I [26F] have been with my boyfriend [27M] for a little over 2 months. It's still newer and we are still learning about each other but we are extremely compatible and so far have a great relationship.
I noticed something the other day that has been on my mind. For starters, my boyfriend is not the most romantic person on earth in textbook terms. He does show his love and appreciation in other ways and I have grown to really love those ways. I am someone who is quite romantic. I admit I used to have high and unrealistic expectations for my boyfriends in the past when it came to that. I would always expect to be surprised with flowers, love letters, little gifts, reciprocating my words when I expressed how I felt. If they did not do these things I would get mad or upset and feel that I was putting in all the effort.
The other day I was having an anxious day of overthinking about literally everything from work to life to my relationship. I have those days sometimes. I never ask my boyfriend for reassurance since he's pretty good at doing it on his own, but it felt like a day to just ask if I could have some to make me feel better. He was out of town so this was over text. Of course, my old habit came back of me expecting him to tell me exactly what I wanted to hear.
His response: You're great and I like you (kissy emoji)
Honestly, any other relationship this would have put me in a worse mood, but I started to laugh to the point of tears (some of those tears were probably from the stress of the day) and I could not stop laughing. I think what made me laugh was that I know he's not the best at expressing those types of things but he tried anyways and in his own way, totally against my expectations. He does tell me how he feels, don't get me wrong, but he's not a poet like I am and I know that. And I knew that about my past relationships but I still expected it anyways. With him, this made me laugh, and it honestly made me feel better.
I know I used to have crazy expectations in my past relationships and I own that entirely. But after I was done laughing and felt better I started to think about how that didn't bother me even though it would have in any other relationship. It just made me think why this didn’t bother me even though it typically would have. Maybe it's just growth and he's someone I just accept for him and not what I want him to be.
TL;DR my boyfriend didn’t meet my expectations and instead of getting mad like past relationships I laughed and didn’t mind at all