Chapter Three From

Marriage Made Easy

He Loves Differently Than You Do

“Men are just little boys – but luckily not all over.”

JERRY HALL

D

eep

is the first word that comes to mind when I think about how men love; deep,

quiet, subtle, and hidden. That’s because they keep a lot of what they’re feeling to
themselves. One reason is that they’re unfamiliar with expressing their feelings. They
haven’t had the practice so they don’t know how. They’ve never developed the language
to do so. The other is that they aren’t comfortable with that kind of thing. Think about it.
If you’d been taught since you were little that it’s not okay to cry, not okay to show fear,
not okay to get mushy about love, basically, not okay to express your emotions, do you
think you would be very expressive? If you’re honest, you’ll answer no. (Men Made Easy
explains why this is in great depth.)

There are a lot of emotions that can be fairly well ignored but love is not one of

them. Love is such a huge, all-encompassing emotion that when a man feels it, it seems
like an earth-shaking event. Men are cautious about letting themselves feel too much. It
feels to them like they’re losing control. From your perspective it appears that he’s not
showing his love. But it could very well be that he’s scared because he’s feeling so much.
When a man finally gives in to love he lets it fill him up, warming him completely. And
all those feelings are because of what you do to him, how you make him feel. He feels
alive for maybe the first time in his life. He’s grateful and at the same time he’s scared.

One of the primary differences between men and women is that men are generally

less expressive. This is nothing new to you. Since men often have difficulty even feeling
their emotions, they certainly can’t tell you or anyone else about them. Don’t get me
wrong, they feel deeply but they just don’t know what to do with those feelings. Because
they have been taught since they were little boys not to do anything that could be
construed as sissy, most men pushed down, ignored, and never learned to acknowledge
their emotions. So your husband is not likely to get too mushy, even though mushy is
probably what you want. He’s more inclined, and certainly more comfortable, expressing
his love through action. He prefers to do something: buy something, slay dragons,
impress you with his strength, smarts, lovemaking skills, or fast cars. Vroom, vroom! We
don’t see this as very tender, and certainly not mushy. But it’s important that you know
this about him because it will help you be less critical and less disappointed by
expectations. It might not feel very good at the moment, but you need to raise your level

of compassion and lower your expectations. It’s important that you understand that if you
expect more than he can give you then you set yourself up for failure right from the start.

When you were first falling in love he was probably very attentive, doing and

saying enough to cause you to swoon with delight. But when the fireworks died down,
which they inevitably do, what’s left is probably a lot less romance than you would like.
To him, going to work to provide a home and financial security for you and the kids
(even if you both work) is a daily gift of love. This is the kind of action I’m talking about.
Kind of like the hunter who goes out onto the plains and comes back, proud as can be,
“Honey, here’s dinner,” as he throws a dead animal at her feet. You can see the problem
this creates when what you want is flowers and poetry. When a man marries, the primary
issue he needs to wrestle with is whether or not he is ready to take on the responsibility of
a wife and family. Once he makes this decision, then that becomes his primary focus.
And because he’s doing it for you, in his mind, he’s showing his love in a gigantic way,
each and every day.

I say this not to get you to stop wanting the show of affection that you crave but to

help you understand that he does love you, and will need a little patience as he
incorporates LPT into his way of interacting with you. He likes to know specifically what
he needs to do to make you happy. That’s why he doesn’t like the hints and guessing. For
one thing, which is really scary to him, he doesn’t want to get it wrong. He could look
bad and/or you could get angry or hurt. That’s one reason he just might like this book,
because he’ll have clear directions. He’ll come around if you nudge him along in a
loving, patient way. No badgering though because that will only backfire on you.

How People Express and Receive Love

I need to explain how he receives love, but first let’s talk generalities. Something that
most people don’t think about is the fact that people give and receive love in a myriad of
ways. Most often, but not always, it has to do with how people learned about love in their
families. If the family does a lot of touching, like hugging, sitting on the parent’s laps,
kissing, stroking, and hand holding, the children will often be touchers. They will need to
be touched to feel loved. That also means that they will offer touch as their way to
express their love.

Other families might give gifts. Those children grow up feeling loved when

someone gives them something. And, again, when they want to show their truest, deepest
love, they will give a gift.

Some families are more inclined to express love through words. They need to be

told they are loved for them to feel loved and they like to show their love with words. As
a consequence, most people give love, at least their deepest expressions of love, in the
way that they like to receive it; as they were taught in their family as they grew up. It’s

comfortable, natural, and if they haven’t thought to do it differently, it’s a habit.

Sometimes it has more to do with what a person longed for but never got. Maybe

they saw what their best friend got from their parents and wished they could have that
kind of love. No matter where it comes from or how it starts, most everyone has a
preferred way of feeling loved and they offer that as their greatest gift. But if the types of
love don’t match up, there can be some pretty serious miscommunication. You can see
one of the problems that many couples have, can’t you?

