Why I am doing this as a Valentine's Gift

I was trying to think of something special to do for Valentine's Day for my husband, Ray. Every person has their own love language. One of Ray's love language is affirmation, telling him how much I love him; why I love him. But then came the question, how can I tell him how much I love him and why in a way that he will hear me and remember what I say?

I decided to do a blog. This way I can 'tell the world' (so to speak) why I really love my husband and he will be able to go to this and read it whenever he wants. I plan on this being on going too. Hopefully I will be able to keep posting. I tend to be someone who doesn't continue with things I've started, for example, my own blog. Maybe this will help with that. I hope so.

So here is my first post.

Today, once again, one of the things that I love the most about Ray is that no matter what he discovers about himself that maybe needs a little work, he is willing to acknowledge it and try to do it differently in the future. How many guys have that much courage? In my opinion, not many at all. Ray is very analytical. He is very analytical in his work, in his painting, and especially about himself. Because of his tough childhood, he really has to work at knowing what is appropriate, what is "normal" behavior versus "dysfunctional". I really admire all of the work that he has done to try and do things differently from what he learned as a child or young adult. I really admire that in his quest for trying to figure this out, he holds onto how to do things better. For example, just because "everyone else does it this way" making things the societal norm, Ray holds on to a higher standard to do it even better. So even as he is learning, he is encouraging our kids to do it better, in a more healthy way.

Communication is very important to Ray. I like this a lot. He is much better at this than I am and I am glad that our kids are learning how to vocalize their feelings and their needs instead of bottling them up and not vocalizing. This can be very hard, especially if you are not used to doing it. I think good communication is a very important skill and I pray that our kids (and me too) will continue to grow and learn this skill. Granted, there are times when we all suck at it. We all get stuck in some emotional pit every now and then, but at least we have an idea of how to break out of it and I really think we all owe that to Ray. Having the patience to deal with the other person when they are struggling with communication, at the time that it is needed, now that is a different story... for all of us.  But I will continue to try and I hope Ray does too.  Knowing Ray, he will.  It may take us a bit to get through stuff, but we usually do.  And we are always better off for walking through the pit and getting to the other side.