How to Know You’re Loved

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:01]I had a great question asked on my Substack community about ways that people show love and someone not feeling loved and I told uh this member that I'd rather do a video, which I'm doing right now, to answer it and I think it'll help a lot of people. So, let's put it out there. So, what she's asking and I'm going to read a little bit about what she posted. She said she's running to the same relationship issue for years and she's trying to understand it better. It's in her relationships. She says, "I really uh in this relationship with her long-term partner, I really like receiving flowers from my boyfriend. It's a small gesture but means a lot to me emotionally. Over the years I've probably received them only a few times while the desire for that kind of gesture shows up much more often.

[00:00:39]Um the tricky part is that bringing it up in the past didn't go well. From his perspective, he already does a lot for me, dinners, care, support, and the topic of flowers ended up creating resentment, so I stopped mentioning it.

[00:00:52]What confuses me is that objectively he is loving and attentive in many ways, yet one that one small thing seems to trigger a disproportionate a disproportionate emotional reaction in me. I'm trying to understand why this particular gesture carries so much weight for me and how to handle it better internally so rather than it being a recur- recurring issue in the relationship. Yes, yes, yes. So, first of all, what great insight, right? Um this is that's why I love my Substack community.

[00:01:19]Um it's such a good insight to see. So, that's number one. But here's the thing I see and that's why I'm talking about it here. I want to say a couple things.

[00:01:26]One is the love languages are Okay, they're just This So, and and she didn't even mention them but I know people get it in their heads, well, I like gifts or I have to have words of affirmation, right? No, you don't. No, you don't. You know, there's so there I did a whole episode on about this on the Relationships Made Easy podcast where I think I was very actually balanced about it.

[00:01:48]I I shouldn't say they're totally They're just really not what people think. It's a setup. That's what I see. I see that people get in their heads, I need flowers or you you know, I need to hear every day that you love me or this is what I need and then you it's like you're handing over all the power in your relationship to some it's made up. This guy made this stuff up. He was a clergy person. He was a priest or not a priest but clergy member. I mean he made it up. He saw something that he thought was working with people and clearly it did and then they repackaged it without all the religious talk, you know, into these books. It's I'm not saying there's nothing there but please stop focusing on that. What I find is that people end up sabotaging themselves using that and here's what I will tell you instead that you need to think about and she even says it here. He does all these other things for me. What is it about the flowers that's in my head? To me it's a way that this is an old nervous system thing that you're looking for what's wrong. Somehow, someway there must be something wrong and I'm going to have this one way you can prove to me that you love me. That's what you're asking for. You're telling your partner you need to prove it and think of that.

[00:02:58]It's fear. It's total fear and what do I always say? Fear never made a love relationship better, okay? Because he does it other ways that she can see. So and of course when she brings it up, I'm sure he's like, "Really? I do this, this, this and this and the flowers are the thing that get you, right?" Now, I know some of you are like, "But that's important to her and she should get it."

[00:03:18]The question isn't "Why won't he buy me flowers?" The The question is what need do I have that I that is he and he's is he meeting it? That's different to me. A need isn't flowers. A need is safety, feeling prioritized, feeling seen, feeling heard, okay? That's a need. And again, you could say, "Oh, buy her flowers, you know, she's asking so that means he hears her." But there's a hundred other ways to feel heard that she's even mentioning. So why am I looking at the one little tiny way I don't feel heard and not at all the other ways I feel heard. The way he answers me in so many ways, the way he prioritizes me in so many ways, how I feel safe in so many ways. You have to decide cuz I'll tell you when I talk do this with couples, almost always the answer is yes, I do feel supported, safe, seen, heard, whatever in all these other ways, but I just want it this way. I'm like, seriously? I say with love love of love, it you're focusing on the wrong thing.

[00:04:19]If you focus on what's missing, you'll find it. If you focus on the things that are there, you'll find it. So if it's something like he doesn't take the toilet paper up the stairs, she doesn't, you know, pick up my dry cleaning, he doesn't and even though I've asked, it could be okay, but think deeper, get underneath. If I only had flowers and none of the other stuff, would I feel loved? If he bought me flowers once a week, never said he loved me, did didn't do all the other things that she says he does for her, would I feel loved or would I feel like that was an empty gesture? I really want you to think about what do I need, am I getting it, and then in general, you're like most of the time no one's going to serve you 100% of the time what you need, and then look at that other little piece and really decide. And maybe it's not little, maybe it's something bigger, but in my experience, 40 years of doing this, it's usually not and it's usually something that's setting you up to look at what's wrong in the relationship instead of what's right.