It is not unusual for couples to flounder on showing their love for each other. They do their best with attention giving, gifts, nurturing acts, and other loving gestures, but they just don’t feel they have reached their partner. Their love is not visible to the other.
The other might even say things like: you don’t love me, you don’t find me attractive anymore, you don’t want me, or you hate my guts. Every person must ask their partner (in so many words), “how do you want to be loved?”
How does this happen? Here we are loving a person and doing our best to show them we love, cherish and want to be with them to fail miserably at conveying that message. This is even worse when compounded by difficulties and lack or relationship skills partners bring to the table.
But, it doesn’t have to be this difficult to show our love. It doesn’t have to be this difficult to let our partner in our love for them. I have recently come across a book to address just this issue (thanks Ellen for the recommendation!). It is called the Five Love Languages (refer to the resources section).
This book teaches us that there are five ways in which partners like to receive love: time spent together, receiving material gifts, receiving compliments and verbal acknowledgement, physical affection, and acts of service (taking care of business, i.e., walking the dog, food shopping, servicing the car, etc.).
How Do You Want to be Loved?
There are specific ways we like to receive love, but what we usually tend to do is give love the way we like to receive love. The way we like to receive love might be very different from the way our partner likes to receive love. This is a sure way of not reaching our partner! Let’s say for example that Partner A likes to receive love in the form of elaborate gifts, and that Partner B likes to receive love in the form of praise.
Now, imagine this couple giving each other what they like to receive themselves: Partner A will get a bunch of words that could be experienced as lip service and no follow through; Partner B will get an expensive gift that could be experienced as shallow and detached.
Therefore it is important to determine how our partner likes to receive love and for us to gift them the way they like to be gifted. We might just be handing them a world of love!
Happy Loving!!
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Emma K. Viglucci, LMFT is the Founder and Director of Metropolitan Marriage & Family Therapy, PLLC, a private practice that specializes in working with couples, she is the creator of the MetroRelationship™ philosophy and a variety of Successful Couple™ content that assist couples succeed at their relationship and their life. Stay Connected™ with Emma and receive weekly Connection Notes in your inbox with Personal Growth and Relationship Enrichment insights and strategies, visit: www.metrorelationship.com.
