Been pondering something lately while chatting with women at my favorite corner café in Chorlton. ☕ It’s fascinating how differently we interpret affection based on our upbringing. Last week, I sat with two friends – both bright, accomplished women about the same age. One was nearly in tears because her partner hadn’t remembered their six-month anniversary, while the other looked genuinely confused by the whole concept. “Why would he mark six months? Is that even a thing?” she asked, completely baffled.
When Your Love Languages Don’t Even Share an Alphabet 💔
I’ve counseled hundreds of women over the years, and if there’s one pattern I’ve noticed, it’s how our childhood relationships create these emotional templates we carry into adulthood. They’re like invisible scripts running in the background, telling us what love should look like.
Take Priya, who came to see me last month. Oxford-educated, multilingual, the kind of woman who’d never settled for less in any area of her life. She’d finally found a relationship that ticked all her logical boxes – he was kind, intelligent, respectful – but something felt off. “He doesn’t bring me flowers or little gifts,” she told me. “When we argue, he shuts down instead of talking it through like my dad would with mum. I know he cares, but I don’t feel it.”
What’s happening here involves emotional bytes – those packages of feelings, needs, and expectations we develop early in life. Priya’s emotional bytes around love were shaped by watching her father’s demonstrative affection. Her partner’s were likely formed in a completely different environment. The disconnect wasn’t about how much they cared for each other, but how their care registered in each other’s emotional system.
The Truth About Relationship Potential 🌱
From what I’ve seen, many bright, accomplished women fall into the same trap – they date for potential rather than present reality. We’re brilliant at spotting someone’s capabilities, then convincing ourselves that with enough time and love, they’ll evolve into the partner we need. Sometimes that works beautifully. Often, it doesn’t.
Here’s what women don’t realize: when you’re craving emotional expression that doesn’t come naturally to your partner, you’re not asking for small behavioral changes – you’re essentially requesting they develop an entirely new emotional language. That’s neither impossible nor wrong, but it requires tremendous motivation from both parties.
Think about it like gardening. 🌸 You can nurture a plant, provide perfect conditions, and help it thrive – but you can’t turn a cactus into a rose bush. Both are beautiful, but they express that beauty differently. The question isn’t whether your partner can change, but whether you can both find joy in what exists now while working toward growth.
Finding Your North Star in Relationship Decisions ⭐
The simplest principle I’ve found for navigating these waters is this: pay attention to direction, not just position. Is your partner moving toward greater emotional expression, even if slowly? Are they curious about your needs, even if they don’t automatically meet them? Direction matters more than current location.
When Emma from my Thursday group was deciding whether to stay with her boyfriend of eight months, she was torn about his lack of emotional expressiveness. “But last week,” she said, “he asked me to explain again why little gifts matter to me. He was genuinely trying to understand.” That curiosity – that willingness to step into your emotional frame – is golden. ✨
The most influential women I know don’t try to force their partners into molds. Instead, they clearly name their needs, create spaces where vulnerability feels safe, and recognize genuine effort. They understand that creating change in a relationship means building emotional safety first, demands second.
What I’ve Noticed 👁️
The women who find the most satisfaction in relationships aren’t necessarily those whose partners perform all the romantic gestures perfectly. They’re the ones who’ve learned to recognize love in its many dialects. They can see care in forms they weren’t expecting.
At the same time, they don’t dismiss their own emotional needs as frivolous. There’s a world of difference between “It’s silly to want flowers” and “I recognize my desire for tangible expressions of affection is valid, even if it’s not how he naturally expresses love.”
When conflicts around expression arise, the couples who navigate them best treat it like learning a new language together – with patience, humor, and recognition that neither person’s native emotional tongue is inherently superior. 🗣️
The frameworks that shape our expectations – what we might call emotional frames – often operate beneath our awareness. They’re not just about what we want but about what makes us feel secure, valued, and understood. Recognizing these deeper patterns can transform a frustrated “Why doesn’t he just do this simple thing?” into a more productive exploration of the emotional needs beneath the request.
—Monica Dean, your happiness doesn’t depend on finding someone who automatically speaks your love language, but on finding someone willing to learn a few phrases and appreciating the foreign poetry they already speak. 💝
https://labs.psychology.illinois.edu/~rcfraley/attachment.htm
https://wjbphs.com/sites/default/files/WJBPHS-2024-0440.pdf
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-lifespandevelopment/chapter/attachment-in-young-adulthood/
https://ijip.in/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/18.01.202.20241202.pdf
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4885926
https://www.nomos-elibrary.de/10.5771/9781666912203.pdf
http://edl.emi.gov.et/jspui/bitstream/123456789/1377/1/exploring-social-psychology_compress.pdf