Speaking the Words That Don't Come Naturally - Words of Affirmation

My husband, Logan, really thrives on words of affirmation. It’s been a struggle in our marriage for several reasons: 1) I really struggle giving words of affirmation; 2) he often wants more than I can give him.

Example:

Logan: “How does this look??” (as he’s getting dressed for an event)

Jen: “Good! I like it.”

Logan: “Are you sure?”

Jen: “Yes, babe. I said I like it!”

Logan: “Maybe I should change my shirt…”

Cue eye roll from me. Maybe if I was better - and more convincing - with my words of affirmation than Logan wouldn’t keep wanting to be affirmed. I really did try, though, and Logan can attest to that. But I still, well, sucked at it. I’m not an enthusiastic person so compliments often come off sounding less meaningful than I intend.

A few years ago, I had a friend suggest that I take an old picture frame and use it as a place to write affirming messages for Logan. So I printed out a paper that said “I love you because…”, put it in the frame, and used a dry erase marker to write messages on the glass. I put the picture frame by Logan’s sink in the bathroom so he could see it every day.

The results were great! Logan loved seeing a new message every day (or, ahem, week), and it was so much easier for me to write words of affirmation instead of say them. Logan appreciated the extra effort, and I was thankful to have a way that wasn’t as exhausting to express my love for Logan.

Because I really do love him, even when I have a hard time expressing it in ways that seem loving to him. That’s what makes love languages so complicated - what our spouse likes isn’t necessarily what we like, and vice versa. But I’ve found that we need to find ways to make the love languages work in our marriage. For me, that’s writing words of affirmation, because I’m a writer.

I should admit that there are many times where I slack off, and it shows. If our marriage seems a little off, and we’re not connecting as usual, I often realize I’ve forgotten about my little affirmation picture frame. So I renew my commitment to expressing words of affirmation to Logan, and it doesn’t take long to get us back on track, so to speak.

I’ve also come to realize there are other effective ways of expressing words of affirmation - little notes on the kitchen table and random sweet text messages throughout the day. Logan and I especially like the Bitmoji app, where you can create a cartoon version of yourself and send cute text messages to each other.

The beauty of this whole thing is that writing words of affirmation has actually helped me be better about saying them. Practice makes perfect, right? As the years go by, our marriage grows, and so does our ability to show love to each other in the ways that matter most.

Jen is wife to her high school sweetheart, Logan, and mom to 4 boys, 1 in heaven and 3 here. She blogs at Into Your Will about faith, marriage, books, pregnancy loss, and a whole lot of randomness. Her little family loves random dance parties in their kitchen and friendly competition while playing board games. She is constantly striving to accept God’s will for her life, even in the small stuff and especially in the hard stuff. 




If you liked the idea of that "I Love You because" board, you're in luck! Jen is giving one away to one lucky reader. Go back to this post to enter the giveaway. Good luck! 

Check out the prior installment in this series:

SPEAK SO I CAN HEAR YOU - WORDS OF AFFIRMATION

Come back next week for the series continuation and a new giveaway!