As promised, I will start to write about some of the points “How to
be an Adult” brings up that interested me. Here’s the first one I
want to write about:
Relationships between adults work best when each partner knows
his or her specific ways of feeling loved and tells the other about
it.
This has been one of my pet peeves for a long time. I believe that
different people have different ways of feeling loved. Some people
like jewelry or flowers, others want hugs, and others just want to be
listened to. I don’t think there’s a right way to love someone.
Similarly, there are no wrong ways to feel loved (we’re ignoring
extreme cases of abuse etc here). For a multitude of reasons, we all
develop our own definitions of love and our own ways of looking at a
relationship and feeling loved.
I think our first instinct is to love someone the way we like to be
loved. If we like attention, then we give the other person attention.
If we like flowers, then we buy presents, etc. I don’t think there’s
any harm in this, initially when we don’t know someone very well,
it’s the best option we have. But once we’ve gotten to know our
partner somewhat. loving them the way they like to be loved gives us
two major advantages. One, it shows the other person that we’re
paying attention to their wants and needs. Two, it makes it easier
since it focuses our efforts to please that person and makes them
more effective each time.
Of course, I think there’s value in recognizing when your partner is
trying to show you how much they love you, in their own way as well.
If your partner is the kind of person who never buys flowers and he
comes home with flowers one day, this shows a significant effort and
should, of course, make you happy (unless the flowers are due to some
guilt.) But knowing the ways the other person feels loved saves so
much time and effort in a relationship. It may be hard in the
beginning to make enough attention to find the ways, but you can also
ask. I think, in an honest relationship, there’s no reason to play
guessing games. If I care about you, and about making our
relationship last, I have no trouble telling you what actions or
things make me feel loved. This way you’re not wasting your time
trying things that work on you, on me. I am happy and loved and so
are you. Why would people prefer to play guessing games instead?
There’s no award for getting there on your own. The award is for
knowing and for doing the actions that make the other person feel
loved. Sure it’s nice to know that you paid attention but it’s much
nicer to know that you’re going out of your way and your personal
understanding of how to show love, just for me. Just to make sure I
am feeling loved by you. That’s all that matters. Imagine how much
smoother a relationship would be if both parties were honest about
what would make them feel loved and if both partners actually did
these? There would be no need for guessing, assuming and worrying.
I think part of being an adult is knowing yourself and not being
afraid to share that with the people you love. Knowing what you need
and asking for it. Knowing that those who really care for you will do
their best to show it, in a way you understand.
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