Summer of Change #23: Love your partner

Today is the day to love your partner. Or child. Or parent. Or…well, choose one.

Now, I’m not talking about loving them the way you think they should be loved, as in “I feel loved when someone puts the bloody toilet seat down so he had better do so.” That isn’t loving. That’s controlling.

What’s loving? Ask the person what makes them feel loved. Do they want you to go with them to a local basketball game? Go fishing with them? Head out for a 2-day campout? Walk hand-in-hand with them around the mall for no apparent reason? Try a new sexual position? Find out what you can do to give them that feeling. And then figure out a way to do it.

Not grudgingly, not with an attitude. But just doing it because you want them to feel loved. You want to truly love your partner and by doing it in the way they need, it can bring you incredibly close together. And yes, this is a two-way street. Sit down with this person, ask them what makes them feel loved. Do said item. (if said item is truly beyond what you can do, ask for a second choice. If everything they need you cannot do, you may wonder if you should be having much to do with this person. Maybe it’s time to let them go.)

After doing said item, give it a few days and then ask them how they felt. Hopefully they will respond in kind by asking you what they can do to make you feel loved. We aren’t mind-readers, well at least most of us. People who love us need to know how to do so. It’s the small things.

So go love your partner. And then love them again. And again.