It’s Valentine’s week. Retailers take advantage of the hype. It’s a big day. Engagements happen. Reservations for bougie restaurants are booked out. Florists’ hands are getting cut up, backs are aching with all the arrangements they are cranking out. Chocolate of every kind is flying off the shelves. And ladies, our expectations climb.
Expectation. It’s a big loaded word. What happens when your expectations aren’t met? If you are in a long-term relationship, married, what has been the theme of the ‘big’ days of the year for you? Is your idea of romance what your husband’s idea of romance is? Does romance even seemingly hit his radar? Our love languages can be so drastically different, it can be likened to going to a foreign land and trying to navigate a town, say, Paris. If the Parisiennes don’t want to help you, they aren’t bound to speak our language. Or perhaps, some may not speak English at all. Probably rare, but nevertheless-follow me. You are in Paris, just a couple blocks from the Opera House, and you walk into a cute pastry shop. Gorgeous old glass and oak cases filled with every delectable looking pasterical (my word) morsel you can conceive, all labeled but of course in French and you haven’t a clue because you don’t speak or read French. You point to a pastry that looks devine and ask the handsome French guy behind the counter what it is. You throw out one of 5 French phrases you learned before hopping the big pond. “Parlez-vous anglais?” He shakes his head, no. You don’t speak his language and he doesn’t speak yours. You throw caution to the wind and order what looks to be a little piece culinary heaven on earth. You hand him money and hope you get correct change. He hands you that little slice of heaven. You are expecting something delectably sweet and can’t wait to sink your teeth in. You walk out to the sidewalk in the chilly evening air and take a bite. Expectations shattered-desperate for somewhere to rid yourself of the fishy taste in your mouth you spit it out into a storm drain nearby. It’s not the sweet treat it looked like. It’s savory instead of sweet. You shopped the wrong area of pastries-all looking like little works of art, it didn’t occur to you that it might be filled with seafood (which turns you green at the thought).
I share that comical story with you because it happened-to me. Exactly. Paris, Christmas 1991. It’s funny to look back on that experience. It so fits the analogy that we all speak different languages of love. Our expectations can be extremely high as we anticipate Valentine’s day and our idea of love/romance may be as foreign to our spouses as a young lady from the wilds of Montana, navigating the Champs-Élysées. I didn’t dress like a Parisienne. I didn’t speak like a Parisienne. I didn’t understand them, and they didn’t understand me.
Early on in my marriage, I associated feeling loved with what was sold on the typical Hollywood rom-com. If your guy really loves you, he would whisk you away on a private jet to some great city, have reservations at some swanky restaurant and indulge you with sparkly-diamondy things. Or…alternatively, if he didn’t have jet-income, he would take you to a really nice restaurant or get-away closer by, and spoil you. That day, you were pursued, indulged, lavished and romanced.
This however, isn’t how my husband is wired. It’s not the language he speaks. We spoke different languages and because my thoughts were so fixated on what I thought love looked like, I was chronically disappointed and didn’t feel loved because my expectations, based on my ‘language’ weren’t met. In reality, nothing could have been further from the truth. My husband absolutely loved me; he just spoke a different language and showed it in different ways. I couldn’t ‘hear’ his love because I wasn’t listening. Thankfully, by the grace of God, I quit insisting that he speak my language and began to listen to his. I quit ‘expecting’ my ideals to be met and instead looked for hints of his love, which were all around me. And little by little, I began to understand that I indeed was loved by him.
As Valentine’s Day approaches, ‘listen’ for evidence of your spouse’s love language spoken throughout the year.
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