How Does Your Spouse Spell Love?
- Pam and Bill Farrel Crosswalk.com Contributing Writers
- Updated Feb 11, 2008
Listen
Observe
Vary
Extract
Listen
Your spouse will drop hints about the things he or she loves and you can use these hints to create more romance and sizzle in your relationship. For example, if you listen to Bill and me in a casual lunch conversation, you would be apt to find out that Bill loves things like: Football, fishing, cooking, joke telling, and the Bible. If you listen to Pam you’d discover she loves travel, biking, swimming, tennis, laughing, and helping women—and the spa!
It doesn’t take much imagination then to know that if I (Pam) give Bill a day of ocean fishing or if he gave me a day at the spa, we would be more interested in each other at the end of that day. But it doesn’t have to cost a lot. Walking is on both our lists, so an evening stroll is apt to also put us in the mood. Bill and I keep a running list of “loves” we discover about one another while listening.
Observe
On
the TV show Monk, the audience is
awed each week by the detective’s keen skills of observation. You can become a
detective and easily observe what will bless and ignite your spouse:
- What raises stress in your partner—then make a plan to lower it
- What lifts the spirit—then make a plan to repeat it
- What calms the atmosphere—then recreate it
- What things are collectible—then add to it
- When he or she sighs or purrs—then repeat it
- What makes him/her ask for more—then expand it
- What draws him/her to you—then protect it
Vary
For married couples, when it comes to intimacy, don’t get in a rut:
Vary the place, vary the lighting, and vary your invitation. The easiest way to vary the experience is to keep the five senses in mind. Add new sounds/music, add new smells, textures, or tastes. For singles dating, vary your dating locations, and types of dates. Even dinner and a movie can become a rut if it is your weekly ritual. Add in some active dates, some dates with friends and family as well as solo romantic moments to add dimension to your love.
Extract
To extract love, take an old idea and give it a new spin. Personalize it, shake it up, add to it. For example, because we are relationship communicators, we are usually pretty busy around Valentine’s Day. Often we have to be at the NRB (National Religious Broadcasters) conference. No offense to those in Christian radio, but the NRB isn’t the most romantic place to be around on Valentine’s Day. We have decided, however, to make it romantic the years we need to be there. One year, Bill scanned the covers of all the books we have written and made a series of greeting cards with personal love messages that used the titles as a part of a pun. Every hour all day, he gave me a card with a new message and tiny gift. By evening, which we spent with media on a ship in some bay, I was looking for any private space of any kind because I so wanted him! I restrained myself, but he was very glad he spent a little time on the computer the day before.
L.O.V.E: Listen, observe, vary and extract to create a love to look forward to no matter if you are dating, a newlywed—or a couple who has been married for years.
Pam and Bill Farrel are relationship specialists, international speakers and best selling authors of Men are like Waffles, Women are like Spaghetti, Red Hot Monogamy and The First Five Years: Make the Love Investment (www.farrelcommunications.com)
