Originally posted by: dullard
What you are describing is EXACTLY the whole premise of this book,
the five love languages. I highly recommend it. There isn't anything earth-shatteringly-new in that book. But it presents ideas in ways that you might not have ever thought about. It is just a few bucks or go to a library/bookstore and read it for free. It'll take 2-3 hours to read. Warning: if you are non-religious, it has about 5 religious paragraphs in the whole book, so it is a bit annoying, luckilly 99% of the book is not religious.
The book states (with some scientific studies backing up the claim) that you are "in-love" for up to two years at the beginning of the relationship. Everything is great. There are sparks no matter what you do. Everything wonderful comes automatically. After that period, you must choose to love. You MUST do things like you are talking about that show your love to the other person. And the other person must return those loving feelings. No relationship lasts long without people purposely taking the effort to show their love. There is no perfect relationship that has the automatic spark for an eternity. The spark only comes with effort.
But there is one massive catch. You could work hard day-in and day-out to show your love and your S/O might never feel it at all. Why? You are doing things that your S/O doesn't consider to be love. You could spin your wheels forever and the relationship will stay flat or fade away. You must focus your efforts on what your S/O feels as love -
this will likely be different from what you feel as love.
Some people need compliments to feel loved, and could care less about anything else. So if you do wonderful things, give tons of gifts, say you love her, etc. she'll never feel it until you give her a compliment.
Other people need physical touches to feel loved. You could give all the compliments, all the gifts, etc and she'll never feel the spark. That is, until you hold her hand, give her a hug, or brush her shoulder as you walk by. Then she'll feel the love spark.
Same goes with acts of service (helping out), or giving gifts, or spending quality time together. The book gives dozens of examples of what to do with each type of love-feeler.
Then she should do the same to you. You might need to be giving her flowers, giving her love letters, or giving her your time. But she might need to be physically touching you (not just sex but massages, cuddles, etc) for you to feel loved. Or whatever your love language is.
