What if you treated your marriage like a piggy bank – a love bank? My therapist suggested this as an exercise for my husband and me after I revealed we had been arguing more than usual at the time. After discussing it with him at home, we’ve found this analogy to be useful time and time again over the years.
Whether your relationship is hitting a bit of a rough patch or not, I challenge you to take 15-20 minutes to sit down with your partner and see how you might be able to integrate this “love bank” into your daily lives.
I’m guessing many of us had a piggy bank when we were younger, or if you didn’t, you still understand how it works. A kid earns or receives money in some way and then they put it in their piggy bank. The idea behind a piggy bank is to encourage kids to save their money. Generally speaking, having a full piggy bank is supposed to make you feel good, proud. This isn’t to say that money equals happiness, but rather security or a means to get something you want. For the purpose of our analogy, the fuller your “love bank”, the better off your relationship.
Now that you and your partner know your goal, it’s time to talk about how you achieve it together.
- To start, each of you should come up with a few “deposits” that your partner can do or say that helps fill your “love bank”. For example, one action that I came up with was hugging. I live for hugs! When someone hugs me, I hug them until they let me go. I just can’t get enough!
- One of my husband’s ideas for himself was for me to make him lunch for work. It seemed silly to me at first, but he explained that even though he can hit the drive-thru or go out to eat on his lunch break, he feels a little extra loved when I hand-pack him lunch each day.
Extra hugs and lunches from home. That’s it?
Silly me, part of the exercise was to realize that we aren’t necessarily asking the world of our partners to help us feel full and loved. A hug and a lunch seem so minuscule – like pennies. Which is exactly the point of the love bank. Pennies add up. Little acts of love add up.
Over the following weeks, my husband would give me a long, tight hug and say, “I’m just trying to fill up your love bank.” We giggled the first few times, it felt a little silly. However as time went on I realized he was filling my bank in two ways at once: he was not only giving me the hug I asked for – he was also making the effort to apply the analogy.
Now, in case it wasn’t obvious, withdrawals from the love bank take the form of disagreements. Small disagreements take a little out of the bank, bigger arguments take more. Sometimes it can feel like an especially difficult argument can empty the bank completely. If you’ve been arguing more than usual without making any deposits, you may find yourself with a negative balance. Only now, you’ve got the framework to start filling your love bank back up.
Love is an action, not just a feeling. So even if we had an intense disagreement last night, I can leave my husband a hand-made lunch to take to work the next morning, and he’ll know I’m still showing him my love.
What are some ways you think your partner could fill your “love bank”?
