What Language Are You Speaking??????

I have spent years trying to get the man in my life to be more affectionate and lovey as I call it. I often picture him grabbing me an hugging me an telling me how much he loves me because I am a real blessing to his life. On a really good day I even picture candle light dinners with us slow dancing the night away.  We have such different personalities when it comes to expressing our love. I am always telling him I love him, and calling him sweet little pet names. Where he rarely ever does more than grunt when I say I love you, and he doesn’t so much as call me my nickname let alone a pet name.  A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to hear more than a grunt back after my I love you. I even gave him a short but effective speech on how  “normal” people say I love you back….unless he doesn’t love me. I had to throw the last part in with a blank stare.  His response was interesting because he said, with a puzzled look, “I tell you I love you ALL the time!” I guess we were both puzzled because this man says I love you maybe once a quarter IF THAT! An just like this time it’s because I am making a deal of it and he knows I need to hear it. Otherwise, a simple grunt in return is what I get. Later I rethought the conversation and realized that it was possible for ONCE I may be wrong. No, he doesn’t SAY I love you much at all, but he says he loves me each time he buys me a gift, or when he is there for me through whatever I have going on whether it be sitting with me through a gynecology procedure or taking off work to take care of me after a major wreck, or something simple as getting me my favorite foods to eat.  The list goes on and on….but that is how he tells me I LOVE YOU. I know someone is reading this thinking…DUH….but don’t we all at some point do that? We criticize someone else because they don’t do things the way we do them but that doesn’t mean that their way is wrong. That was a BIG step for me because I felt like he should love me the same way I love him and it should look the same way that I present it to him with lots of lovey dovey words and hugs and kisses where he took on more of an action approach. We often want to judge people that are not like us or that don’t communicate as we do, but each person has a unique way of doing things that allows us to reach people in various ways. Don’t let someone else speaking a different language than you make you put up a wall assuming their way is wrong. Instead learn their way and you may see that love has more than one language!