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We live in an age increasingly prepared to see hurtful aspects lurking within many apparently so-called minor situations, and ready to lend greater public acknowledgement to what had previously been merely private pains.
我们生活在这样一个时代，在越来越多的小状况中，暗藏着令人受伤的一面，并且越来越多的人选择把过去仅仅作为死人的痛苦说出来。
It is in this context that we should give due recognition to a truly grave hurt that can unfold, within established relationships, when there is almost no touch left between the parties, when one partner repeatedly moves to hold the other’s hand, or perhaps caress their shoulder or waist – and receives no response at all, or a subtle turn away and withdrawal.
正是在这种背景下，我们应该认识到，在已建立的关系中，当双方之间几乎没有任何触碰，当一方反复移动握住另一方的手，或者抚摸他们的肩膀或腰部--但一方根本没有得到任何回应，或者只是微妙地转身和撤出时，可能会出现真正严重的伤害。
We’re not talking here of the more obvious and well-known problem of a lack of sex (though this may be present too), but of the long-term and arguably equally serious or even greater hurt that can ensue when one partner’s body as a whole becomes somehow unreceptive to, or uninterested in, the other’s touch.
我们在这里不谈论更明显、更广为人知的缺乏性行为的问题(尽管这可能也存在)，而谈论的是，当一方的身体作为一个整体变得不知何故不接受或对另一方的触摸不感兴趣时，可能会带来长期的、同样严重的、甚至更严重的伤害。
We know, of course, how much this is awkward on an early date.
当然，我们知道早期约会有多尴尬。
We’re ready, at a cultural level, to give due weight to a minor physical rejection when it happens around a potential new partner.
我们已经准备好，在文化层面上，当一个可能发展为新伴侣发生轻微的身体排斥时，我们会给予应有的重视。
But there is as much loneliness and agony within settled couples around unheld hands, except that here it feels a great deal more embarrassing and more humiliating even to raise the issue.
稳定下来的夫妇如果没有牵手也同样会感到孤独和痛苦，即使提出这个问题，也会感觉更加尴尬和丢脸。
Perplexingly, the very person who quietly withdraws their hand or leaves it agonisingly limp in our own, can also be the one who is named in our will, with whom we share a mortgage and to whom we have given over our emotional lives.
令人困惑的是，他们悄悄收回自己的手、或将他们的手痛苦地软弱无力地留在我们自己手中，这样的人也可能是我们遗嘱中提到的那个人，我们与他们分享抵押贷款，我们为他们付出了我们的情感生活。
How devastating to self-confidence an inert hand can be in this situation.
在这种情况下，一只懒惰的手会对自信造成多么大的破坏。
Lifeless in ours, it plays into every anxiety about unacceptability, exploitation and rejection.
在我们的生活中，它没有生命，它激起了人们对不可接受、剥削和拒绝的每一种焦虑。
But precisely because it is so devastating, it becomes impossibly hard to discuss in any fruitful way.
但正是因为它是如此具有破坏性，所以以任何富有成效的方式进行讨论都变得极其困难。
We are liable either to say nothing at all, or else to express our hurt through bitterness and sarcasm.
我们要么什么都不说，要么通过苦涩和讽刺来表达我们的伤害。
We cannot stay long enough with the pain we feel to share it – and try to correct it – with the partner themselves.
我们在痛苦中停留的时间不够长，不能与伴侣分享--不能试图纠正。
We may find it wholly beyond us to develop the authority, self-belief and legitimacy to say: you didn’t take my hand after dinner, you never touch me of your own accord – and it is driving me slowly but definitively insane.
我们可能会发现，我们完全无法发展出权威、自信和合理去表达：你没有在晚餐后握住我的手，你从来没有主动碰过我--这让我慢慢地变得抓狂。
We don’t have this kind of offence mapped on our chart of acceptable verbalisable unhappiness, it doesn’t feel like a toll we have a language for or the right to.
我们无法在我们可接受的口头上表达出不快乐，描述出这种冒犯，这感觉不像是一种我们用语言可以表达、拥有权力可以表达的痛苦。
And yet, we should, despite our anxieties, retain the courage and conviction of our feelings.
然而，尽管我们感到焦虑，但我们应该保持勇气和对我们感情的信念。
An inert hand or a lack of touch, is truly as serious a problem as we feel it is.
一只懒惰的手或缺乏触摸，真的是一个和我们感觉到的一样严重的问题。
The request to be held and physically acknowledged is a subject of deep gravity, rooted in our capacity to tolerate and like ourselves.
被握着和被身体承认的要求是一个深刻的严肃主题，植根于我们可以包容和喜欢我们自己的能力。
We should not compound our misery by a sense that we are not allowed to feel or share it.
我们不应该因为我们不被允许感受或分享痛苦而加剧我们的痛苦。
Then, when we can manage it, we should learn to pick up the partner’s hand with a newfound confidence and say that the little flinch or inertness we feel when we do so is a huge problem for us,
然后，当我们能够做到这一点时，我们应该学会以一种新的自信牵起对方的手，告诉他们，当我们这样做时，我们感到的小小的畏缩或迟钝对我们来说是一个巨大的问题，
that what they may blithely dismiss as ‘this touching business’ is part of why we’re in a relationship in the first place, that it matters as much as anything else does to us and that if they care at all for us or the continuance of the union, then they will have to take the pain on board at last.
他们可能会轻率地忽视触碰这件事，因为这是我们建立关系的首要原因之一，对我们来说，这与其他任何事情都一样重要，如果他们真的关心我们或关系的延续，那么他们最终将不得不承担痛苦。
We should have the bravery finally to know in our hearts that this ‘small’ thing is not small at all: it may be quite simply integral to how we know we’re loved – and how and when we feel we’re not.
我们最终应该有勇气在内心深处认识到，这件“小事”一点也不小:它可能是我们如何知道自己被爱，以及何时感觉自己没有被爱的不可或缺的组成部分。
