When Love Looks Like a Multiple Choice Quiz

The morning started off roughly between us.  He didn't know I had slept poorly, I was still in bed when he had to get ready for a half-day of work, and I was really annoyed by all the noise he and the kids were making as they got ready for their day.  When I commented that he was so loud, he said he was sorry but he had to get ready for work.  Then he left the room, but didn't close the bedroom door.  When he came back in a few minutes later to let me know he was leaving for work, I turned away and ignored him.  So he went to work.  I laid there thinking how rude he had been to not even ask if I wasn't feeling well or hadn't slept well.  Then I got up and started my day.  

By the time he got home for lunch, I had gone back to bed with my door closed, so tired from insomnia the night before, not really hungry, and just interested in being left alone.  I heard him come in the house, get himself and the kids their meal together, and pondered how I felt.  "He doesn't love me."  That was my primary thought, followed by, "He prioritizes work over our relationship.  I don't matter."  But then I thought, "I'm going to give him a chance to prove me wrong." 

"Let's see, if he wants to show me he loves me, he'll:

1) Come in and check on me, because it's unusual that I would be in bed at this time of day.

or

2) Come in just to put his work things away and let me know he'll keep the family quiet so I can rest.

3) Come in and offer to make me lunch and bring it in to me."

Yes, I really was giving my husband a litmus test on whether or not he loved me, unbeknownst to him.  Really mature, right?

But then I realized how unfair I was being.  Yes, perhaps my expectations for the morning hadn't been met.  Perhaps he didn't perfectly communicate a loving connection before going to work.  But I was ignoring the 20+ years of marriage which is full of evidence of his love for me.  And I decided it was unrealistic to put specific options in my mind for him to fulfill to make it up to me how I felt he had behaved in the morning.  So I added a third option.

"4) Other."  My husband was free to express his love to me in other ways besides what I thought I would prefer or thought I deserved.  His other usually comes in the form of helping me around the house, giving me a break from the children, or a number of other gestures which are thoughtful and done to help me in some way.

Ideally, I might like it if my husband filled my desire to be loved in all the ways that I prefer, but to expect that always is unrealistic.  And it's also selfish of me to have an uncommunicated expectation.  He knows my love language, and I have told him what really communicates love to me many times.  But those ways are not a box in which I should confine my husband.  Instead, from now on, I hope I can choose to look at the ways my husband is expressing his love for me in ways "Other" than how I imagine he should.  He is a unique individual, and I want him to express his love to me in the ways that only he uniquely can.

Yes, I decided, I would be willing to accept option #4) Other.  So I got up, went into the kitchen and ate lunch with my family without a chip on my shoulder or unrealistic expectations, and I'm glad I did.