The Words We Didn’t Hear.
How Our Relationship To ‘I Love You’ Can Shape Our Capacity to Cherish.
Several years ago, I was struck by a story a close friend shared as we walked together in the beautiful Cotswold countryside.
It has stayed with me ever since and continues to echo through my work with couples in the therapy room. Specifically, it shines a light on how our family of origin affects us deeply in our own relationships. which is a big part of the work I do with my clients.;
My lovely friend and I were talking about parenting and how differently we were trying to do things from the model we were given. She was reflecting on the emotional landscape of her childhood in the 1990s, a time when, for many families, especially in the UK, affection simply wasn’t spoken out loud. It was almost seen as weakness and perhaps even weirdness.
In fact, her mother had once told her, “I can’t start saying I love you all the time! It will become completely meaningless.”
It’s the kind of statement that might sound reasonable on the surface, even protective, trying to preserve the weight of something sacred. But my friend, with a quiet wisdom, said to me, “But the irony? She never said it at all. So what does that mean?”
This tender paradox, of love assumed but never spoken, gets to the heart of something I often see in my work with couples. The feelings are there. The care, the loyalty, the love are real. But the words are missing. Maybe they’ve dried up over time. Or they’ve never been spoken in a way the other person can truly receive.
In Relational Life Therapy (RLT), this absence of spoken affection is more than just a communication gap. It’s a lack of cherishing that can span years and decades. And cherishing, as Terry Real, RLT’s founder, so powerfully teaches, is worth more than all the other strategies put together in couples work.
Cherishing is the art of letting your partner feel seen, valued, and adored. It’s not just saying “I love you” on autopilot - although even that could actually be a useful start, perhaps to the chagrin of my friend’s mother! It’s also how you say it. It’s the tone, the warmth, the presence behind the words. And it’s also the everyday gestures, the small moments of reaching for each other, the way you show your partner they matter.
For many of us raised in emotionally restrained households, where love had to be inferred or perhaps was subconsciously rationed, where emotional expression felt like indulgence, or where true connection was reserved for rare occasions, the practice of cherishing doesn’t always come naturally.
The result of this is that we may find ourselves in long-term relationships that are functional, even loyal, but emotionally starved. Sometimes, in individual therapy, clients open up to me about their awesome partners, how they have helped them and what they mean to them. It’s moving and tender to hear these raw examples of the shared experience of going through life together. But when I ask if they have expressed this to their partners ever, more often than not, the answer is either “no” - or not for a very long time.
And just like my friend’s story, it leads to a painful question: If you never say it, if you never show it, how can the other person believe it?
In RLT, we work to bridge this gap. Not just with communication tools, but by helping partners relearn how to show love in ways that land. This means:
Speaking your appreciation out loud, even if it feels awkward at first
Reaching for your partner with affection, not just when things are going well
Learning your partner’s love language, and choosing to speak it regularly
Making cherishing a practice, not just a feeling
You absolutely don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to suddenly become a poet or a super-romantic. But you do have to be intentional. Love needs expression. And cherishing, even in small doses, can be a balm for so much relational pain. Some of my clients have had success setting phone alarms, writing on post-it notes and scheduling themselves email reminders. This may sound hokey, but it can actually work and can make a huge impact in your relationship.
Because ultimately, life is not about grand declarations - a wedding speech or anniversary card comes along pretty rarely after all. It’s about those small, daily moments of presence, that regular warmth towards each other, and the courage to let your partner know: I see you. I choose you. I value you.
And if you weren’t shown how to do that growing up, if you were raised in a time, a culture or a family where “I love you” was too rare or too loaded, that’s okay. In fact, you are in the massive majority. And, you can learn now. You can re-learn how to cherish and be cherished.
That’s the real work of love. And it’s never too late to begin.
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If you and your partner are longing for more connection, if love is still there but the connection feels harder to find, this is exactly the kind of work we can do together.
At Couples Awaken, I offer transformational couples intensives rooted in Relational Life Therapy, supported by trauma-informed modalities like IFS and Brainspotting. Whether your relationship is quietly drifting or on the brink, this work is designed to help you repair, reconnect, and build something stronger than before.
You don’t have to figure it all out alone.
Click here to learn more and book a free consultation.
Let’s help you come home to each other again.
Lucy Orton
RLT Couples Coach | IFS & Brainspotting Trauma Therapist | High-Achieving, Expat + Neurodivergent Clients
