Why I created an “Advent of Loving Calendar” for my Fiancé

December 1, 2014

Last weekend Jonny and I were picking out a Christmas tree and ended up getting in a fight about what color lights we wanted to put on the tree.  I wanted white – he wanted color.  It was stupid and silly, but part of the reason we were fighting wasn’t because of the lights, but it was really because we weren’t feeling heard and understood by each other.

The real problem was that Jonny hadn’t been feeling appreciated by me in the past few weeks or so and he felt like I had been paying more attention to what he was doing wrong than what he was doing right.  And while I thought that I was doing a good job of making him feel appreciated, he told me that my nagging and calling him out on mistakes overshadowed any feelings of appreciation that he was receiving from me.  While he was talking, I realized that he was right and that I hadn’t been as loving and appreciative as I really wanted to have been in the past few weeks.  Because the thing is I ADORE Jonny.  I am crazy about him.  And so if he wasn’t feeling that adoration from me, then that meant that I was losing sight of how wonderful he is to me and wasn’t paying attention to what he really wants, which is just to feel loved and respected by me.  So last night I started thinking about ways that I could show him my appreciation and decided to create an “Advent of Loving Calendar” for him where each day between Dec 1 -24 he will open something from me that will express my love, appreciation and gratitude for him. 

I’m doing this for him so that he realizes how loved he is by me.  However, I am also doing this for me.  Because even though I am a Life Coach and help bring out the positivity and goodness in my clients, at times I lose sight of that within my own life.  So by committing to finding new things that I appreciate about Jonny on a daily basis and writing them down and sharing them with him, it will be an amazing exercise for me as well, as it will keep me focused on the positive and help me stay in my loving. 

Because here is the thing ladies – when we continue to nag our men and criticize them it is like death to our man’s soul.  Our men want to be admired by us and they will work really hard to earn that admiration (or at least Jonny does), but they also need to feel totally accepted and loved by us, as that makes them feel safe and worthy.    Oftentimes when women criticize their men, they do it because on some level they think that it will help to control them and make them do what they want.  However, this will not change a man – it will only tear them down and make them pull farther and farther away from you.  So instead, we must admire and appreciate our men, help boost their ego, focus on telling them what they are doing RIGHT instead of what they are doing WRONG.  Little things like this will go a long way.

So for both men and women, as you continue to head into the stress of the holidays, try to look for what you appreciate in your partner and to tell them about all of the goodness you see in them and share with them about all the ways that you see them making your life better – it may just help make your holidays just that much more special. 

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Note:  At the time of publishing this post, I am currently on day 19 of our Advent of Loving and our relationship continues to get sweeter with each day.  Jonny even started writing me notes back as well and now we are both leaving letters of love and appreciation for each other everyday.  We are appreciating one another more and communicating more about what we love about each other and its amazing at how looking for the good in one another and sharing that with each other can massively transform a relationship.  Try it for yourself and let me know how it goes!