About a week ago, I spent about 4 hours thoroughly cleaning and reorganizing my part of the bedroom. My wife, as usual, didn't say anything, though this has been a sore point with her.
We were having a discussion where she mentioned that I kept pushing her negative buttons, and I said to her, "I keep trying to approach you, and I hear all the time when I'm doing something wrong - I simply don't know how to not do anything wrong and still approach you. I need you to tell me what your positive buttons are."
And then I remembered that cleaning up the room should have been a positive button for her, and I mentioned that. She melted, apologized, and thanked me, saying it had meant a lot to her.
I realized that this must be part of speaking different love languages. Chores may be a love language for her, but they aren't for me, and doing chores is not going to feel like an act of love to me until she shows me some sign of having received it as such. This was enlightening to both of us. Because each of us really does want to be loving, but I'm not sure either of us is doing a good job of letting the other know when something has come across as particularly loving. And we may be assuming that the other person just knows, but that's not the case.
