2/24/2013
I'm not sure if I have ever said this out loud, but I hate Valentine's Day. Frank has always said that he doesn't think that there should be a day where you have to be reminded to tell your spouse/partner that you love them. Blah, blah, blah... it's just some excuse he made up so he doesn't have to send me flowers, right?
And then to add insult to injury my friends show off how much their husbands love them because of all of the gifts that they bought their wives, and then I get the question: "what did Frank get you for valentine's day?" I can't just say "nothing", I feel the need to somehow defend/explain his reasons for not buying me anything for Valentine's day. I think that has always been the hardest part. After 19 Valentine's Days with Frank, it finally became clear to me this year. Frank is not a gift giver, it's just not how he shows people that he cares about them or loves them. On Valentine's night, rather than me putting one boy to bed and Frank putting the other one to bed, he took both boys and let me have the "night off". What a perfect gift for me. It made my day because it was something that really meant something to me. He knows me so well. But I don't think that I really appreciated this act of service as his valentine gift to me until this past week. I had a "girls night" with some friends at my house and Frank took the boys out so they wouldn't be in the way. I had a fun night with my friends and when Frank got home he cleaned up after us. Yes, you read that correctly, he cleaned up after us. He put the dishes in the dishwasher, put any extra food in the fridge, threw away any random garbage that was lying around, etc. That's when I finally appreciated, after all of these years together, that this is the way that he shows me that he loves me. I am ashamed that it has taken me so long to figure it out. I will not take his acts of service for granted again and I hope that I can be as loving and caring to him as he is to me even if it is in my own "language".
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