If you are someone who feels loved via words, but he feels loved by touching,

he’s going to touch and you’re going to want more words. You say to him, “You never
tell me you love me,” and he’s thinking, ‘I tell you all the time. Didn’t we just have sex
last night, don’t I kiss you every night when I get home, every morning when I leave?’ If
you aren’t aware of these differences, there is always going to be a conflict. He’s not
going to feel as loved when you tell him, and you’re not going to feel as loved when he
touches you.

That’s a basic and extremely important difference between people that everyone

should be made aware of. Knowing this will allow you to find out from each other how
you like to receive love. Then you can be sure to incorporate those kinds of expressions
of love into your relationship. I would suspect that most people don’t know how their
partner best receives love. Actually, I suspect that most people don’t know how they
themselves receive love. It takes some soul-searching to figure that out. But it is one of
the most important things a couple can learn about each other. So I would advise that you
and your husband have an intimate discussion on this topic and find out what each of
your styles of loving is.

The great thing about discovering this is that when he shows his love, sometimes

it will be offered in his favorite, natural style. Other times, he’ll remember what your
style is and express his love so you receive it at a deeper, more visceral level. The
important thing is that you become aware of this so you can better give and receive all
types of love.

The reason this wasn’t a problem when you were falling in love and even in the

first few years of your relationship is that in that stage, you were both doing a wide
variety of things to express your love to each other so all the bases were being covered all
the time. It’s when things slowed down that the old habits of childhood expressions of
love fell into a routine. And that’s probably about when you started questioning your
partner’s love. Isn’t it ironic that this is so seldom talked about?

How Men Express and Receive Love

Now let’s get more specific about how men are taught to experience love. Even though
they grew up with a favored style of expressing and receiving love, the social pressures
that cause little boys to avoid anything sissy cause most boys to avoid pretty much all

expressions of true love. The only way that males are encouraged to be close to a female
is sexually.

As I mentioned, men are more likely to want to do something to show their love;

buying gifts, making love, fixing things, going to work, providing a home, changing oil,
mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, etc. Men have the most difficulty expressing love
with words because that’s getting too close to being emotional. Men whose family’s style
of showing love was with words will do a little better than other men, but it’s still a
stretch for them. Consequently, most men are not going to be as thrilled with your cards,
letters, poems, and general mushiness as you are. You will get giddy about a poem you
wrote and he probably won’t be as excited as you want him to be. Don’t be disappointed.
He’ll like it, just not as much as if you took off all your clothes and attacked him with
wild, passionate lovemaking. But that’s okay. All expressions of love are good.

Even though there are preferences, no person receives love in just one way,

thankfully. So it’s good to keep him guessing so neither of you gets bored. Each type
should be used because variety and surprise are part of what keeps things bright,
rainbow-colored and fun. You will both need to be vigilant so that things don’t slip back
into black and white.

The most important thing is that you two do this together. You will read this

book, and he’ll read the men’s version. Then you can make a pact to use the ideas to help
revive the love, the fun, and the play, so once again the relationship and each other
becomes a focus and a priority. Once you incorporate LPT into your relationship and
your daily lives, the work part is simply keeping your relationship and the love you share
at the top of your to-do list. It sounds easy but life keeps sneaking in there, trying to push
itself into the number one spot. So it’s essential that you remind yourselves to keep the
daily ‘I love you’s’ at the top of the to-do list until it becomes habit. Someday, when you
two are old and gray, you’ll look back and laugh at the time when you had to
purposefully put each other and your relationship at the top of the list. But because it will
have been a habit for many years by then, you will have a love life that is glowing with
all the colors of the rainbow.

Life without love isn’t worth a whole lot. If you have children, raising them

without both parents is a crummy thing to do to them. I grew up without a dad and I
missed out on some really important stuff. If you’re still together, you owe it to your kids
to keep your love alive. For two reasons: one is so you stay together as a family and the
other is so you give them a role model of what a happy, healthy marriage is all about.
What better gift of parenting could you give them? Toys and shoes that light up are
nothing compared to a loving family life.

Children learn what they live. You want your children to have a happy healthy

loving relationship in their lives someday. They need to know what that is in order to
create one. Even if you’re living with stepchildren, they can still learn how a healthy
relationship can be. You are teaching them every day of their lives, whether you mean to

or not. They learn by watching you, every moment they’re in your presence. So you
might as well be conscious about it and do it well.

Use LPT so your life is filled with love and your relationship stays vibrant and

glowing. Recommit to each other at least once a month, prioritize your love by putting it
number one on your to-do list, then sprinkle at least one unique way of saying ‘I love
you’ into each day.

• • • • •

P.S. Would you like more love, passion, romance and commitment? If you’re married or
living together and feel like your relationship could use a pick-me-up you will want to
take a look at Marriage Made Easy. You can learn all about it

here

.

P.P.S. For other great resources, romance ideas and articles visit

AliveWithLove.com

often.

Wishing you much love and romance,