Let’s look first at scorekeeping. Early in your relationship you didn’t consciously keep track of who was giving what. Back then, you were so excited about this attractive new soul that just being together counted for more than any individual act on his or her part. During courting, you tended to give your mate the benefit of the doubt, and every effort to make you happy was appreciated. If he gave you yellow roses even though you love white you were happy; if she bought dating sites for seniors concert even though you preferred Jimmy Buffet, you were thrilled. During the introductory period, you looked at wrongly-chosen gifts and attention as ways to learn more about your partner, not as an automatic judgment of how well they knew you. By the time your official courting days ended and you decided to take your relationship to dating sites for seniors, your unconscious scorekeeper led you to the impression that you were getting a lot and you planned on having it stay that way. As the relationship proceeds, the scorekeeping becomes more conscious and often appears to be more out of balance. One reason your partner seems to come up short is because once women take their relationship to the next level, they do focus less on doing things specifically to please their mate. It’s normal, of course, for some courting behaviors to dip, but thoughtfulness shouldn’t disappear off the face of the earth! In fact, in most long-term relationships the giving doesn’t stop. In fact, in most long-term relationships the giving doesn’t stop. So if there’s a fair amount of generosity on both sides, why does it seem like the giving well has dried up? The reason is because of assumptions about who your partner is and what your partner needs. When you give truckloads of the things you value, you wonder why your partner doesn’t appreciate it and doesn’t reciprocate. That may be because you’re giving what you would like to have and not what your partner wants or needs. After settling down, if he continues to give her yellow roses on a daily basis, she begins to feel neglected because he should know she likes white roses. Each partner makes a gesture, saying to themselves, I give and give, and receives by reflecting, I’m not getting what I want. As couples proceed day in and day out, they start to tally up what is owed to them and date that their partners are coming up woefully short. The imbalances occur over many more issues than simply gifts. One partner may spend hours cleaning up the house spotlessly as a gesture of love and the other partner may not even notice. One partner may spend hours cleaning up the house spotlessly as a gesture of love and the other partner may not even dating sites for seniors.
