In this episode:

What we learned from too many years of expectations and let-downs is that gift-giving out of obligation dictated by the calendar isn’t what has kept us together. What has held us together is that my husband treats me with the same genuine love every day of the year.

Inspired Life
Gift giving is not my love language. And it isn’t my husband’s either. Lord knows it isn’t!
Valentine’s Day used to be a stressful day for us. Expectations could cause a lot of conflict, thus overruling the whole point of the holiday. It became nothing more than him trying to figure out what I wanted, and me expecting him to just know what I wanted.
Then we moved to me buying my own gifts. Otherwise known as going shopping and then calling it good.
“Hey honey, I bought myself some fancy new fashion boots and a sweater, kay?”
“Works for me.”
Holidays such as Valentine’s can be fantastic, and they can be discouraging. There is so much hype that goes along with it!

If you have no relationship, it’s a sappy, irritating day.
If your partner is a jerk 364 days a year, it feels very ingenuine to give flowers and chocolate, or go out for dinner.
If you’ve lost the love of your life, it’s a painful reminder of the loss.

The holiday can be a comparison trap when you look at what someone else does to celebrate. And it leans way in the direction of making women happy.
Or it can be an opportunity to try to one-up each other, or to top what you did last year.
What we learned from too many years of expectations and let-downs is that gift-giving out of obligation dictated by the calendar isn’t what has kept us together. What has held us together is that my husband treats me with the same genuine love every day of the year.
Receiving his kindness and thoughtfulness 364 days of the year is far more valuable than a bouquet or a box of chocolates.
In the end, the checkbook comes out a lot healthier too.
I know there are some skeptics out there. I talked to one guy once who said he doesn’t believe any woman who says she doesn’t want a gift. But the best gift I could ever receive isn’t found in a store.

It’s the respectful way my husband treats me. That’s a gift.
And it’s the way he does little things for me that tell me he cares, like folding my laundry when I’ve left it all over the bed and he wants to go to sleep.
Or turning on my electric blanket for me before bedtime.
Sometimes he tosses a Hershey’s kiss from his La-Z-Boy across to mine…he knows how I appreciate it when he shares his chocolate.

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Life, Repurposed
So, let’s talk about what had to change in us to get to this point.

First, we had to both realize that love doesn’t occur only once per year.
We also had to get to release expectations in exchange for what works for us.

Think about this in terms of any expectations you have in relationships,