You can have all the coffee! (I don’t drink it. I’m a tea girl.)

Happy to have you here. Keep working on your marriage and yourself. Praying things just get better and better for you!

Shockingly, no, my love language is not gifts. I don’t even like gifts, which is probably why it makes it so hard for my husband. I am so weird! I want him to think enough of me to buy me a gift, but I don’t care what it is. As long as he has put thought into it. And no, he doesn’t buy gifts for others. I buy everything for his mom, his coworkers, etc. – any time he needs a gift for someone he asks me to get it. So I guess I should just let the gift thing go.

My love language is physical touch, and that caused huge issues before, which is what drove me to marriage blogs in the first place. Then, unfortunately, most of what I read about was the opposite of my problem – it was all about husbands who desire their wives so much and the lovely wives who reject them. Since my husband was going through a lot in his life and not really into me at the time (which we have been working through and thankfully are coming out the other side) and he claimed it had nothing to do with me personally (but I still don’t see how it couldn’t. I mean, if he were married to a supermodel, I am sure he would have gotten over it) and so it really added to my feelings of ugliness, worthlessness, and rejection. He was so wrapped up in his own problems he had no idea just how awful he was making me feel. I had no idea just how many problems he thought he had. Then my feelings of worthlessness made him feel like he couldn’t make me happy and it was a vicious cycle.

He seems to have decided he likes me in that way again, but it’s still a healing process, and I still struggle with feelings of inadequacy. I know I need to work on my own attitude, a LOT.

His love language is words. Which is my worst thing ever. I HATE words, I struggle to believe words, I don’t fluff people, I don’t get gushy. So it’s a struggle for us. I do write him a note every day in his lunch and he loves it. But it is so hard for me to respond positively to his lovey dovey words. They make me feel awkward and like I’m being lied to. We are a strange match, indeed! But we do love each other deeply, and so we continue to work on things. How blessed I am that my husband loves me enough to want to work through these issues. I know I’m not an easy person.

Now if I could just help him understand that ACTIONS speak far, far, far louder than words, we’d be on the right track. I wish I could convey to him that a handful of wildflowers, or a stick of gum, would mean far more than flowery words.

In his defense, he has been making an effort in the physical touch department. He’s a good guy. I just wish we could understand one another more. We’ve been married for a long time, but have just started to even look at these issues. We were so busy raising littles, now they are growing into teens and he and I have started looking at ourselves, I guess.

I’d gladly share my chocolate, and a bag of that Godiva coffee, too. 🙂 Thanks for tolerating my whining, and for all of your thoughtful replies!

I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that one of your top love languages is gifts and that gifts ranks very low for your husband. Is it really personal that he doesn’t do this for you? Like does he buy gifts for his family and others, but ignores your desire for them? If not, his lack of care in this area may not reflect at all on his love for you, but rather that he just doesn’t understand why it’s important.

Look, I know that’s still frustrating, because it feels personal and his neglect in this area hurts your heart. But I would suggest a few things: (1) Stop believing he doesn’t love you simply because he doesn’t easily do this. He may love you very much, and just feel clueless about this particular area of expressing love. (2) Go ahead and start asking for things, as a way of training him to understand what you like and don’t like. Over time, he’ll learn better what you enjoy and perhaps feel more confident to step out and make these decisions himself. (3) Learn what his love language is (read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman) and make sure you’re meeting his needs/desires in that area. If you can get your hubby to read the book too (or listen to an audio version), that might also help him understand. (4) Make sure you’re not whining to him about this. That is, if every time you two go on a date, he asks you to pick the restaurant, and then he gets an earful about it? He’s probably not going to be super-excited about date nights. I’m not saying he shouldn’t step up and do better, but he’s not in this conversation and you are . . . so you can help by being the best wife you can be. (5) Pray. Pray about your attitude, his understanding, your intimacy. Just pray.

And I would totally buy you that bag of Hershey Kisses — as long as you don’t mind me helping you eat them. 😉

Thanks!