My love languages are quality time and acts of service. Quality time is the act of giving the other person your undivided attention. I feel love when someone gives me their attention and engages with me in a meaningful way. Acts of service is about going out of your way to do something for me. I feel loved when someone cooks me dinner or fills up my gas tank when it’s empty.
These traits are undoubtably a reflection of how I experienced love in my childhood. Quality time is a learned need from my father. He was the type of Dad that would be at every soccer game cheering me on and regularly leave work early to see me practice before needing to pick me up. I remember one Saturday morning in particular where I felt his love come through in his ability to spend quality time with me. I was nine years old and it was a Saturday morning. We didn’t own a TV for most of my childhood, as my parents either couldn’t afford one or choose to force my little brother and I to find more productive ways to spend our time. Occasionally on the weekends my father would bring a TV home from his office so we could watch a movie or cartoons in the morning. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time but considering how large TV sets were in the 90’s, I can now see how much of a commitment this was for him.
I was in my room, still in my PJ’s and snug in my bed while I begged him to set up the TV before everyone else woke up. My mom was still sound asleep in bed after a late-night hosting one of her famous dinner parties turned dance party and my little brother, five years my junior and still a bothersome toddler, was not up so I had my Dad all to myself. I knew he was eager to start one of the many endless renovation projects on our old home that would keep him locked in the basement for most of the day. But after my relentless whining, he jumped into my small twin bed beside me and agreed to watch one episode of Loony Tunes. Bugs Bunny was up to no good and I could feel my dad laugh in response to his antics next to me. Every time he would laugh I would too. Most of the jokes didn’t make much sense to me but I’d laugh anyway, desperate to be in on the joke with him. It’s in these little moments that I felt loved. When he dropped the business of life (renovations, work, cooking dinner) and chose to enjoy my company instead.
My mom is a lifelong nurturer and has always shown her love through acts of service. I inherited my need for people to do things for me in order to feel loved from her endless doting on me and my brother. I remember one birthday party in particular where she orchestrated the most magical day for me and eight of my friends. I was turning six years old and she organized a theme party fit for a queen. She made each of us a custom crown from cardboard and markers. They were the most elegant paper crowns I’d ever seen and carefully decorated with her artistic hand. Each one was fit for royalty, but mine was just an extra bit bigger and more special than the rest. She’d created a treasure hunt for us, and we chased clues for little gifts all over the house. Each of us got a balloon with a clue to where we could find our hidden treasure and we spent hours trying to pop the balloon in order to find the clue and then began our search of the house and yard.
As a young girl I always felt like I had enough, and yet I could tell that we had less than others. We didn’t go on fancy trips and I was never tanned or had braided beads in my hair after March break like many of the other girls my age. We always had gifts during the usual holiday celebrations, but many times they were things we needed (new winter coat and clothes or art supplies) instead of what we wanted (electronics and frivolous toys that would be forgotten within the week). So gifts never really became my love language and it was something that quickly became less in important in my relationships as I got older as a result.
When I met my husband neither of us really put a lot of weight behind gifts, as neither of us shared a love language associated with gifts. Each year we would feel the pressure to buy birthday, Christmas and Valentines Day gifts for each other from a place that felt forced and inauthentic. Neither of us felt particularly motivated to find the perfect, most well thought out gift for the other, so we quickly fell out of getting gifts for each other all together. We focused instead on spending time together rather than buying an elaborate gift that the other would likely not need or even want. Thank goodness for the ability to return things.
With the pressure off to buy each other gifts, we fell into a lazy habit of not doing anything at all. I’ll take full responsibility for this one, because each time a commercial holiday or celebration rolled around my husband would dutifully ask ‘what do you want?’ or ‘what shall we do?’ and I would confidently respond with ‘nothing, let’s not do anything’. So, he wouldn’t get me anything or plan to do anything. This was fine for the first few years of collectively deciding not to do anything, but recently I’ve felt resentment creep into my body as another holiday rolls around and we do exactly what we agreed on… to do nothing.
I’m not sure where this new desire to pause and celebrate in some form came from. Perhaps it was years of being locked down and the actual inability to do anything because of the pandemic. I noticed it more this past Christmas as like clockwork we made the agreement not to do anything and I was somehow surprised when Christmas Day rolled around and my husband had followed his orders and done nothing. It was in that moment that I was done with not celebrating each other during key milestones or holidays. We make the effort for our children and we should make the effort for our relationship as well. I also decided that if I wanted to forgo the natural progression of not doing anything then I would need to share exactly what my needs are with my husband.
I decided that this Love Day (the next opportunity to celebrate post Christmas) would be the best I’ve ever experienced. And what did I need to make that happen? Once I could understand my needs then and only then could I communicate them with the one person who could help me realize my goal of making this the best Love Day ever.
I started with the gift. I knew I wanted a longer and much warmer bathrobe (coldest winter ever) so I did a little research and sent a link to my husband well in advance so it would arrive on time. Then I purposefully asked my husband to plan something special for us and had him add it to our joint calendar. Quality time and acts of service needs met please. And then I decided that I wanted a beautiful arrangement of flowers. My husband has been buying flowers for me for 10 years and while I’m madly in love with him, he’s terrible at buying me the flowers I want, despite loads of direction. So I decided that this one was something I’d handle. I would buy myself flowers, and not buy flowers from him.
The past weekend my husband arranged for our kids to be at my in-laws (I won the lottery when it comes to in-laws) and he cooked me the most indulgent dinner with all of my favourites. We watched a romantic comedy (he can’t stand these) and went to bed early. All of my favourite things. The next morning, I had my favourite local flower shop (Oleander) deliver the most stunning arrangement of flowers that I’ll enjoy for a couple weeks and had the card read ‘To Myself, just a little reminder of how amazing you are. Love, Nat’. They lovingly included a little box of chocolates and told me they thought I was amazing too. The morning of Love Day, I woke up early to decorate the kitchen with hearts, put out some little gifts (books, art supplies and chocolate) and made my kids a breakfast that called on their love languages.
And that’s how I made this the most magical Love Day ever. By taking the time to understand my needs, communicate them effectively with the people I love, and choosing to take charge of my Love Day plans. No longer wishing and hoping for something different, but instead putting inspired action into place so that I may experience the celebration that meets my needs based on my lived experiences. How I ever thought someone could read my mind to determine my unique love needs is beyond me, and I’m grateful I’ve learned this lesson now. At the end of the day, you just don’t know what you don’t know. So let me share my needs with you. I’m open to hearing yours as well.
