Silent Love

I've been with the boy for over a year now. It's been a pretty rocky ride, and as much as I would like to place all of the blame on him, I can't. We've had issues that have been worked through, but one thing that always bothered me was not feeling like he made an effort to show me that he loves me. I know he loves me. I can see it in the way he looks at me. I can see it in the way he's changed some of his behaviors. I feel loved by him. So, what's the problem? 

The problem has always been that the two of us show love in very different ways. I've spent a good portion of this relationship looking for him to show me love in the ways that I show it and can see it. I was texting one of my best friends, frustrated about something stupid, and she told me that in order for me to really see the ways that he shows me he loves me, I need to take my expectations for how he should be showing me he loves me and toss them. You know what? She was right. 

I've spent this past year only looking at the ways I WANTED him to show me love. Sure, I worded it more in a "I need to show me love like this" sort of way, but if I'm really being honest with myself, I wanted him to show me love in a way that made it easy for me to see and was comfortable for me. After talking with my friend K, she reminded me that his love language and mine are probably so different that I can't even begin to think of how he shows me love. My co-worker, A, agreed with her. 

After looking over the love languages, A told me that it's obvious that his love language is physical touch, where as that is my lowest language of love. Perhaps the reason that I don't see the ways in which he loves me is that I place such a low value on the love language he places such a high value one. I learned that I needed to readjust my thinking, and I've started to try to be more aware of looking for ways that HE shows me versus ways I WANT him to show me.

One of the greatest examples that I have actually occurred last night. The boy is a Cowboys fan and I'm a Saints fan. Anyone watching that game last night knows that my Saints forgot how to play football on the flight from NOLA to Dallas. As we were watching the game together, I noticed at halftime that it was as if I was watching the game with one of my friends who doesn't care about sports. The boy REALLY gets into his team's games, and yet he hadn't cheered at all...in fact, at the end of the game, I realized that he never cheered once. He only acknowledged two plays that he felt should have been reversed, but even then, there was no yelling at the TV, just a look and a grunt. 

It was at that moment that I realized what he wasn't doing showed me loved me more than anything he could have actually done or said in that moment. He knew how upset I was, and he didn't want to do anything else that could add to that hurt. The boy a year ago would not have been like that. (In fact, the boy a year ago was NOT like that but the tables were reversed.) The boy, a year ago, would have cheered with every Cowboy touchdown, argued with every call against the Cowboys, and gotten his digs in both online and in real life.

 The boy with me last night, was not the same boy I started dating a year ago. The boy with me last night made me realize that I don't want to be the same girl that he started dating a year ago. The boy with me last night taught me one of the most important lessons I've ever learned about love. Sometimes, it's the things that we don't do that show a person how much we love them.