Routine Signs of Love

This blog being about my whole healing journey I thought this an appropriate thing to share here.

I've been married now for 10 years to a man who among other things has OCD, and every night there is this routine of saying "Goodnight, I love you, see you tomorrow."  Always in that order.  Always together.  If we said it at one point then had more pillow talk then either of us said "good night" again the rest of this scripted conversation had to follow.  There were two options for this.  One with alternating speakers:
"Good night"
"Good night"
"I love you."
"I love you too."
"See you tomorrow."
"Okay."
Or he could say all three phrases together in a row and I had to reply with all three phrases in a row:
"Good night. I love you. See you tomorrow."
"Good night.  I love you.  See you tomorrow."
Only recently my husband allowed me the new answer "Okay. Good night. I love you too."  This was actually a huge thing for him allowing me a new answer that felt more natural to me.

This routine was actually very stressful for me.  If I absent mindedly varied from the script we had to start over. Sometimes I'd say "yeah" instead of "okay" and he would be upset by it and we'd start over.  Over time when I'd make this mistake if I corrected it right away he'd let it slide.  A few times in our early marriage I switched it up on purpose, "...see you tomorrow." replied with, "yeah, you will." or some other affirmitive answer outside the script.  This bugged him the most.

Growing up most affection was routine.  Very little was spontaneous.  It was hard for me to tell how sincere these routine affections were:  whether they really meant I was loved or whether they were just done because it is what you do at bed time (or whenever it was routinely occuring) but didn't actually mean anything.  This question of whether routine affection is actually sincere is why I had such a problem with my husband's scripted bed time "good night, I love you, see you tomorrow."  Realizing this for the first time tonight felt like a huge break through for me.  As well as the love languages there's also the question of whether you prefer spontaneous affection or routine affection.  My husband prefers the routines and once I obliged he has been satisfied in our marriage ever since.  I prefer the spontaneous and it doesn't come naturally to him and is harder to remember and make that effort.

Routines can be a way of making sure something happens at all.  I haven't had these bedtime affection routines with my kids because I'd rather show affection spontaneously throughout the day.  But in this busy world you don't always get to do that.  And my daughter is very much routine oriented and affectionate on her own terms kind of girl and between school and her brothers sucking my energy I don't know how much I've shown her I love her.  But just like saying the Shamah every week doesn't make one guilty of using vain repitions using routine affections doesn't make that affection any less sincere.  All this time I've thought myself unlovabe because affection from others hasn't come in the spontaneous ways I prefer.  If I assume all affection to be sincere I've really been loved all along.