Gifts: a little goes a long way

Every time my mom comes to our house she has something with her.  It could be an magazine article that she

thinks one of us will like, some clothes for the kids that she got for a GREAT deal at a thrift store, bananas she got on sale at Marc's, or some other this-or-that.

I guess I was used to it, since it's my mom after all.  Beth, though, was often puzzled by the odd assortments accompanying my mom's visits.  After a while, we realized-my mom loves bringing little gifts.  Honestly, sometimes, even now in her 70's she will physically jump up and down because she's so excited about a great find she has brought over.  This is the heart of a person with gifts as a primary love language.

Like we've mentioned before, each language has dialects.  Gifts might be odds and ends like my mom, or it might mean wrapped presents, or crafts, or flowers, and so on.

Does your spouse always bring things to you or leave things in your lunch box?  This is his or her way of saying "I love you."  Remember to see it that way, especially if you don't share that language.

In fact, this may be a source of conflict for some couples if gift giving includes spending money.  It may be worth creating a budget for your gift-giving spouse.  This way you can acknowledge that it is important enough to budget for, but also has some agreed-upon limits.  Don't forget, to budget or plan for it for you too.  If your spouse is giving lots of gifts, it might very well mean that she also wants to receive them, and will truly feel love when she does.

The Queen's Code: Those Unreliable Hormones...

For those of you joining us for the first time, we are discussing key ideas about intimacy discussed in the book the Queen's Code by Alison Armstrong.

Are you ready?  Ok, here we go!  :)  (I love that we're doing this together!!). Here's the next quote from Ch. 5 which I thought was super insightful!  

“What is normal for couples is to have sex when you both want to. That is usually fine in the beginning ( of a relationship) when sexual tension is high. The tension gets sex started and that is always the most difficult hurdle. But as time goes on, two people wanting sex at the exact same moment, when conditions are favorable and the opportunity exists is like trying to line up the moon and the stars. Especially since sex drives depend greatly upon hormone levels for both men and women.”

She added assertively, “I believe you cannot leave something as important as your sex life in the hands of something as undependable as your bodies’ cyclical and circumstantial hormones.”

Ok, let's chat about this.  When you get married, intimacy is usually 100% on the radar for each spouse.  It's exciting, new, fun...etc.  Which is I think what Alison is saying about sexual tension being high.  But like all things in life, even really wonderful things, eventually the newness, the wonder...etc.  wears off.  And I think this actually is good and naturally just happens, as more comfort and, well, reality settles in.  But as we get used to each other and our new rhythms, sex can become a bit more mundane or less of a priority for us women as well.  

Before we got married, I remember thinking that physical intimacy would be just like the movies portrayed....spontaneous and just so sexy and fun.  Hmmmm....now after being married for 17 years, I've come to realize, not so much!  Now, it can be some of those things, but, if I'm honest, not as much as I had initially hoped!  So, when Kurt and I sadly realized quite early on in our marriage that we had to figure this out and plan when intimacy was going to happen, I thought all the romance was taken out of this supposedly super romantic experience.  Again, I think that's what Alison is underscoring above in her thoughts about everything - the moon and stars aligning just perfectly- in order for both spouses to be in the mood and fully engaged to have sex.  It almost never happens!  

So, if we can't leave it to our hormones to make it happen (I'm definitely referring to us as women here- as we know most of our men have no problem here!  Lol) what are we to do?  I mentioned it above, but for us, we have to make it happen!  Yep!  That meant planning for intimacy!  Yes, we literally wrote on the calendar (using code words, of course!) when we were going to "hang out" and therefore make each other a priority!  I used to think "Boy, what a bummer that we can't be all spontaneous and such!" but now I've just come to realize this is what works best for us.  So, maybe the key is:  be intentional with your spouse about what works best for the two of you.  Talk about it and then figure out how to make it happen.  Maybe you can have the best of both worlds....a spontaneous intimacy time?!  Who knows?  Maybe that could be your flavor?  But don't give up if something just doesn't work....keep on trying and eventually you'll figure it out. And hopefully, you'll have lots of fun trying!   ;).

