1.) Words of Affirmation
2.) Acts of Service
3.) Quality Time
4.) Physical Touch
It's a fantastic way to learn what makes your spouse feel loved by you and teach your spouse what makes you feel loved. Once you know how to say "I love you" to your spouse, you can express it more often and know that your spouse is being filled and encouraged by you instead of wondering if he appreciated that you made him his favorite meal or that you set a whole evening aside to spend time just with him. Mark and I read up on this book and took the quizzes as part of our pre-marital counseling and we still talk about it every so often to confirm that we are loving each other in the way that we need to be loved.
Recently Mark and I were talking about our love languages and revisiting how we feel the most loved. Mark said that his love language is Acts of Service. Recently he feels the most loved when I do things for him around the house like chores that he hasn't had the chance to get to or running errands for him, etc.
I've tried to keep that in mind and thought I would include that as part of Mark's Valentines gift this year. I decided the first 14 days leading up to Valentines I would do little acts of kindness for him each day. It's such a simple and (almost) free way to make him feel a little extra love during this month thats all about celebrating love! I sat down and wrote out a list to make sure I had something for each day. I haven't necessarily done these in order, and I still have a few days left to do some acts of service (obviously, its only Feb 9th) but I just thought I'd share my list with you here incase you need a little inspiration for showing love to your "Acts of Service" spouse this Valentines Day!
1.) Take out the trash and roll the trashcans down to the curb on garbage day
2.) Buy him his favorite ice cream
3.) Bring him a warm towel after he takes a shower
4.) Mow the side yard - our grass is growing like crazy with this mild winter
5.) Clean out his closet and add a shelf - I've been meaning to do this for months!
6.) Make his favorite meal
7.) Return the library books for him
8.) Clean out his car
9.) Organize bills/documents in our office
10.) Bake him his favorite cake
11.) Re-install light over our kitchen sink (I broke it recently and it had to be taken it down!)
12.) Straighten up garage
13.) Change the burnt out light bulbs around the house
14.) Get the tires rotated on my car - he's been wanting to get this done for months!
Everyone feels loved by all of the 5 categories (its just that 1 or 2 make you feel the most loved) so even if your love language isn't Acts of Service, everyone likes having little things done for them from time to time and these
Some other things I thought of but don't exactly fit into the "Act of Service" category, but do still count as acts of kindness -
1.) leave a sweet note on their car or in their lunch box
2.) pack their lunch for them, get up earlier than they do and make them breakfast and/or coffee,
3.) iron their work clothes, plan a at home movie date night and let him pick the movie,
4.) offer to give him a back or foot rub
5.) give him a sincere and unexpected compliment
6.) text him during the day to let him know you're thinking of him
7.) pick up his favorite drink and have it waiting for him in the fridge
8.) bring him breakfast in bed
9.) surprise him at work with his favorite (homemade?!) goodies
10.) Order him something online so he gets something fun in the mail - packages are always fun!
Do you have any other ideas?
If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend picking up the book or visiting their website and taking their profile quiz to help identify your love language. Knowing your love language is great for marriage relationships, parent/child relationships and just to have a better understanding of yourself.
Have you taken the Love Language test? If so, I'd love to know you're Love Language! Mine is Words of Affirmation with Physical Touch as a close second!
How are you showing love to your significant other this Valentines?
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