Happy Valentine’s season my fellow comrades. I know this can be a sensitive time for many of us and it can also be a time for envy and anger. Well I am here to tell you that perfect partners don’t exist, and you would be doing yourself a favor to stop watching those perfect sappy love story movies right now.

Did you ever stop to think about how you feel after watching one of these movies? Do you feel lonely, maybe you feel a little bit of anger because you wish your partner could be like the person in the movies? I am guilty of this too, but one day I started analyzing my feelings after these emotions and let me tell you I have made quite a few discoveries.

What Really is Valentine’s Day?

First, the movies want you to have that gut wrenching emotional tie. That is what makes them so good! What they don’t tell you, is that these are fairy-tales. They like to pretend that these are based upon real stories, or situations. Well “based” can literally just mean it was about 2 people who fell in love. Don’t let that catch you off guard. Also don’t let the illusions fog up your relationship. Most of these people don’t exist, and that is just fine! I have a wonderful husband, truly amazing, he’s not perfect, nor am I!

How Valentine’s Day Relates to my Relationship:

I used to get angry because I wished my husband would do certain things. Such as plan a romantic weekend, or remember to pick me up flowers every week because that’s what the movies tell us right? How wrong is this thinking really? It’s actually very wrong. I also thought that valentine’s day was this super big holiday with all these check boxes and expectations, you can probably guess it again, I was wrong! See the trend here? Don’t worry we will get to the real blog here in a moment and no more ranting about the commercialized modern-day treatment of Valentine’s day.

Let me tell you what my husband DOES do for me. I first learned his love language and that is so important to learn about your partner’s love language. It helps you understand how they love you, and what they really need to feel loved. We are all a little different. I highly recommend reading the short book about love languages. I believe this can really strengthen any relationship. For us, it strengthened our marriage.

Love Language:

My love language for example is words of affirmation. I always tell my husband in detail all the things he does for me that mean so much to me. I tell him I love you, but I go further than just a simple statement. I tell him that I love that you take time out of your day to do the dishes on lunchtime, so I don’t have to do them when I get home. I tell him that he is a hard worker and that he is kind. I thank him for the daily affirmation he gives me and his desire to talk with me on deeper levels than just how the weather was.

We go into a deeper conversation. I will go into the value of working towards deeper conversations in another blog. To keep it short, we go farther than how was your day. How did that experience make you feel? How are you emotionally doing? What made you feel good today? What are your goals, or what do we want to work together on? Even scarier, what are you afraid of? What made you feel sad about that topic that day, or unheard? I do encourage you to go deeper in your conversations.

Knowing your Husband’s Love Language:

My husband’s love language is acts of service. Some might pause and say wait, doesn’t that mean planning over the top events and gifts, and all that jazz? Well, no. You have to notice the small things and appreciate anything and everything. It has become a part of our routine, but I still tell my husband how much it means to me that he still does these acts of service for me. He knows a lot of the time what I need before I realize I even need some things. He always brings me a glass of water before bed because I always need it. He always turns on my heated blanket and straightens my pillow for me.

I didn’t even realize I needed my pillow moved in this certain spot. He always makes sure to push the cart at the grocery store because he knows we fill it and it gets heavy; he always returns the cart when we’re done shopping while I sit in a nice warm car.

They Always Know:

He asks me what I need when he gets up. Making me special little treats and always offers me the last slice of dessert. He doesn’t sigh when he helps with the housework (even though he refuses to clean a toilet.) He says “yes” and never no. He always goes to the store with me, just to spend time together and he knows that I get anxiety going places myself and always offers to drive us around. He holds my hand in the car when I unknowingly start tapping my hand and my leg out of anxiety. He always knows how to make me feel safe and calm, even though I always don’t verbalize what I am needing. This is what the movies should be made out of. This is the real-life love story.

Stereotypical?

There are so many stereotypes out there about what a “perfect” relationship should be like. I would be more worried if someone said that they have a perfect relationship rather than saying they have issues in their relationship. That is real life, and that is healthy. I will say that I love my husband, and I do love the way that he loves me. It’s unconditional, passionate, loving, funny and so much more.

We are nowhere perfect; we have our issues and fights just like anyone else but that just makes us humans. Remember that the movies never really show the hard stuff, they don’t show the everyday routines and lifestyles. Although I am a sucker for the Notebook, I like to take the time to remember after that it’s just a fairytale, an enjoyable movie and that is just fine.

What we Should be Doing for Our Valentine:

Learn each other’s love languages as soon as possible. Don’t just think of them for Valentine’s day. It’s something for some reason that can be an awkward topic to discuss. I remember the first time we talked about it, it felt so odd, like I was pulling a psychology analyzing experiment or something, but really, I just want to learn how to be a better wife to my husband.

I also think that love languages can apply to any relationship you have. My mom is a gift giver, she really enjoys getting small things for everyone in her life, she likes to see the emotions when someone gets the items they really wanted. I try to make her gifts special when giving back so she feels the same warmth that she would when giving a gift.

Happy Love Day, Every Day.

As we come to end, the real take away is that no love story is perfect. It’s not a romance novel, it’s not the gushy movie, but it can be so much more. Learn your love language and then learn someone else’s language. I challenge you to try this, this Valentine’s day. Try to learn and accept people for how they love one another. We all have ways of showing love, and each is different and beautiful.

I would love to know what your love language is in the comment section. If you are interested in checking out some more amazing writers, make sure and follow us on Facebook for all the up to date blogs! Find my other blogs here!