Acts of Service: house projects can turn you on!

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away Beth and I didn't have kids!  It's hard to remember that time!  One memory does stick out, though.

I had come home after a long day at work to find Beth in the basement.  She was really in a peppy

mood too.  You see, she had organized and cleaned our oh, so cluttered space.  It truly was a big undertaking.  I could tell she was really proud of it as she showed me around what she had done.  "Way to go!" I thought.

I don't know exactly when she finally told me this, but she was a bit disappointed.  She had done all this for...me.  Me?  I didn't get it.  She thought this would really be an awesome way to do something sweet and loving for me.  This was an early indication that, first of all, my love language was anything but acts of service, and, more importantly, that Beth's love language had a dart sticking right into the bullseye of that "acts of service"!

This confused me a great deal as a young husband.  Love and touch were, to me obvious ways to express love.  Heck, isn't that what you do, especially when you want to turn a girl on?  You romance her with words and with romantic touch.

Oh!!!  Those were MY love languages!  (I was starting to get it!)

I honestly had to take language classes on this one because I didn't see how cleaning a basement or hanging a picture on a wall would make my wife feel loved, let alone romantic, but I was wrong.

I still don't feel love this way myself, but I've learned to help Beth out, do nice house projects, or even just fix things around the house.  I've trained my brain to remember that this is one of the best ways to drop love deposits in her bank account and, surprisingly, it even stokes the home fires too!

Quality time: more than words can say

"I love you!"
"You're so great at that!"
"I appreciate everything you do!"

For some people, this puts them on cloud nine.  For some others, this is like white noise from a radio in between stations.  Not that they don't like it per se, but if that's it, it feels hollow.

It's not uncommon for a guy who is not a big words of affirmation guy, to think, "I appreciate the praise, but what I really want is for her to go biking with me."

It might also look like this: a wife who enjoys making love with her husband, but who still feels low on the love-meter because he rarely takes time to sit down with some coffee and just talk to her.

These are examples of people whose love language is quality time.  This language, like the others, has many dialects.  That means that quality time can look very different to different individuals.

Here are just a few of those dialects:

-participating in a sport together
-having intimate talk time
-watching TV, movies, plays, or concerts together
-going for walks
-working on a project together
-playing together with the kids
-reading a book together in bed

The list can be as varied as there are various kinds of people.  If you're a quality time person, analyze yourself.  What counts as "quality" time for you?  In other words, what kinds of activity leave you feeling loved and valued?

Once you figure those out, make sure to talk with your lady or your man and work out a way to make it happen regularly.

What to do about his wandering eyes

Have you ever been so hurt and maybe then ticked off because your man's eyes have turned and lingered a bit longer on another woman?  Ouch, right?!  What's a woman to do? (sigh)  Well, maybe....just maybe it isn't so crazy after all.  (What am I thinking!?!). Well, hold on....come and watch this 5 minute video and then tell me what you think.

Physical Touch: Don't caress in public!...at least in 1938

This 1938 newspaper dating suggestion is pretty funny.  Oh, how times have changed.  What dating couple does not
express familiarity in public these days?  And, for certain, most of us don't consider "any open show of affection" as "bad taste" (within reason).

What's funny is that, though, we expect it from dating couples, many of us drop this open affection after being married for a while.

Why does this happen?

Our experience with couples shows us that it often is a difference in love languages.  Often one spouse feels and gives love physically naturally.  The other spouse often expresses and receives love in another way.

The trouble is this: the non-affectionate spouse WAS affectionate while dating and even early on in marriage.

Two suggestions:
1. The spouse who feels loved by physical touch in public (and at home) needs to express to the other what this provides for them.

This is not nagging.  This is explaining how receiving touch makes you feel emotionally as well as how it makes you respond, then, to your spouse.  Since your other half doesn't feel this way naturally, you have to explain how it makes you feel.

