There are two ways to give in marriage. Give and give and give regardless of what you receive back. Or to make sure there is always a balance of giving and receiving between the two parties.
Both of these are false.
In truth, the person who is in love, isn’t keeping a tab. It’s not part of the game. I’ll explain.
You see, when you love someone, you accept them for who they are, for their good and bad traits – and love is a CHOICE that you make. You choose the person on whom you will bestow your love – and once you choose that person, you can’t take it back (well, more or less).
Now this is not to say, you should choose who you give your love too easily. You can only choose one person, and you better choose wisely. Why waste such a precious gift on someone who won’t appreciate it. Why give a thousand dollar bottle of wine to me as a housewarming gift, I’m happy with anything in the $10-$15 dollar range – that is a Merlot.
However, once you choose your love object, the giving that you do is a physical expression of your love.
More specifically, giving is our way of connecting with our love object. There is us, there is them, and the giving creates the connection. So in our mind there is a connection, then the giving is the physical manifestation of the connection.
As we know, actions are all that really matter in this world. So when we give, we are reconfirming our commitment to our love – and connecting to our love.
And you know what that is good for? Our relationship! And you know who the relationship is good for? You! So by giving to your beloved, you are really giving to yourself. And in fact, if you can keep that in mind, it makes the giving oh so much easier. So as you can see there is simply no place for keeping score in giving in love.
But you say, what if the person, doesn’t appreciate your gifts? Well then find gifts they do appreciate!
Further, the more you give, the more invested in the other person you will become, and the more you will come to love them, and tighten your bonds to them. So the more you give, the more you love, the more you give. You get the idea.
Now having said that, if you are in a place where you are bitter about giving too much or want to keep score, what it really means is that YOU aren’t feeling the love in your relationship. So you have a different problem. Not one about not being given to, but one of not feeling loved.
So if that is the case, don’t lose the forest for the trees, and focus on what is really missing in your relationship from your perspective, but definitely, keep on giving!