Are You Fulfilling Your Partner’s Love Strategy?
We all have a “love strategy,” a way in which we prefer to be shown love. Most people are conscious of their own love strategy (e.g., I know I am loved when my partner tells me he loves me; I know I am loved when my partner buys me flowers; I know I am loved when my partner hugs me in that special way). Others may not be conscious of how they want to be loved. However, they will always communicate it somehow.
To identify your partner’s love strategy, it is helpful to observe your partner’s actions; how they show love is most often the same way they want it themselves.
What we tend to forget is that our partner’s love strategy may not necessarily be the same as our own. This is where problems arise. For instance, let’s say that you associate “being loved” with physical affection and you are in a relationship with someone who associates “being loved” with being complimented.
On Valentine’s Day, you give your partner a big hug and a box of chocolate, yet you fail to notice how great she looks in her new dress. She gets disappointed and fails to show any physical affection. Now you feel rejected. Neither one of you has had your love strategy fulfilled.
A cycle of misunderstandings can be created even from the best intentions. The failure is not for lack of love or trying! It comes simply as a result of not being aware of each other’s strategies for giving and receiving love.
The key to a more fulfilling relationship is to elicit and utilize each other’s love strategies. Elicit each other’s love strategy by asking your partner, “Can you remember a time when you knew you were totally loved? A specific time?
As you think of that time, in order to know that you are totally loved is it absolutely necessary for you to be:
- Taken places and bought things or shown in other ways; OR
- That you hear it in that special way with that special tone of voice; OR
- That you be touched in that special way?
Melany Friedlander is a certified hypnotherapist and the owner of Hypnoswitch in Santa Monica, CA. She welcomes your questions and comments.
Photo by Shanissinha
