What makes a spouse look loving to you from outside the relationship

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a long time it bothered me that my husband doesn't do overt demonstrations of affection in public.

Then i learned about love languages. I strongly recommend understanding this for every couple. My husbands love language is acts of service but quiet ones. My love language is verbal.

Exactly the same with me. My husband is quiet, but every morning my coffee is made and he does tons around the house and with the kids without ever being asked. Showy is not his style, and that’s ok.

[Anonymous]

I have a great marriage and an amazing husband but we are not very demonstrative in public or on social media. I have no idea what people think about our relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For a long time it bothered me that my husband doesn't do overt demonstrations of affection in public.

Then i learned about love languages. I strongly recommend understanding this for every couple. My husbands love language is acts of service but quiet ones. My love language is verbal.

Agreed. My husband is not very demonstrative in public either. It used to bother me in part because I had friends comment on it. I even had a friend who asked me seriously if I wanted to marry him because he didn't seem that in to me. Another time, after I was married, I was at a work event on my own and a friend asked me why my husband wasn't there. I told her he didn't feel like it, and that I try not to make him go to too many work things because I know how hard it is to be the spouse at those events. She said, "Wow, he should have come. I can't believe he wouldn't support you in that way." She was so sure of it that I almost doubted my own feelings for a moment!

But the truth is that my husband and I are very private and do most of our loving and supporting when we are alone. I can be incredibly annoyed with him, complain about him to a friend, and then go home, see him making dinner for our family or watch him goofing around with our kids, and I'm just in love with him again. That's just how it is.

In other words, I don't really think you can evaluate a relationship from the outside. Though yeah, people who fight publicly or are publicly disrespectful of each other (I'm thinking specifically of couples I've known who will make fun of each other in public or tell each other to stop talking). But if they are just not super publicly loving.. I don't think you can read much into that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents always used to say beware of the overtly “loving” and PDA people in long marriages. They are always the ones that end up divorced.

I think it was the old school equivalent of boasting on social media about “my love”.

+1

sage advice.

[Anonymous]

I know enough to know that I have no idea what happens behind closed doors in a marriage. I’d have to spend a full week on a vacation with them to see the one off showmanship to end.

I was blindsided by a friend complaining about her nice polite, successful husband who was supposedly yelling and an ahole at home. For awhile I said how nice he was at the pool, or did what she asked when they were with us and all the kids.
Then she told me to (a) not worry about her, but (b) pick any two of these 20 voice recordings of his raging temper tantrums in the home from the nanny cam. I did, it was insanity.

I never got fooled again nor instantly pass off complaints.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a great marriage and an amazing husband but we are not very demonstrative in public or on social media. I have no idea what people think about our relationship.

Same. We aren't even on social media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know enough to know that I have no idea what happens behind closed doors in a marriage. I’d have to spend a full week on a vacation with them to see the one off showmanship to end.

I was blindsided by a friend complaining about her nice polite, successful husband who was supposedly yelling and an ahole at home. For awhile I said how nice he was at the pool, or did what she asked when they were with us and all the kids.
Then she told me to (a) not worry about her, but (b) pick any two of these 20 voice recordings of his raging temper tantrums in the home from the nanny cam. I did, it was insanity.

I never got fooled again nor instantly pass off complaints.

Whoa. What an awful example of how different people can act when they think they can get away with it. I feel terrible for your friend.

But yes, it's so hard to know what's going on with people. I have felt totally blindsided by couples announcing they are getting divorced. But I've also known people who barely seem to notice each other in public but then stay married for years and have wonderful, well-adjusted kids (which I think has to be evidence of something -- that doesn't just happen magically). You just never know.

[Anonymous]

I am personally weirded out by a lot of affection and attention in public. My husband also isn't into it (maybe that's one of the things we like about each other!). I'm sure people think we aren't very loving as a result but I don't really care. I feel good about my relationship and get what I need from it.

Also, some absurd number of relationships are sexless -- I bet some of the people you see doting on each other in public don't even touch each other at home.

[Anonymous]

Easy answer! When a guy plays golf with his wife and not with his buddies and is smiling walking off the 18th green.

[Anonymous]

How attentive he is to her in small things when they are together - not the large gestures that scream look what a great husband I am, but the small ones that show attentiveness to her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know enough to know that I have no idea what happens behind closed doors in a marriage. I’d have to spend a full week on a vacation with them to see the one off showmanship to end.

I was blindsided by a friend complaining about her nice polite, successful husband who was supposedly yelling and an ahole at home. For awhile I said how nice he was at the pool, or did what she asked when they were with us and all the kids.
Then she told me to (a) not worry about her, but (b) pick any two of these 20 voice recordings of his raging temper tantrums in the home from the nanny cam. I did, it was insanity.

I never got fooled again nor instantly pass off complaints.

This.

[Anonymous]

When they are comfortable together and apart but don't use the apart to do anything that they wouldn't do in front of the other spouse.