How Ways of Loving Came to Be

HELPING COUPLES INCREASE THE LOVE THEY FEEL

Why doesn’t my wife feel loved when I love
her more than anything?

Over the years, I’ve sat with countless couples who have found themselves asking this same question. I’m thinking of a conversation that has played out in my office many times, where the wife is describing all the ways she has felt unloved throughout their marriage. She talks about the things she’s longed for, the gestures that never came, and the emotional connection she has spent years hoping they would find. She also names numerous recent scenarios that all point to the lack of connection she feels, including something like, “And when he comes home he goes right to the bathroom and takes a shower, like I don’t even exist!”

Her husband sits across from her, almost dumbfounded. He genuinely has no idea that she feels this way. When she complains about things he just writes it off as her complaining. Why? Because she speaks in criticisms and he hears criticism. He doesn’t hear, “I wish I felt closer  to you.”

After hearing her name one scenario after another, he gets frustrated and loudly speaks something like, “I love you so much. Everything I do every day says I love you. I get up, I go to work, I provide for our family. I do everything you ask me to do. We spend time together. I’ve given up my friends. I barely have hobbies anymore. I’ve given up so much for this relationship. What else can I possibly do to show you that I love you?”

And there they are. Two people who have spent years loving each other, but who have come to understand and experience that love in very different ways. She feels terribly unloved, while he can’t understand how everything he has given to their marriage isn’t enough.

I experience versions of this conversation all the time in my work with couples, and I wish they had understood these differences long before the hurt, anger, and resentment began to build. Could you imagine, having a guidebook on understanding the difference between loving someone, and how to show up in your relationship in ways they  feel loved? Because those are two very different things: Just because you love someone doesn’t mean they feel loved.

I wanted couples to be able to talk about what makes them feel loved, what they learned about love growing up, and perhaps even discover ways of loving that they hadn’t considered before. I want them to understand that the way we naturally give love isn’t necessarily the way our partner experiences it, and that we can learn to become more thoughtful and intentional about both. Mostly, I want couples to have an opportunity to build their relationships on a foundation of thoughtful, intentional ways of loving, and then continue growing that foundation as their lives and relationships change, rather than waiting until one or both of them begin to feel that something is missing.

And that’s really where Ways of Loving came from.

I’ve been crafting a book called Relationships 101, and this is a necessary chapter in the book. I can’t wait until its out. For now, I’ve released this piece of it. A little gem of a book, “Ways of Loving“.

*This reflection represents a familiar conversation I’ve encountered throughout my years working with couples. It is not the story of any one couple.