Gifts Important
Q. Gifts are important to me. They don't have to be expensive, just thoughtful. My boyfriend says he doesn't give gifts. He says he'd rather do things for me than give me things. I appreciate all he does, but the longing for gifts is still with me. Am I wrong to want "things"?
A. We each feel loved in different ways. There are, in fact, 5 Love Languages. They are: 1. Words of Affirmation 2. Quality Time 3. Receiving Gifts 4. Acts of Service 5. Physical Touch. When we love someone, we need to discover how they feel, experience and receive love. We tend to have primary and secondary modalities. If you are with a person who primarily feels loved when they are being touched, and you give them gifts, they won't "get" your love in the same way they would being hugged or touched with love. We tend to give love the way we ourselves receive love. We assume our partners receive love the same way we do. And we tend to judge our partners if they have a different modality. Which is why we need to find out just how our partners receive love the most, and be willing to give them love the way they want it. All 5 modalities are important, and we want to practice giving love every way we can. It may feel like a stretch to do some of these if we haven't done them before. But who benefits even more than our partner is ourselves! When we give our partner love in a way that really makes them feel loved, they love us back even bigger! Also, it feels good to stretch our way of loving beyond the way we've known. This is true giving, and our partner feels it. When you put that extra attention on your partner, give them what they want, the way they want it, the energy you put into giving that love comes back to you more than you can imagine.
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