Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here - see *I* get all that, but I'm not sure DH does. H'es not really seeing the value in our stable, comfortable love. How does someone learn this?

OP, I actually disagree with PPs who say "try something new" or "surprise him" or "spice up the bedroom" or something. Because you could swing from the chandelier, you could learn how to fly a plane, you could seek out every adrenalin rush on the planet earth, and not touch this problem. Please, go ahead and do anything and everything with the man you love, but NOT because you're trying to wow him into butterfly love with you. Just because you love him, and want to grow old with him, and take on the world with him by your side.

And how can you get him to figure this out? You can't. You can't crawl into his mind or change his heart or move his will. Only he can do that. You can give him analogies, count blessings together, and so on, but if he is restless out of an internal emptiness or immaturity, he's the only one who can change and fix himself.

True love makes demands on people. It's not just hormone rushes and fancy dinners and joint activities. That's reality. If he cannot accept that, that's his misfortune, because he's missing out. But of course, that hurts you. I'm sorry, OP.

A long time ago, I saw the old version of Yours, Mine and Ours, when a widow with 8 children and a widower with 10 children get married. There's a scene at the end (if I remember correctly) when one of their teenage daughters wants to run away with her boyfriend. At the time, her mom is in labor and her dad is trying to get her into the car to take her to the hospital. The teenager is throwing a fit, because her parents are trying to keep her home, and she screams, "BUT WE'RE IN LOVE!" And her father points to her mother panting on the stairs and says, "NO, SHE'S IN LOVE." I may be remembering the details wrong, but it struck me as really profound.

Love is so much more than butterflies...and if you really love someone, then there will be butterflies sometimes...my husband and I have loved each other for almost 20 years...but the times when my heart has really ached with love for him lately? When he held our teenage daughter's hair back as she was throwing up...when he almost fell asleep reading out loud to the toddlers because he was so exhausted from work but knew they needed time with him...when he cleaned out the car because I just couldn't get to it...when he ordered pizza because I was too sick to cook dinner...it goes on and on...

We're still crazy into each other, but our love is expressed in different, less crazy ways most of the time. Not through things and wild experiences, but through acts of service and tenderness.

He has to realize this himself.

This is one of the smartest posts I've read on DCUM in a while, thank you PP