Why Showing Love is Essential To Your Relationship
An infatuation can disappear overnight, but a relationship doesn’t fall apart that quickly. The breakdown of a relationship happens over time. Along the way, there are lots of opportunities to build a deeper connection with your partner, find ways to be more romantic and create something unbreakable.
But, people get lazy. They get busy and distracted with other things. They forget to stoke the fire and rely on the good old days when things were better. And they forget to show love to their partner.
Instead of finding ways to keep the relationship fun and a good place to be they start to recognise that things aren’t that great. They start looking for the little things that remind them that things aren’t great.
People spend years doing nothing to fix their relationship. They become miserable and avoid thinking about their problems and hope for the best. But problems that don’t get addressed also never solved.
What tends to happen is that things get worse. Both partners get upset over more things. Some of these things will even sound ridiculous but they will add fuel to the fire of disharmony. Communication spirals, slows down and can stop altogether.
After a while a couple “norm” is just heated arguments and power struggles. Both feeling hurt, unloved and unappreciated. And will act from that place. They will come from a place of self-protection.
So this is why this blog is so important. And why showing love to your partner is essential. As a marriage counsellor I see people way too often who will admit “We should’ve come here years ago.”
If you’re reading this don’t wait. You’re reading this blog and that’s a good start. But you need to take action. You don’t want to be a statistic. In the “We didn’t make it” basket.
You can never afford to stop paying attention to your relationship and to your partner. Relationship are about consistent effort. You have to prioritise and work at it every day.
Just like a car needs regular maintenance, to ensure that it’s running well, will keep you safe and will go the distance, your relationship needs to be maintained for the same reasons.
Some people spend more time keeping their car in good shape than they do working on their relationship.
When the two of you first got together, you spent time and emotional energy to get to know each other. You wanted to please each other. You shared your thoughts, feelings and experience with one another. You had secrets that you didn’t share with anyone else.
Over time, people get distracted with life. There’s a job, a business maybe, housework, and children to tend to, and lots of outside responsibilities.
But you owe it to yourself and your partner to give your relationship attention. To learn how to show love to your partner and make them a priority. While you need to take care of all of the responsibilities in your life, you also need to love and be loved.
The hard truth is everything takes effort. You get to choose your effort. Do you choose to pay attention and work towards a loving, fulfilling relationship or do you choose breaking up and starting over.
Sound harsh? Maybe. I would say not harsh enough based on the fact people don’t put enough effort in until they are faced with this type of ultimatum.
Are You Showing Love To Your Partner?
Not everyone communicates love in the same way, and likewise, people have different ways they prefer to receive love. The way you’re showing love might not register to your partner.
What worked when you first met might not work anymore because people change. Our lives change. It’s easy to see why things can slowly decline in a relationship.
Think about all the things you do specifically for your partner, some are big things and some are trivial little things but they are all done out of love. Most of the time it’s the little things that mean the most.
You want to know what your partner needs from you to feel loved. They may say they want security, adventure, quality time but you need to dig deeper than that. You want specific examples of what you would need to do in order for them to feel safe.
You need to know what adventure means to them. Does it mean a holiday somewhere you’ve never been or skydiving? And what is quality time for them?
Once you get the instructions it’s up to you to take action. If your partner has told you what they need you to do to show love and you don’t take action towards it then you have no one to blame but yourself if they don’t want to be with you anymore.
It’s one thing not having the information but when you have it – you need to do something with it.
If you’re married just remember you chose each other to experience life together, what do you want to experience? What can you do to make the experience the best it can be?
Make sure you don’t get lazy, don’t get too comfortable in your relationship. Remember to show love to your partner as often as you can and in as many ways as you can. This is what makes an awesome relationship and an awesome life.
To show love creates a bond between two people and the only way to create a strong bond is to invest the time and attention into it.
When you see a couple who seem to be really in love and happy together you need to know it’s not by chance. They spend time getting to know each other as deeply as they can.
Are you investing the time to know your partner on a deeper level? Do you know what makes them feel loved?
5 Love Languages
The book, 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman talks about 5 ways we show love to our partner. He also speaks about showing love is not the same as receiving love. I’ve given you a quick summary of them below.
However if you want to look into this more deeply you can take the free quiz with your partner online. It takes a few minutes and it will determine what your partner can do to show you love according to your needs and vice versa.
5 Ways To Show Love To Your Partner
- Being Helpful
- Positive Words
- Encouragement & Support
- Affection & Intimacy
- Giving Gifts
Show Love By Being Helpful
- Mow the lawn
- Cooking meals
- Gardening
- Washing and ironing clothes
- Paying the bills
- Making treats
- Vaccuum the floors
- Clean the car
- The goal is to do a service or something helpful that would take stress off your partners shoulders. That's why they feel loved. You did something nice and it saved them time and energy.
Looking for a Improve the Connection and Communication in your Relationship?
Building A Better Relationship Workbook is full of exercises, activities and tools to improve your connection, intimacy and communication in your relationship.
There are 90 pages designed to help you learn what is working and what needs to change in your relationship. If you apply all the lessons in this workbook your relationship is going to improve on a big scale.
You deserve to have a loving, kind, respectful and intimate relationship. This workbook is a the first step on that journey.
Words of Affirmation and Support
- Compliment how your partner is dressed
- Thank them for things they have done
- Recognizing and telling them things they do that makes you happy
- Tell them why you love them
- Remind them why they are so awesome
- Making treats
- Vaccuum the floors
- Clean the car
- The goal is to do a service or something helpful that would take stress off your partners shoulders. That's why they feel loved. You did something nice and it saved them time and energy.
Being Supportive
- Listening to your partner’s goals and dreams
- Brainstorming ways to make those dreams happen happen
- Listening when they are struggling
- Saying kind words of encouragement (You’re doing really well, I’m so proud of you, You’re fantastic, I love you)
- Tell them you believe in them
- Help them find solutions to any problems
- Making treats
- Vaccuum the floors
- Clean the car
- The goal is to do a service or something helpful that would take stress off your partners shoulders. That's why they feel loved. You did something nice and it saved them time and energy.
Physical Touch
- Kissing
- Cuddling
- Holding hands
- Massages
- Sex
- Arms around each other
Showing Love With Gifts
- Small thoughtful gifts (this is not about spending money)
- Special things that mean something to your partner. (Chocolate, lollies, favorite magazine or a book on their interests, hairdressing voucher, massage voucher or nail manicure voucher)
- Tools
- Gym equipment
- Cinema vouchers
- Video games
- Clothes
- Perfume
Quality Time
- Watching a movie together
- Going for a walk
- Cooking meals together
- Going shopping
- Visiting friends
- Picnics
- Going to the gym
- Travelling
- Going out for breakfast or dinner
Conclusion
It’s important to know you show love in a way that your partner can recognize so they can enjoy it and vice versa.
You don’t need to guess either. You can just ask your partner what they need in order to feel loved. They may say it’s a mixture of all of the above but there will still be one area that means more than to them than another.
Ask questions and get specific. The more specific you get, the more accurate you can be in showing love.
Make sure you add anything they mention to the list and print it out and put it on the fridge to keep it fresh in your mind. The biggest step is taking action on it every day.
The more you show love to your partner the more secure and safe your partner will feel in the relationship.
If you need some help with your relationship click to book an appointment online.
