A YouTube video by Vanessa and Xander Marin explaining the "acts of service" love language. The video defines acts of service, gives examples (making coffee, doing chores, planning reservations), offers clues for identifying meaningful acts, lists common mistakes (overdoing it, failing to follow through), and suggests how to apply this love language in the bedroom. It closes with a challenge to perform one small act of service.
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We can't start a video like that. Has your partner ever been over the top appreciative about you doing something that seemed like, kind of basic, like maybe filling up their gas tank or doing the load of laundry, Something like that? If that is the case for you, then your partner's love language is probably acts of service. So today's video, we are going all into what this means, especially if you've never heard of the love languages before or if you are not an acts of service person yourself. You probably don't understand, like, why does this seem to mean so much to my partner? So we're gonna talk about how to make your partner feel loved, mistakes to avoid, and some ways to even bring that love language into the bedroom. So first we wanna hear from you if your partner's love language, or even if your love language is acts of service, then let us know down in the comments.
And if you're brand new to our channel, we first just wanna say, hi, we're Vanessa and Xander Marin. Vanessa here is a sex therapist. I'm just a regular dude and we've been together for 14 years. Also, these cute little faces behind us or in front of us are our pugs, Maggie and Winston. Not sure you can see him, but there he is.
And our account is all about giving you the tools, tips and techniques that you need to create a truly extraordinary relationship inside of the bedroom and out. So if you are interested in that, then subscribe to this channel because then you will get weekly tips for how to do that. All right, so let's get into it. First, let's talk a little bit about the love languages. If you've never heard about the love languages model, the basic idea is that we all have different ways that we like to give and receive love. And this particular model breaks down five different types. We have videos about all of them. So you can look back through our YouTube channel and find the videos about all of the other ones. But it's just really useful to understand how your partner likes to be loved, because if you don't know their love language, you might be doing things for your partner that you think are, you know, showing, showing them your love. And your partner doesn't really seem to appreciate it as much. Whereas when you do something that you don't think is that big of a deal, they go really over the top about it. So understanding your love language is just a really great way for you and your partner to improve communication and make sure that you're loving each other in the ways that you Guys like to be loved.
All right, so what is acts of service anyway? So when acts of service is your love language, then actions are going to speak much louder to you than words. They're going to mean more to you than words will. And so if your partner's love language is acts of service, then it's important that you think about doing things for your partner that you know your partner is going to like, because that's the way that they are going to feel the most love from you. The key here is that you're giving up some of your time to do something nice for your partner. All right, so let's give a couple of examples here. So this could be as simple as making your partner's coffee in the morning for them or planning a trip for your family or just for the two of you. Or also it can be really easy, like making a dinner reservation, just going a slight bit out of your way to do something nice.
So the point of access service is that you're really doing things for your partner. And this can be confusing for partners because it may not seem like these are very romantic things. We're not talking about like bringing someone flowers or writing them a love letter or something like that.
It could be. It could be those things. But often it's the simple things.
Often it's the stuff that, you know, it feels more to you like a chore. So it might feel difficult to identify these things because you're thinking like, I don't know, why would you feel loved by me taking the car in to get washed or something like that.
Yeah, it can't be that meaningful, but it actually is. It's more meaningful to them than it is to you.
Yeah. So some ways to find the things that your partner's really gonna enjoy and that are gonna be meaningful to them. We wanna give you a few clues for how to look for those. First one is just think about the things that your partner often asks you to do. Maybe even the things that they have to ask you to do multiple times.
So.
So again, we've all got those. Yeah, right. It may not seem sexy or romantic to you, but you making the effort to like take the initiative, do that thing before being asked that's going to be really meaningful to your partner. Then to take this a step further, you can also think about what are things that your partner typically does that you might be able to take off their plate. So this doesn't need to be that you're doing all of their chores for the rest of eternity, but maybe every Once in a while or during a particularly stressful time when you see your partner struggling, that you could just take the initiative and do something that they usually do. So it's something really simple. Like, even if they're the one who normally brings the trash bins in after trash day, that you would just do that on a day that you can see them struggling.
All right, so let's talk about some common mistakes that people make when they're thinking about how to perform acts of service for their partner. So the biggest one is feeling like you have to go overboard or that you have to make a grand gesture. Now, the thing here that often happens is we think, oh, my God, like, I have to plan a trip, like our honeymoon all the time, or, you know, I need to do this really big, epic thing. And that's really hard. It's really expensive. It takes a long time. And so then we go, okay, well, that's too complicated. So then I won't really do anything. But the reality is, it's the small and the simple things that really add up. Sure, going on a really nice, fancy, exciting vacation is fun, and that can be a great act of service. But don't build it up in your head like you. It has to be this big thing or nothing at all. Because then most of the year, you're probably going to end up doing nothing at all. So think about the small things.
Another big mistake is not following through. So if you tell your partner you're going to do something and then you don't do that, it's going to be particularly gutting to your partner. So only commit to things that you actually are going to follow through on. Another one is doing too much.
Yeah.
The other end of the spectrum, sometimes people hear that their partner's love language is acts of service, and they sort of think like, oh, my gosh, now.
I have to do.
Do everything for them for, you know, all the time that we're together, or.
You get excited, you see that you do a couple things, and you see a big difference, and then you go, oh, that's great. Okay, I'll do this, I'll do that, I'll do that.
Yeah. So you do not have to take over everything for your partner. Again, like Xander was saying a minute ago, like, it's doing something small on a daily basis. Those little acts really add up in the long term.
All right, so let's transition now to how to perform acts of service in the bedroom. So I think the biggest thing here is that think about if you can be A more selfless and more generous partner in bed. So you could devote an entire evening to your partner's pleasure without expecting anything in return. I think that would be a very nice active service. You can also just take action to prioritize your sex life. I think that is something that can really feel like an act of service, like you are investing in your own sex life, your own relationship. And so that could be as simple as planning a date night and hiring a babysitter if you have kids or.
Signing up for one of our horses together. So the cool thing about this video is that just by watching this video, you are taking a step towards making your partner feel love. This is a little act of service, and it really goes along with what Xander was just saying about prioritizing your sex life. Like, you took the time to watch this video and to invest in your relationship and your sex life.
Yeah. Send it to your partner. Be like, hey, check out this video I just watched.
So we want to issue you a little challenge, which is to do one small act of service for your partner today. So leave a note for us in the comments, let us know what you're going to do and maybe even come back afterwards and let us know if you actually did do it. All right, so that wraps up our video on the acts of service love language.
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