The Habit of Love!

I am a creature of habit. 

Those who know me well, will attest to this.  I live every day with guidelines and to do lists, they help me function.  I don't always like change, but I have learned that it's good in many ways.  When I went through a relationship change, I found that some things that changed in me were good.  I embraced the new way of life and found out a lot about myself.  Along with the physical and emotional changes, I found that there were things about me that were not true anymore, among those things was my Love Language.

What is yours?

Love Language

Many of you have already read and discovered your love language.  If you have not, I encourage you to do so and find out about those close to you.  While counseling couples and individuals over the years, this was often an area that we covered to help people know how to effectively love their spouse or children.   As a habit, we typically tend to love people how we want to be loved.  If we love getting gifts, we may be prone to shower someone with gifts, not realizing they may just want to sit and watch a movie.  Or perhaps we are spending a lot of time with someone, but we don't let them know how we feel about them.   Loving people the way we want to be loved is good, but if it does not work for them, if it has become a habit, we should consider changing.  It takes more commitment from us to listen and to ask questions, to observe those we love and simply pay attention.  Men typically lean towards Words of Affirmation and Physical Touch, but don't put them in a box and think that is all they need.  Women are known to want Gifts and Quality Time, but again, we have to pay attention to who we love, not make a habit that we assume still works.

 Love Language After Divorce

Before 2012, my love language was Acts of Service and Quality Time. That is what people knew about me, that is what I knew about myself.  I enjoyed hanging with my family, watching movies and  I felt loved when the lawn was cut, something in the house was fixed or when my car was washed!  This is what worked for me and I knew and understood it, it became my habit of love, or my habit of feeling loved.   When my marriage ended, I reexamined these areas because something about love seemed to have changed.

I found that sometimes in an attempt to be loved and feel loved, we take what we are getting.  We didn't have much chance for  Quality Time, so I think I may have adopted Acts of Service as a means of measuring love.  The truth is, I used to wash my own car, get the oil changed and worked in my yard years before ever getting married; so that didn't really prove to me that I was loved.   It wasn't until I admitted that after 20 years of marriage, I had settled in a rut; I had substituted real love for a habit of thinking I felt loved, that I had to ask myself, .... "What is my love language?" 

After searching myself and being honest with how I feel now, I have found that I either no longer have  Acts of Service as a primary language, or it simply changed.  In the past few years I finally came to realize that my love language is found in:

Quality Time and Words of Affirmation. 

(I still like the car washed though)

Life can give us situations that we need to grow through.  Somehow as difficult as it was to admit, I actually needed more affirmations than I had before. Difficult to admit when my life prior to was not dependent on others input or opinions of me.   I realize that many of us go through things and don't see the impact it can have on how we feel about love or how we feel about ourselves.  I found myself wanting to KNOW that I an loved instead of going through motions.   I am not sure if  my love language changed after the divorce or if I always had the same need, but adjusted to what I knew I would receive.  Either way, here is my encouragement for you.

LET LOVE CHANGE AND GROW

We are living creatures, much like these plants.  We need room to grow, we need an environment that is conducive to growth, we need to be fed, watered, and nurtured if we are going to grow.  We are all changing and developing every day.  If you have been married or in a relationship any length of time, realize that your spouse may look the same, but they may be very different on the inside.  Allow for each other to grow in and out of what love looked like before. 

Because we are living beings, we are moving beings.  We are not always encouraged the same way, we may not always have the same appetites so we have to be open again to CHANGE.  Sometimes we can get in a default mode to avoid conflict. We have a list of things that help us do life, but unlike plants, we won't just automatically bloom every year.  We have to know what helps us bloom and what lends to us being our best, and our spouse their best.    

Anyone who tells you that your relationship is so unique and it is going to work just because you 'love' each other, has lied to you.  Love is seen not just in how you respond to someone, but how you continue to examine the response they need. Take time to evaluate your love language, see if you are showing and receiving what is needed to have a strong connection.  Every relationship takes work, this is your relationship, feed it , nurture it and watch it grow.

SPIRITUAL NOTE

I can't end without a note about our God.  If we are truly in a RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD, it takes nothing less.  Knowing His heart and  talking to Him about our relationship.  Spending quality time with Him, praising Him with words of affirmation and our acts of service in His house.  The greatest gift we can give Him is our heart, then He in turn gives us all that ...along with a physical touch!  He so loves us, if you don't know Him, take time to talk to Him.  He knows what we need, He knows where He is taking us. He has plans and as we follow Him, not only will we be greatly loved, but we will also understand how to love back.