Have you ever tried to get a man to say “I love you” by saying it first? If so, you have plenty of company. And I don’t mean just saying “I love you” the first time, I mean even when you’ve been with a man for many years, even if you’re married to him. It’s easy to get the urge to want to hear those three little words so desperately that we become vulnerable and insecure when he doesn’t say them.
For example, this happened to me recently with my husband of 20 years. Yes, two decades and I still run into the same problems! Why? Because men will always be men and we will always be women, no matter what commitments we have made to each other.
Just an innocent phrase, right?
So my husband had been away for a while visiting his family and I was feeling particularly vulnerable and missing him. When he called, we had a nice conversation, but I was very aware of the fact that he wasn’t saying “I love you.” And he really wanted to hear it, really wanted to. So I said it first. And he went on talking about things. I ended up feeling angry and abandoned until I couldn’t take it anymore and told him. Then he told me that he loved me, and I know he means it, but I ended up feeling like he forced him to say it.
This is the first lesson of this story: never say “I love you” unless you are sure you don’t expect anything in return. Of course, this is never the case, since it is impossible not to notice that a man does not respond to it.
The new script of “I love you”
Instead of saying “I love you” to hear him in return, I could have expressed my feelings to him without blaming or criticizing. So here’s what I did the next time he called: I told him how weird it all felt, and that I didn’t want him to feel obligated to tell me that he loves me, but that he feels really bad when he doesn’t. it does. And then I asked him what he thought. This is key: you express a feeling (I felt weird), then you say what you don’t mean (so as not to make him feel obligated), and then I ask him what he thinks.
The reason this works so well is that men appreciate it when you are vulnerable about your feelings without blaming them, tell them what you DON’T want, and then give them a chance to work out a solution.
When I did this, my husband said he felt no obligation. That is the second lesson of this story. Guess what, men do NOT feel obligated! That’s something from “women” who have taught us and fed us and made us feel guilty. And I realized at that moment that he was making something out of nothing.
Replacement of the old script
And here’s lesson number three: Even though I’ve been practicing my own Tools for Connecting to a Man’s Heart for all these years, I STILL fall into old habits and need to remind myself to sit back and let him run the relationship. I need to remember to keep the focus on the most important person, ME, so that whether he says I love you or not is completely secondary to my happiness.
So take heart: we’re all human, and we all need to practice shedding old habits and replacing them with newer, more productive ones. Become aware of your old habits that make you think that saying “I love you” is like a magic potion that will make you feel completely safe.
Don’t say “I love you” first
Yes, you must first open your heart. Always. You must be like an open book with the pages that you are, flying freely for all to see. The colored ones and the black and white ones, and the empty ones too.
If he had said, “I realize I’m waiting for you to say ‘I love you’. This feels really weird after being with you for so long…” That would have been different. That would have been my open book.
But instead I tried a higher spiritual plane where it didn’t “matter” that I said it first. And I found out he meant it as a “trick”.
So look for YOUR tricks, start noticing them when you want to do them. Over time, you’ll have less and less need for them and you’ll open your heart so that when he says “I love you” first, you can be grateful for the spontaneity of his feelings. And that, in the end, makes you feel much safer than if you had forced it.