After
dinner one night, Kevin Gordon told girlfriend Noreen Lark that he had a surprise
for her at his apartment. They had
been dating for about a year, and Noreen was intrigued by the mystery. When they arrived, Kevin showed her a gift
wrapped object on the wall. Opening
it, Noreen discovered a portrait of herself ----- one that artist Kevin had
lovingly and painstakingly done. She
was wearing a white suit, a red blouse ----- and a ring on the third finger
of her left hand.
“What’s
this?” she asked.
“I
don’t have a ring.”
“That’s your engagement ring!” answered Kevin.
“Will you marry me?”
“Say it again,” Noreen requested.
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said, as she hugged him.
“Yes!”
Noreen eventually got her real diamond ring, but
the one in Kevin’s painting means even more to her.
Saying “I love you” in smaller, less spectacular
ways can be equally meaningful. Patricia
Sanders, for instance, was walking with a friend one afternoon when she suddenly
veered into a greeting-card shop, selected a card and addressed it to her
husband at work.
The friend looked puzzled. “Is it Tom’s birthday?” she asked. “Or your anniversary?”
“No,” Pat said.
“But he’ll open it at the office tomorrow and know
that I was thinking about him.”
Expressions of affection shouldn’t be limited to
one or two days of the year. “Candy
gets stale and flowers wither,” says Leo Buscaglia, psychologist and author
of Born for Love. “Words and deeds that say ‘you enrich my life’ go on forever.”
Psychologist Sarah Catron, who has conducted many
workshops, still recalls a morning 15 years ago. She was studying for an all important exam for a graduate degree
and looked up too see her husband, David, stooped over in the front yard. She was puzzled until he came over and handed
her a cluster of lucky four-leaf clovers with the wish “I hope your day goes
well.”
“Some people might say it’s a little unimportant
thing,” Catron declares. “But think
what that ‘little unimportant’ moment meant to me! Knowing he was with me carried me throughout the day.”
Indeed, sometimes the most appreciated expressions
of love are simple, everyday things ----- what Catron calls “the romance of the unromantic.”
“Clark helps me fold the laundry.” Ruth Achelpohl says of her husband of 34 years.
“You have to love somebody a lot to do that.”
Performing trivial but burdensome chores for your spouse, like, taking
her car to be washed, picking up her clothes from the cleaners, can be acts
of love.
But messages of love between spouses sometimes get
crowded out in today’s hectic world. “Often
the kids, the boss, older parents, community affairs and mortgage payments
gets the attention, and husbands and wives forge how to show how they feel
for each other,” says psychologist Howard Markham. How can you best celebrate your love throughout
the year? Here are suggestions from
the experts:
Surprise Each Other
Pat Sanders’s spontaneous card, unexpected messages
that say “I’m thinking of you when we’re apart” speak volumes. Preparing a sandwich for his lunch one day
Mike Yarbrough discovered a slip of paper tucked between slices of bread. “I love you” his wife, Suanne, had written,
knowing that he would find her message. Several
days later, Suanne noticed an elaborately wrapped surprise on the front seat
of her car as she set off for work. She opened it and laughed with delight to find under all the bows
and paper, a package of her favorite cookies.
“Some of the best expressions of love don’t cost
anything and don’t take two minutes’ time,” Catron says. When she and her husband are at a social or
public event, he will sometimes wink at her from across the room. One professional woman recalls accidentally
meeting her husband on the street. Instead
of going on to his appointment, he turned around and walked her back to her
office, chatting all the way. “It
was the most thrilling that had happened to me in ages,” she says.
“Kidnap” Each Other
One day Mike Yarbrough secretly packed Suanne’s clothes
and arranged for a baby-sitter. As
planned, he picked her up after work for dinner. But afterward, instead of heading home, Mike
drove 20 miles to a hotel where he had reserved a suite. They spent a romantic evening together. Such pleasant interludes help Mike and Suanne
keep their marriage refreshed and enlivened.
Schedule A “Nothing Day”
Linda and Bill McConahey have busy schedules. But every month or two they compare calendars
and choose a day and mark in big letters: “NOTHING.”
They take off from work, pass up social events; and
just spend the time enjoying each other.“It’s a truly free day,” Linda says. “We might stay at home and read, go for a walk
in the park, have a picnic, go sailing or skiing. One day we cleaned out a closet. It’s all spontaneous. The point isn’t what we do, but that we’re
doing it together.”
Other couples simply sleep late and spend the day
shopping or browsing in a museum. Some
partners take turns planning the “date,” then surprise the other. The objective isn’t the lavish outing, but
leisurely enjoyment and a sense of vacation.
Get Physical
There are times when an embrace beats all words.
“I’m for bear hugs,” says Buscaglia.
“Nothing shows how you feel about someone like throwing both arms around
them and giving a real squeeze.” But
the casual arm around the waist or a pat on the shoulders also says “I love
you.” Or try giving your mate a massage. Clark and Ruth Achelpohl shower together.
Sometimes lovemaking follows these demonstrations of love; sometimes
it doesn’t. The expression of love can stand on its own.
Look Back
Shared memories rekindle loving feelings. The cues can be verbal ----- “remember the
blizzard when the electricity went off and we snuggled in front of the fireplace?”
The cues can be visual ----- you shut off the TV and look at old photo
albums, savoring and treasuring the memories there.
When Linda and Bill McConahey were married, they
took a camping trip. Operating on
a newlyweds’ budget, they slept in a tent and ate out of cans. Linda faithfully recorded it all in a journal.Fifteen years later, when they took the children
on the same trip, this time staying in motels and eating in restaurants, they
read from the journal every night.
“Wow,” said son Struan after hearing about an evening
spent in a rain-soaked tent. “You
must have really loved each other to do that!”
“And we did,” Linda says. “The memories from that journal reminded us
how much.”
Have A Good Ear
Puri Laconico says her husband, Ramon, shows his
love in a very simple way. He listens
with full attention. “When I had a
problem at the office that he could see was troubling me,” she says, “he turned
off the TV, sat down and said, “Tell me about it.” I talked and he listened. It
was like confiding in a good friend you can really trust. To me, that’s love ----- showing that you’re
each others best friend.”“When you ask couples what means more to them in
their relationship,” says Markman, “friendship gets higher marks with most
of them than either sex or financial security.”
Ask Each Other
Just because you love each other doesn’t mean you’re
mind readers. Frequently, partners
don’t adequately communicate their likes and dislikes. Sometimes women say, “But if he really loved
me, he’d know what I like.” The news
may come as a surprise to their partners.
Often spouses make misguided assumptions about their
marital roles. “But a man always takes out the garbage!” one
woman protested during a couples’ seminar.
“My father always did.”
To help you and your partner express love for each
other, Markman suggests taking a pencil and paper and doing this exercise. Write “I would like you to do for me. . .”
and “I will do for you. . .” Then
act on your lists. “This simple exercise
will give a couple ways to express love throughout the year,” Markman says.
“As human beings, we need to feel loved and accepted,”
says Mike Yarbrough. “It’s not enough
to say ‘I love you’ and not follow up. You have to do both.
Sensuality is the spark that
keeps
the fire burning in marriage.
