Valentine’s Day has been known as the day you treat your significant other with flowers, dinner and time together. But why only once a year? I think Valentine’s Day can be every day, celebrating the love you have for one another. I always say, "Be the spouse you would want to come home to." Inspired by my listeners who chose wisely, here are some great ideas on how they treat kindly every day in little ways.
1. Put in the effort to make your honey's routine easier.
“With the colder winter this year, I’m freezing by the time I crawl into bed beside my husband! He saw me shivering and clattering my teeth on one particularly freezing night. I came running into bed the next night to find my husband, who runs hot like a furnace, sitting on my side of the bed! ‘I’m warming it up for you,’ he said. I guess my reaction was satisfying because he hasn’t forgotten since. As I round the corner from the bathroom each night, there is my husband with a big smile on his face as he warms up my side of the bed,” -Denise
“As I battled stage four bone cancer, my husband makes sure I feel loved and cared for each day. He shaved my head because my hair was falling out from chemotherapy, and told me how beautiful I am. He won't let me do anything, insisting he does it all. The man I married almost 27 years ago stands true to his vows every day.” -Susan
“While waiting eight months for my knee surgery, my husband started meeting me in the garage to carry up my work bag. I got upset at first. ‘You’re being silly since I haven’t had my surgery yet,’ I would tell him. Soon, I realized this was his way of caring for me in my time of need. Now, I wait in the car until my husband comes to get everything. Roses and candy are great, but this is much better.” -Lail
2. Make the time to do something with your spouse they haven’t done before.
Karen said she recently took her husband of 34 years for his first stretch limo ride!
3. Notice the things that make them happier.
Cheryl wrote in saying, “He keeps our fridge stocked with my belove chai tea latte so it's ready for me each morning.”
Kathy said her husband loves the feel of a new bar of soap. She makes sure he gets to be the first to use it.
Francelie knows her husband loves to rest after working the whole week. Despite loving to go out on the weekend, she makes sure their plans are focused on relaxing so he can recuperate.
4. Go outside and smell the flowers together —and make sure you’re holding hands!
“We love to make time to exercise together on a regular basis, such as after work and on weekends. We like powerwalking on different trails and just talking. It may sound plain, but for us, it’s a very intimate time.” -Jennifer
Nancy said she and her husband of 38 years both work from home together. They take their breaks at the same time, “sometimes going outside for a quick walk around our property or fixing a cup of tea together.”
5. Share inside jokes to make your partner’s day!
“When our youngest (who’s now 18) was learning to write, she loved writing the letters ‘KHA.’ She would ask what she spelled, and my husband and I told her it meant ‘I love you.’ My husband and I still say ‘KHA’ to each other as a reminder. We may even randomly text it to each other or take the occasional picture of a license plate where the first letters are KHA.” -Melissa
6. Make work more enjoyable for your spouse!
“My husband is retired while I still work. Instead of me waking up to make his breakfast while he worked, he now wakes up first and does that for me. We've gotten into a routine of doing things that mean a lot to both of us. I make the bed and raise the blinds in the bedrooms while he starts the coffee and raises the blinds in the rest of the house. He has become the 'house husband' and helps me with any chores. We are truly caring for each other now and having fun in the process.” -Trinity
7. Leave loving notes for each other.
.jpg?width=280&height=350&name=Untitled%20design%20(14).jpg)
“I leave little post it notes around the house and his shop that say things like: ‘You give the best hugs,’ or, ‘I admire and appreciate how hard you work for our family.’ I also send my husband risqué text messages and pictures of myself while he's at work that remind him how eager I am to see him when he returns home from work.” -Lacey
“I leave little spicy notes for my husband whenever I leave on a trip. It’s such a fun way to interact even when we are apart. Each morning I’m gone, I text him a riddle of where to find the note. He loves these riddles and looking for the notes around the house. He always looks forward to it so much so that if I am a little late to send a riddle, he makes sure to remind me, ‘What’s the riddle for today?’” -Stephanie
8. Make rituals with your spouse and keep them up.
“My husband and I enjoy date nights at least once a week. Sometimes, it’s just dinner and a movie, but we often get creative. Recently, we enjoyed a moonlight cross-country ski at five degrees! A few weeks ago, we did a painting night together. We know that setting aside time for dating each other helps keep our marriage strong!” -Michelle
“Anytime my husband or I leave the house, the other stands at the front door to wave and blow a kiss as they drive by. We say our good-byes in person, but we always take the extra step of waving and blowing a kiss from the front door, even if one of us is running a quick errand.” -Beth
For Nicole, it’s as simple as taking random photos together with her husband!
9. Keep up traditions that treat kindly.
Annette shared a tradition she has with her husband of 52 years, “We like to go to card shops when it’s Valentine’s Day, an anniversary or a birthday. My husband picks out all kinds of cards for me! As I read one, he picks out the next. I end up with a bunch of romantic and funny cards with a nice dinner at the end.”
Roberta’s husband keeps up a tradition that started 34 years ago. “Three weeks after we met, my then-boyfriend went across the country to school. He preordered flowers to be delivered to me every Monday for 12 weeks,” she said. After all these years, Roberta still receives flowers, “just because.”
10. Even if your spouse has passed on, honor them in small ways when you can.
Evelyn’s late husband loved the San Francisco Giants baseball team. “Even though he's been gone for almost 14 years now, I still root for the Giants----it's now part of me, too! I think of him every time I see them, and if he were still alive, I would give him his Giants mug full of hot coffee and turn on the TV and watch the game with him!”
