My boyfriend is not very good with words, he doesn’t express much his feelings with them, he never had.
My love language is words of affirmation and I feel like words are one of the most important ways of showing affection, and he knows that.
We’ve had plenty of conversations about this and he has tried to improve on that, which I really think is sweet.
But something that really bothers me is that he barely says “I love you”. He says it before we go to sleep (we don’t live together so it’s all through text) and rarely he’ll say it in random moments.
If I could I would say it all the time, in any opportunity. I asked him about it today and I told him I like when he says it first and not only as a response to my “I love you”. He said he does it when he feels like, which is almost never.
To me, if you don’t say it it’s because you don’t feel it, which I know is a stupid mindset but these words matter a lot to me and I like to hear them in random moments, not only when we say good night. It also makes me feel bad for saying it throughout the day while he never says it first. I’m not the type of person that says “I love you” to anyone, these words only come out of my mouth when I really mean it and for me it is a big deal.
I would like him to say it more but I also don’t want to make him feel obligated to say it. But I don’t know how to proceed about this. He used to say it more, now he never says it and it’s just something I really care about.
How could I proceed with this? For people who don’t say “I love you” so often, how is it for you? I just don’t know if I should just get used to it or if it’s ok for me to ask him to say it more often than he does. He knows I care about hearing it so I think it would be an act of love doing it every once in a while, no?
TLDR: My boyfriend doesn’t say “I love you” as much as I would like to hear.
4 comments
my wife and I say it from time to time when we’re leaving for the day (going to work) or maybe when we get off the phone. but i think most of our phone calls end with “love ya” or “ok byeeeeeee”. the whole “I LOVE YOU” thing is like.. maybe once a month? it’s mostly just “love you” but it’s like once a day or less.. been married 11 years now, I think i’ve only ever gotten mad “over words” that she said, one time, and it was her saying “whatever” then hanging up on me.. but then i’ll just call her by her first name for a week and it settles things.
OP just learn to realize that ACTIONS speak louder than words, you said here that he is TRYING, and it’s sweet. that he listens to you, that he cares and that he’s trying to make a change.. that’s enough right there to prove to you that you ahve a good guy that wants to please you, but let me tell you something.. us men, are HARD to change, and if you push to hard, it won’t feel real, it’ll be forced.. it’ll cause resentment. you need to find out why you have such a NEED around this, when all the actions of him, say that he loves you. nobody NEEDS to say anything to know how they feel about somebody. calling this your LOVE LANGUAGE to give you some kind of right to pursue changing him, is wrong. You told him that this is how you feel loved, and now it’s up to him to make some suddle changes here and there to help with that, you forcing it or pushing to him WHEN to do it, is just going to cause him to be like “why the fuck am i with somebody so immature and insecure?” or at least that’s what i would be thinking. In my first year of marriage my wife tried toget me to say stuff like “I see how you’re feeling ______________” and it was the most annoying thing i’ve ever heard, and i tried it for a week.. she still didn’t seem satisfied with me saying it, so i just gave up and never did it again. I told her that if she needs people to validate her feelings and talk to her like a chick, then she needs some girl friends she can vent to and sync her periods with.. I’m not that guy to do this with. Anyway.. just don’t push to hard, and recognize his changes for you, that he’s actually doing. there are a big deal to grown men, and if you’re STILL seeking for more, stop pushing him, and find yourself a councilor and find out your route issue around why you’re so insecure about ‘words of affirmation”, what flavor of childhood trauma did you have?
> He said he does it when he feels like, which is almost never.
[…]
> He used to say it more, now he never says it and it’s just something I really care about.
[…]
> I would like him to say it more but I also don’t want to make him feel obligated to say it.
You want him to say it more, but you don’t want to *tell* him to say it more because you want him to do it on his own. He *also* wants to do it on his own, but he only does it when he *feels* it, which is a lot less than earlier in your relationship.
It sounds like the only solutions are for you and him to start doing obligation-based “I love yous” or for him to start *feeling it* more often.
Personally, I don’t like the idea of doing anything to try to get my partner to start loving me as much as they used to, unless it’s *me* that changed and they love me less for something I did and need to fix.
So unless it was just a temporary thing, it would probably signal that it’s time for the relationship to come to an end.
Hope that helps.
1) yes, you may be placing a lot on this specific phrase; 2) there’s a larger issue here about feeling loved/affirmed.
“I love you” was basically not in my vocabulary before meeting my partner. I said it a lot at first, definitely. But it’s not a phrase I was used to using at all. I only thought of saying it when I was feeling particularly emotional and sappy, and when the honeymoon period waned into a normal relationship that naturally slacked off. I also say it less when stressed by other life things– maybe because I have to be relaxed to be in touch with those emotions?– and when we were long distance I dropped off even more. (I don’t know if I even said it every week? I sent him like 28 memes a day though…) Now 7 years in, I say it spontaneously to him, but I still feel too weird about using it with my parents and best friends. I try to show love in all kinds of baffling ways instead.
>He knows I care about hearing it so I think it would be an act of love doing it every once in a while, no?
Yes… I’m not really sure how to explain this in a way that’s sympathetic, because it’s an “absence,” but– saying something that I wouldn’t naturally/spontaneously say rarely occurs to me even if my partner has mentioned it. When it does I usually psych myself out of it because the artificiality feels so weird. I remember all kinds of other things– I send him relevant memes, I buy him snacks, I think of him all the time– but I struggle with this.
Meanwhile, he doesn’t message much when long distance and withdraws when stressed. That’s really bad for me because I fill any void in communication by worrying and overthinking. But I also knew he couldn’t just willpower through it. This was one of those things we had to evaluate and decide whether it was a lifelong communication mismatch that would make us miserable, or if it was something we could work together to find a way around or overcome. In this case, I found ways to keep my head together as long as he came out of his isolation before *too* long. I always replied when he said “I love you” and I worked over time on opening up myself. And it worked out.
So, tl;dr: I’m not saying you should just let this go, but that he is probably also at a loss here. It’s a balance between accepting how your partner communicates, asking them to meet you in the middle, and identifying fundamental incompatibilities. So you have to talk about it… and keep talking about it… and probably rehash the same ground a few times before figuring it out. You might even benefit from showing him this post or something to put across exactly *how* important this is to you.
My wife is very much like him and she could days or a whole week without say I love you unless I said it first and I also have asked about it and she just tells me she loves me with all her heart and soul, and thinks it maybe that when she was growing up she never heard any of her family doing that. My family when I was growing up always used that phrase. I know my wife truly does love me even without saying it first because she has stood by myside through sickness an health and good times an bad for 51 years of marriage. Let his loyalty and deeds show his love for you, that’s what really matters in a relationship.