December 7, 2008

The Key To A Woman's Heart

My wife and I watched Finding Forrester for the first time in a long time last night, and there was a quote by Sean Connery's character that just really stuck out to me.

"The key to a woman's heart is an
unexpected gift at an unexpected time."

Wow. Talk about one sentence full of a whole lot of truth.

Recently a married couple I know was going through some tough times and one of the wife's complaints was how everything in her marriage was so absolutely predictable. It was around the wife's birthday and the husband left her birthday card out on the breakfast table. When he sneakily inquired later as to whether or not she got it, her response was, "Of course I did. It's in the same place you put it every single year."

An unexpected gift at an unexpected time.

The reason this is such an award-winning idea is that women need to feel loved, and feelings — like many things in life — can get stale when exposed to the same thing over and over. Your wife expects that you're going to get her a card and flowers on Valentine's Day. It's Valentine's Day, it's what you're supposed to do. But the key to her heart is going beyond her expectations. A card and flowers today, for example.

Why is this such a big deal? Because when you do something nice for her at an unexpected time, you are telling her that you have been thinking about her without anyone telling you to. You are telling her that you love her so much that you think about her even when you're apart. It makes your wife feel valued. It lets her know that she is loved.

And the great thing is that these unexpected gifts don't have to be big (though they should be sometimes, though). Straightening up the house before she gets home tells her that you know how much she appreciates it. Calling her while you're at work just to say "I love you" can go a long way. Get creative, but when you hit a sweet spot don't think you can always default to that. Part of why it was so great was because it was a surprise. Don't "surprise" her with the same thing every day.

Sure, your wife knows that you love her. But when was the last time unexpectedly showed her?

7 comments:

  1. this is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO true!!!
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  2. The only problem is that women want both the unexpected gifts, AND the expected ones. I don't wanna know the length of time I'd be in the dog house if I got my wife flowers on a random day and then didn't on valentine's day.
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  3. While as a woman I do love gifts, expected and unexpected, and this woman was bothered by the routine in their relationship, it still strikes me that her response to her husband was really ungrateful.

    I often find that there are many things, material and immaterial, that my partner considers and thinks of for me, and his care and consideration is a great gift in itself.
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  4. My wife definitely loves that. I like things more planned out so I plan something unplanned for her.
    Sometimes I will tell her that were going to do something and she will try and guess where, when, how long, what she has to wear. I tell her the bare minimum and keep her guessing.
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  5. When's the last time that woman thanked her husband for his consistency? I've got an unexpected place to put the card....

    How awful for a husband to remember every year, to have that kind of reliability and consistency. And if he was dead, she'd bawl her eyes out every birthday because the card WASN'T there. Except the gratitude would be too late to do her any good

    Some people.
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  6. I've hesitated from defending the woman I mentioned in the post because it's not the point of the post, but as I said, this husband and wife were going through tough times in their marriage. And the tough times were mostly because of the husband's insensitivity. He was not very good at being sensitive to his wife and seeing what she needed.

    The birthday card came when things were at their worst. She really needed a more supportive kind of love at that time, but all he knew how to do was the same thing he'd always done.

    I apologize for not making that clearer, but as I do know this couple, it's been hard seeing these assumptions made about them here in these comments.
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  7. Thank you for your words. It is true that over time things do get a bit,ummm, how shall I say it... Boring! It is not that the expected isn't appreciated, but it is just that - EXPECTED. What isn't expected is the random text or the flowers just because "you make my heart sing". Thank you "husband and author" for realizing that those little unexpected things do make difference.
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