#cause the hubby gets to see his partner multiple times a week

[cryptid-ghoulette]

personal below cut

I knew the distance would feel worse after spending a whole month together. I knew that going back to not being able to kiss her, or hold her would be so hard after being able to for a whole month.

But fuck.

This is so hard.

I know I’ll be back in July.

I know I’ll get to hold her and kiss her and tell her how much I missed her.

But for now, this fucking sucks.

[olivebranchliving]

Are You Speaking My Language?

I got my brother and hubby in a little trouble.

It happened two weeks ago while my brother and his girlfriend were visiting. A friend of mine posted about the 5 Love Languages and I decided to take the quiz to find out my love language. I also decided everyone else should take the quiz too. With much hesitation, the guys agreed. This was their first mistake. After we all took the quiz, Bryt and I came to the realization that our partners don’t speak our love languages. For example, my love language is Receiving Gifts. I know, I know! This sounds very materialistic. But in reality, it's about the thought and effort the giver puts into thinking of something that could bring me joy or make my life easier.  It could be a homemade gift and I would still love it! The problem is, Matt is not a gift giver. He hates Valentine’s Day, doesn’t like giving gifts for anniversaries, thinks push presents are stupid, and he definitely does not do the homemade gift thing. This often leaves me feeling unappreciated. You see, I give gifts to others to show I care. Every Christmas my sister and I say we will not buy each other gifts. And every Christmas I get in trouble for buying her a gift. I can’t help it! I love giving gifts to others!

Matt on the other hand, likes to do things for others to show he cares. His love language is Acts of Service. This makes complete sense when I think about it. If my car needs an oil change or a new battery, Matt takes it to get fixed. If there is work to be done around the house, Matt does it. He does things that he thinks will make me happy. And I give him things that I think will bring him joy. This is where the problem is. It is almost like a communication issues. We don’t speak each other's love language.

When we started thinking about it, we realized that people tend to use their own Love Language to show others they care. I appreciate gifts, so I give gifts to others. Matt appreciates when people do things to make his life easier, so that is what he does to show he cares. This is probably the case for most people. Unfortunately, it can cause problems in a relationship if you don’t realize this is what’s happening. Your partner might be showing you they care in the only way they know how, but if you don’t know this, it can leave you feeling unappreciated. Since coming to this realization, I can now appreciate the things Matt does to make my life easier, because I know he is trying to show he cares. And when I help Oliver make a homemade card for Matt, he can recognize it as my way of showing love. I think it is so important to understand your partner’s love language so you can better understand what they do to show love.

On the other side of that, I also think it is nice if your partner knows your love language and tries to speak it. This is what Matt did after learning what my love language is. I had an old MacBook that I had been working on cleaning up and clearing space on. I hated trying to blog from my phone and was soooo excited to have my old computer to use. After working on it all day, I found out it was too old to even support most websites. I was super bummed but decided to save money from my side jobs and eventually buy a MacBook Air. Little did I know, Matt had already found me a MacBook Air his friend was selling. Last weekend he came home with the computer for me! This was Matt’s way of acknowledging and speaking my love language. Now I’m not saying you have to buy your partner a computer. The point is, Matt saw something that could make my life easier so he got it for me. This time it was a computer, next time it might be wiper fluid. It's not about the monetary amount, it's about the thought that goes into it.

I highly recommend everyone take the 5 Love Languages quiz to better understand the way you feel most appreciated and to learn how to show appreciation to your partner. For all you know, your partner could have been showing they care all along, and you just weren’t understanding their language. And honestly, who doesn’t want to be fluent in multiple languages?

Peace, Kasey