2. The other spouse needs to learn a foreign language.
We each speak different languages in love.  To one person hand-holding is like saying "I love you."  To another if you don't actually say "I love you," hand-holding doesn't rate.  One person's love language is physical touch.  The other's is words of affirmation.  There are many forms of love languages.

The point is, that if you're the spouse who doesn't naturally speak physical affection, you'll need to do what people do when they learn a foreign language: learn how it works and practice speaking it, even when it feels awkward to you.

The goal, of course, is that if you want your spouse to understand your love, then you've got to learn to speak his or her language.

Stop Waiting to "Want It"

For those of you joining us for the first time, we are discussing key ideas about intimacy discussed in the book the Queen's Code by Alison Armstrong.

Are you ready?  Ok, here we go!  :)  (I love that we're doing this together!!)

“Having sex when both of you want to is almost always insufficient, even when you are not trying to

create a new life. Most couples need to have sex more often than that.”

Ok, let's break this apart:  So what Alison seems to be saying is that having sex whenever we are in the mood is not enough.  In this chapter, they were talking about a couple trying to get pregnant.  They were only being intimate when she was ovulating and this was a source of conflict for them.  Whether trying to have a baby or not, sex needs to be more frequent than just that one time each month or when the mood strikes (Seriously, how often does your mood strike at the same time as your husband's, especially if you have kids?!). We need to be intimate way more often than that.  

I recall hearing from Alison when we heard her speak at a conference in LA this past summer,  that a woman is really "in the mood" for only about 30 hrs once a month!! Did you catch that?  That's ONLY 30 hours in a month’s time!  The window is very small for us, as women, for desiring sex!  Alison shared that this time period is our "fertile window".  Doesn't that seem kinda crazy?!  This, of course, is a generality for women, but does that seem about right?  I mean when is sex really on OUR radar?  And, as women, when are WE really interested?  We know it's almost ALWAYS on our men's radar, because....well....that's just how they are wired!  Lol!  

But there’s a catch: I also read that the more often we're intimate, the more we desire sex.  The opposite is also true - the less frequent we're intimate with our spouse, the less we desire it.  Interesting right!

So, maybe the focus today or this coming week needs to be on your own desire for intimacy?  Do you think you have a need for sex?  As women, most of us need to be connected emotionally with our spouse before we can connect physically.  But we also have a need to be touched, for affection...etc.  The greater difficulty lies I think in not communicating what we need in sex to make it more enjoyable, for us to truly be “present” more.

I would love to hear your thoughts if you're willing to share.

Thanks again so much for being a part of this conversation!  I love doing this with you! :)

Words of Affirmation: a hole in your heart shaped like words

When my mom was a young girl in the 1950s she was a top-notch student.  Sharing her straight A report card with her mom, though, was a very deflating experience.  My grandmother never praised her.  My mom was so desperate for affirmation that she made it a habit to take her report card to show to a friend's mom who would lavish her with adulation!

If you can relate to any part of this story, you are someone with a "words of affirmation" primary love

language.

This is not some self-absorbed means of boosting your ego.  Your heart is shaped to be filled with words, and almost nothing else can fill up that spot.

If you grew up with a parent or parents who neglecting this love language, you have probably become painfully aware of your need for it.  On the other hand, if you had parents who spoke it well,  you probably felt very loved, and may even not realize how crucial it is to your sense of wholeness.

Either way, the man or woman you married, if your relationship is at a healthy place, wants to love you, but if he or she doesn't speak words of affirmation readily,  you will need to verbalize your need.

Explain what it does for you when they say "I love you" or verbally praise the work that you did or what you did in bed that really revved their engine.

Don't ask for affirmation as an act of nagging, but as a way to create motivation for your spouse to speak love in the way you hear it best.

Once you have that conversation, hear me saying via the mysterious internet: "Good job!"