel on the outskirts of this mother-child cuddling dyad, since he was the one who fulfilled all of the woman’s physical touch needs prior to the baby.
From talking to moms who go back to work, the ones with a high physical touch love language are the ones who “make up for” the time spent away from their child during the day with extra cuddling all evening and possibly also cosleeping through the night. They also often try to figure out work from home arrangements or become stay at home moms because they feel they cannot physically tear themselves from their baby. They are also often women who derive even more happiness than average from the nursing relationship and want to nurse for a long time because of the physical closeness that accompanies it.
Of course, all mothers miss their kids, but a woman’s own love language determines how she expresses that love, with a baby as well as with a romantic partner, and even with friends for that matter. If a woman is a physical touch type of person, she will prioritize physical touch as a way to connect with and bond with her baby. If she is oriented towards gifts, she will buy her child everything in sight. If she likes words of affirmation, she will come up with special songs and nicknames for her child. If she is into quality time, she will also want to be around her baby all the time, but not as much cuddling as hanging out. Quality time is the other love language that leads to women who never thought they would be stay at home moms turning into stay at home moms because they can’t stand to be away from their babies.
If you are a man who tries to get a physical touch love language wife to stop cuddling her baby or child so much because she isn’t giving you as much attention as before, this will only end badly. As I discuss here, there is no free lunch in terms of your partner’s personality, and you have to accept both sides of the coin of who they are. If you are loving and supportive in whatever way your wife needs during the finite time of your kids’ young childhood (the only time when they will want to cuddle), your wife is much likelier to come back to you and give you loving physical touch when the kids outgrow the desire for it. In this post, I discuss another common rupture during this stage and give very similar advice.
Note that this post doesn’t mean that your children’s young years should be a sexual desert for you. In fact is a lot easier to get a high physical touch woman to have sex with you during these years than to cuddle you, because sex is only about you two as a couple, whereas cuddling is now about all family members, especially the cutest ones (which is sadly not the husband anymore when kids are on the scene!). If your wife refuses to have sex with you anymore, this is a whole different situation and one which you can read about in detail all over my blog, especially in this section. However, if you just notice that she is extremely fixated on spending her time cuddling her baby and “making up for” her time at work or anywhere else, this is an expected reaction from a high physical touch woman, and your best and most supportive and loving choice is to facilitate her ability to do this without side-eye from you.
Share this post with your partner if it describes your situation, and it can spark a discussion about love languages, and whether you ever even thought about them as something that applied to families and not just couples! And till we meet again, I remain, The Blogapist Who Says, Understanding Your Partner Beyond Their Role As Your Partner Helps Relationships Stay Strong!
For therapy, go here for Dr. Whiten and go here for other clinicians in her group practice Best Life Behavioral Health. For coaching with Dr. Whiten, go here. Order Dr. Whiten’s books, Couples You Meet in Counseling: 7 Common Relationship Dynamics That Sabotage Closeness, 52 Emails to Transform Your Marriage and How to Talk to Your Kids about Your Divorce: Healthy, Effective Communication Techniques for Your Changing Family, and listen to The Dr. Psych Mom Show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere else you listen to podcasts. Join The Dr. Psych Mom secret Facebook group for more discussion about these kinds of issues!
This blog is not intended as medical advice or diagnosis and should in no way replace consultation with a medical professional. If you try this advice and it does not work for you, you cannot sue me. This is only my opinion, based on my background, training, and experience as a therapist and person. Also, all examples involving people or clients are hypothetical amalgams, not actual people.