A few years into our marriage, during one of our retreats, we did an exercise that was very insightful. Based on the concept of Love Languages, we each wrote down five ways we showed love to the other person and five ways we received love from the other person. I specifically remember writing down that the way I showed love was preparing a homemade family dinner, having the house tidy and a candle burning. Nothing related to that was on Geoff's list of how he received love. I was aghast that all of those nights I put in the effort to show him love and he didn't even notice (although appreciative)! There were a few of those on both of our lists.
The beautiful thing is that I now knew that if I wanted to put in the effort to make dinner and have a tidy house with a candle burning, it was for me, not for Geoff. I could then put my efforts into doing things that Geoff would receive as my effort to show love, like holding his hand more (something that would not naturally occur to me!) And vise versa, Geoff could clean up the dinner dishes or tidy the living room and know how much love I received!
Some people in marriage feel like they give, give and give and get nothing in return, and I think this is why...we just are giving the wrong things!
We did this the following year and interestingly our lists we far more spot on. We had acted on what we learned the year before, and we've never really had to do it again. I know what Geoff wants and needs and he knows what I want and need.
We've explored this with our girls too, with great success.
Learn your spouse's Love Language, and then speak it!
No comments:
Post a Comment