photo credit: michelle tribe

In the midst of exchang­ing cards, flow­ers, candy, and trin­kets, let’s all maan attempt to really lis­ten to our loved ones. Lis­ten atten­tively, and pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to what’s not being spo­ken just as much as the words uttered. Read between the lines, if you will.

In my opin­ion, there’s a rea­son why so many peo­ple put such an empha­sis on Valentine’s Day pageantry. It’s often because they are look­ing for some sort of val­i­da­tion that’s not pro­vided on all the other days of the year. The day, sadly, becomes filled with tired metaphors and des­per­ate hope for a sig­nif­i­cant other to do or say something…anything…to show that he/she sees the per­son, not merely the role player. A lot of us are guilty of sit­ting around wait­ing for the other per­son to fig­ure us out. In the mean­time, we either go along, or pas­sively aggres­sively drop hints and sig­nals about our true desires.

I chal­lenge every­one in rela­tion­ships, roman­tic or pla­tonic, to dig deeper. Step out of the rou­tine. Find out what really makes your part­ner (or close friend, sib­ling, child or par­ent) tick. You might be sur­prised to dis­cover that that “thing” you thought the per­son loved was politely accepted, but never embraced. It wasn’t their thing…it was yours. We have to get away from sim­ply doing things for oth­ers that we would like for our­selves, and not under­stand­ing what makes the other per­son feel loved and under­stood. As much as you may think you and your loved one are on the same page, there are likely numer­ous occa­sions when you’re not even read­ing the same book. And that’s okay. No one can be every­thing for another per­son, nor should peo­ple expect that from their sig­nif­i­cant others.

If it feels like your sig­nif­i­cant other doesn’t get you, don’t sit pas­sively wait­ing or hop­ing for him or her to have an “Aha!’ moment. Con­versely, if you find your­self think­ing, “I just don’t know what he/she wants,” it just might be time to ask. Don’t let the fear of not know­ing keep you from explor­ing. I can guar­an­tee that there are scores of cou­ples that have been mar­ried for 20+ years, and have reached a point where one per­son (or both) says to the other, “I never knew that about you.”  That hap­pens because peo­ple rely on assump­tions and don’t talk. We fail to acknowl­edge growth and/or change in each other.

So, if you go out for din­ner tonight, why not take the oppor­tu­nity to talk? I mean really talk.  Get beyond the super­flu­ous and ask how you can bet­ter sup­port your part­ner and make him/her feel more loved. If the con­ver­sa­tion is flow­ing, keep it going with a long walk after din­ner. (I would even sug­gest tak­ing long walks every week­end. It’s a good health habit to share, and you’d be sur­prised how much comes up while you’re strolling.)

I wish all of you last­ing love, and mean­ing­ful, reward­ing relationships.