Express Love by Doing Useful Things for your Partner Does your partner often wish you would clean up after dinner, take out the trash or wash the car? If so, their primary love language might be acts of service. But how can you attend to this language? The best way is to intentionally do helpful things for your partner. These acts of service are essentially things you know your partner would appreciate your handling – things like vacuuming or paying the bills, for example, or maybe grocery shopping, helping the kids with their schoolwork or taking the dog to the vet. But just as you can't demand love, you can't demand acts of service from your partner. Nor can they from you. To be truly legitimate, such acts need to be voluntary. So, instead of asking what your partner can do for you, ask what you can do for your partner. However, keep in mind that asking this question might require you to take a look at, and maybe even adjust your views on, traditional gender roles. For instance, running a home and caring for children is not necessarily a task for women; learning about acts of service requires you to decide for yourself what your responsibilities are, regardless of stereotypes. Just consider Mark, who was raised in a family with a father who never lifted a finger to do household chores. His dad saw such tasks as women's work and couldn't imagine himself cleaning the floors or changing diapers. Mark, on the other hand, saw how important it was to his wife Mary that he lend a hand around the house, so he let his gendered stereotypes go. This allowed him to overcome his stereotypical understanding of his own behavior and communicated to his wife a great deal of love and respect.