Marriage is not about how much love you express to your spouse verbally by ranting “I l love you” mechanically or about what and how many gifts you give. It’s about the little goodness which goes a long way in nurturing relationships. However, you should have an eye to see it and value it.
Most couples lack the vision to see the little things, since these things can neither be said nor boxed, wrapped and gifted. In striving to focus on bigger aspects, smaller intricacies are missed, making a marriage ordinary.
In one of my recent therapy sessions, when I asked a wife to point out some goodness she perceived in her spouse recently, she mentioned when she and her husband were traveling home on different flights and despite having his share of baggage, her husband insisted on carrying her heavy hand baggage too. He didn’t want her to lug it around all the way home. She felt it was enough to feel loved.
She couldn’t help sharing another experience of their holiday in Goa. She saw a cockroach in the bathroom. She was terribly scared and immediately called her husband to remove it. When her husband rushed to the bathroom, it had swiftly disappeared. The wife was terrified and refused to use the bathroom. Housekeeping came and checked every nook and corner of that space but couldn’t find it. At night after they went to bed, the wife woke up to use the loo and saw the cockroach again. She woke her husband up. He immediately killed the cockroach, disposed it off and went back to sleep. They were returning home the next morning and he was to go to work. But he still showed no resistance about being woken up. He could understand his wife’s katsaridaphobia. The wife was quite touched by the way her husband respected her phobia and cared for her. Before undergoing therapy, she used to overlook these small things and take him for granted. But now she realized how much he loved her in his own subtle way. This multiplied her love for him. Though tiny and trivial, such ordinary experiences give extraordinary meaning to life and relationships.
Everyone has a different way of giving and receiving love. Acknowledging what you get fuels the health of your relationship. If not in clothes, in relationships, ‘small’ is definitely all you need.