Listen to The Heart Song!
Kickstart your love-connection with your spouse by saying thank you at every opportunity and each time you hear verses of a ‘heart song’!
Words of Affirmation
- Thank them when they compliment you – Thank you for your kind words
- Thank them when they appreciate you! – Thank you for your good opinion of me
- Thank them if they send you a loving message during the day – Thanks for your lovely message, it brightened my day
Acts of Sevice
- Thank them for all of their efforts to provide an income – Thank you for working so hard to provide for us
- Thank them for all of their efforts to creating a loving home – Thank you for working so hard to make our house a home
- Thank them when they do some DIY around the house – Thank you for sorting this out for us
- Thank them when they make you breakfast/lunch/dinner – Thank you for such a lovely meal. It was delicious!
Gifts
- Thank them when they bring something home that you like – Thank you for thinking about me
- Thank them when they buy you something for the home/office – Thank you for making my life easier. I love it!
- Thank them when they buy you a gift – even if it something you don’t like! – Thank you so much for this (gift), it was so thoughtful of you!
Quality Time
- Thank them when they suggest that you both go somewhere together – Thank you, I would love to go
- Thank them when you do some chores together – Thank you for the pleasure of your company
- Thank them when they suggest that you both watch something together – Thank you for always finding ways we can spend time together
Physical Contact
- Thank them when they want physical contact – Thank you for being so loving, I love that you find me attractive
- Thank them when they show physical affection to you – Thank you for loving me
- Thank them after an intimate encounter in bed – Thank you for making me feel so loved and fulfilled
How did that make you feel? Did you even think these were all acts of love?
When we don’t listen
Sadly, when you don’t recognise love languages, you can end up leaving your husband feeling unappreciated and discouraged from going the extra mile to please you. Here is what happens when you don’t recognise your husband’s love language:
Words of Affirmation
When you fail to appreciate his efforts to encourage, affirm and appreciate you, he will feel discouraged unacknowledged.
Acts of Service
When you don’t see his efforts to help and lighten your load as acts of love, he will feel unappreciated and unacknowledged.
Gifts
When you don’t see his gestures as thoughtful or that he is making your happiness a priority, he will feel that there is no point in his efforts and stop.
Quality Time
When you don’t see your husband’s efforts to spend time with you (however seemingly irrelevant) as his way of lovingly connecting with you, he will find other ways of keeping himself busy, making time with you a lower priority.
Physical Contact
When we don’t see our husbands’ physical gestures and desires to be intimate as acts of love, we can make them feel rejected and embarrassed, causing them to retreat and feel less included to be intimate.
Let Him Know Your Love Language
If your husband is not using a love language that you need – let him know! Communicate to him how you like to be loved so that he knows how to please you! Keep praying to Allah and ask Him to open your husband’s heart to the way you want to be loved and then – relax and let go… know that whatever you are getting is your rizq from Al Razzaq and that He will certainly answer your prayers in the best way possible!
The Gratitude Promise
From Buds To Bouquets
Gratitude in a marriage is like a rose, it starts off as a tiny bud, and through appreciation and affirmation, it blooms into full flower. When you express gratitude to your spouse, you are making a massive investment. When you accept a single rose, you open the door to the blossoming of a relationship that will inshaAllah result in full blooming bouquet.
Your gratitude to your spouse is directly linked to the gratitude you show to Allah.
Whoever is not grateful to the people, he is not grateful to Allah.
Tirmidhi (1954)
If you receive any love in your life, it is due to His giving. By thanking your spouse, you are thanking Al-Razzaq: the provider, Al Wahhab: the bestower of gifts, and Al Wadud: the unconditionally loving one.
Seeing Allah in All Your Gifts
In Laura Doyle’s book, Things Will Get As Good As You Can Stand, she describes how receiving graciously will get you more and more love in your life, the only limit to how much love you will get is dependant on how much love you can actually stand! This is Allah’s gratitude promise at work; this is the manifestation of Ash-Shakūr, the abundantly appreciative, who gives back abundance for the sole reason that you were grateful. The more you appreciate your spouse, the more you will get back in return.
Spiralling Abundance
Much has been written on the Fibonacci sequence, and how we can see signs of spiralling abundance all around us. From the closed fist to the structure of the ear, from the nautilus shell to snail shells, from the sunflower to the rose in full bloom, we can see small beginnings that start tiny, and spiral and grow in abundance.
These are the works of Ash-Shakur, Al-Latif and Al-Musawwir –subtly showing us His presence and power through small beginnings that flourish exponentially all around us. Remember this when you express your gratitude and then see your blessings multiply – it’s all mathematics!
Love From Your Spouse Is From Allah
When you receive love from your spouse, know that this is Allah’s way of giving you love in your life, through your spouse. Each time your husband expresses his love to you, using whichever languages he chooses, know that it is a gift to you from Allah.
Our wise master, Ibn Ata iLlah[1] describes how cattle love their caretaker, and look to him expectantly, as he is the one giving them food and water. Yet, they fail to recognise their owner and pay no attention to him if he walks by, even though he is the one who provides them with a caretaker!
We make the same mistake when we look to our loved ones to give us love and appreciation and don’t recognise that any good that is coming to them is coming from Allah – their provider, sustainer and nourisher.
Instead – thank your husband for all the ways he expresses his love to you, and at the same time, thank Allah for these blessings. In this way, you encourage your husband to do more, and you receive more from Ash-Shakūr due to your appreciation.
A Marriage of Abundance
To summarise, here’s how to create a marriage of abundance through gratitude:
- Enjoy all expressions of love from your husband, allowing these expressions to enhance your relationship
- Express your appreciation to him, motivating him to do more for you
- Express your gratitude to Allah for your blessings and enjoy an increase in gifts due to His gratitude promise
- Allow yourself to take in the blessings from whichever door Allah chooses for you
In short: invest in gratitude and reap the returns from Allah!
[1] The Book of Illumination, by Ibn Ata iLlah As Sikandari
