Knowing how to show affection to your wife doesn’t always come easily or naturally, like it once may have.

No matter if you’re newlyweds, empty nesters, or have a household of toddlers taking up 99% of your time, there are a million other things to think about than your marriage. Sometimes, it’s too easy to put your relationship on the back burner when there are more pressing things to tackle.

And that’s totally normal and a part of life. But life can get in the way of anything unless it’s prioritized. So I think you can agree with me (since you’re here) that we can work to change that.

Like with anything, practice makes perfect and we’re here to share 60 small, bang-for-your-buck ways on how to show love to your wife. These are the things that will truly make a difference.

To turn it into a habit, we’ve included a 30-day free printable calendar, giving you two ideas a day on how to show affection to your wife.

These aren’t just ideas we pulled out of thin air. My wife, Alex, and I have been researching and writing about healthy relationships since 2018. As two engineers, we like to look at the data and relationship psychology to cut out the noise and get to what’s important.

We pulled upon everything we’ve learned to make sure every idea moves the needle, plus all of our experiences as a married couple — both from the husband’s and the wife’s perspectives.

Print it out, tape it on the mirror above your toothbrush, or set it as your laptop background. See how your relationship transforms after one month of daily acts showing affection to your wife (or partner, husband, spouse, or honestly anyone you care about).

Let’s do it!

How to Show Affection To Your Wife

How to Show Affection in a relationship

According to a Forbes survey, three of the top five reasons why people get married are for companionship, love, and as a formal act of commitment.

Financial security and starting a family round out the top five.

Outside of starting a family — you can do that on your own time — the other four we can address in these daily acts of affection. (Although we do encourage intimacy throughout).

It goes without saying that every relationship is unique, so take these ideas and make them your own.

These 60 ideas on how to show affection in a relationship cover areas like intimacy, self-care, relationship growth, and connection.

And, of course, all of the 5 Love Languages are built in, which include acts of service, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, physical touch, and quality time. (An excellent and effective book, by the way, and a must-read if you’re fully committed to showing affection to your wife and bettering your relationship.)

No matter where you are in your relationship, showing love and affection to your partner is always a win-win situation.

Affection Breeds Affection

You want to show affection to your partner. Why?

Is it because you want to know how to make your wife feel loved again? Or, do you want to figure out how to get your wife to show affection?

Fortunately, these ways to show your wife love will help with both. By showing more affection in a relationship over time, your partner will start to return the favor. In the book we recommended above, The 5 Love Languages, this is one of the key areas that the author, Dr. Chapman, studies.

If you feel like this is not working, we wrote a separate article about how to put your partner first and what to do if your partner isn’t returning the favor.

How to show your wife affection with 60 ideas in 30 days

Printable 30 Days of Affection

To turn affection in your relationship into a habit, we're giving you two ideas a day on how to show your partner love. Download and instantly access the printable 30 Days of Affection Challenge.

60 Ways On How To Show Affection To Your Wife

According to our research and experience, this is how to show your wife that she is a priority.

You can pick and choose from our list of 60 ideas, or download our free 30-day printable calendar above to hold yourself accountable to a month of major affection!

And please share your results, ideas, or feedback in the comments section of this post.

How to Express Love to Your Partner

1. Take the 5 Love Languages quiz and email each other your results. Discuss.

2. Text your wife a few of your favorite photos on your phone of her over the past year and say why you love them.

3. Rewatch your wedding video or page through your wedding album together before bed.

4. Recreate one of your first date nights.

5. Give your wife a 5-minute massage.

6. Ask your wife to write up a honey-do list and start working on one item within the week.

7. Spend a few minutes brainstorming your couple’s bucket list. Pick one that you can do this year.

8. Replay your wedding song and dance in the kitchen.

9. Text your wife how much you love and appreciate her.

10. Pick up your wife’s favorite pastry/snack/latte on your way home from work.

11. Take your coffee to go and go on a neighborhood walk.

12. Keep your phone off all evening and ask your wife about her favorite childhood memories.

13. Organize a surprise double date with one of your wife’s friends.

14. Leave post-it notes with a short message, ie. “Eye love you!” in funny places she’ll find them, like her glasses case, laptop keyboard, steering wheel, etc.

15. Give her 2 hours off from household/childcare work tonight to do anything she wants.

16. Buy bath salts and have a hot bath running when she gets home from work.

17. Meet at her favorite restaurant for lunch.

18. Give her a 60-second hug. Science says it boosts oxytocin.

19. Brainstorm which chore takes up the most time for her (dishes, laundry, cooking) and make a budget to outsource it.

20. Buy face masks for the family and let your wife pick her favorite movie while you all wear it together.

21. Ask a selection of “would you rather” questions to spark some fun and meaningful discussions.

22. Start a couple’s book club for two. Bonus points if it’s a relationship book, like 8 Rules of Love.

23. Press play on a couple’s yoga routine.

24. Follow a short, pre-bed meditation specifically for couples.

25. Try your hand at recreating couples acro yoga poses and take photo evidence.

26. Print out the couples free At-home Marriage Retreat and schedule it this month.

27. Work out together.

28. In 100 words or less, write up your “tiny love story,” and send it to your wife and the New York Times.

29. Buy a couple’s journal and write in your first entry. Leave it on her pillow.

30. Cook a family recipe from your wife’s family.

31. Give an impromptu foot massage while watching TV.

32. Beat her at her chores today.

33. Buy a magazine or a book that you know she’ll love.

34. Brainstorm together a sexual fantasy bucket list and pick one for tonight.

35. Ask her to wear one of your favorite outfits, and tell her how beautiful she looks.

36. Tackle one room to declutter in your house together.

37. Compete in a daily step count challenge. Better if you add in a walk together every night.

38. Watch a documentary or series that will enhance your relationship or lifestyle, like “Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones” on Netflix.

39. Tell your wife 10 things you appreciated about her this week.

40. Commit to keeping your phone off or in another room each evening when you get home from work.

41. Double down on your wife’s Love Language and let her know you’re doing it specifically because she loves it. “From now on, know I love you every time I make the bed.”

42. Fill up your wife’s car’s gas tank and wash it for her.

43. For fun, play a free YouTube dance class and follow along. We recommend salsa.

44. Ask your wife in a text how you can be a better husband today. Then do it.

45. Challenge yourselves to increase how often you have sex weekly.

46. Ask for more honey-do list items and get to work on something today.

47. Play a card game or a board game after dinner. We linked to our favorites.

48. Take a look at your family spending and make a workable budget with updated financial goals.

49. Sit down and take a relationship health quiz together, like this one. This is the same app we use for couples coaching/therapy, too, by the way, and highly recommend it.

50. For the next holiday, decide on a new family tradition (turkey trot, Halloween hike, etc.)

51. Mark your calendars and make a big deal of any anniversary this month (5,000th day since we met! – Google will tell you if you type in “how many days since July 22, 2010”) and celebrate.

52. Watch a finance series like Netflix’s “How to Get Rich” and talk about what you want your future to look like.

53. Text your wife your five favorite things you love doing with her weekly.

54. Free up a weekend for your wife and encourage her to organize or host a girl’s weekend with her friends.

55. Write up a multi-course dinner menu on a piece of paper and tell your wife that you’ve got it covered for tonight.

56. Hire a babysitter (if needed) and plan an active daytime date this weekend, like a local hike or workout followed by a healthy lunch.

57. Wake up a few minutes early and wake your wife up with coffee and breakfast in bed.

58. Make a cheesy scavenger hunt at home or a crossword puzzle, ending with a little gift or date night plan (movie, dinner, or otherwise).

59. Text over a few local volunteer opportunities and ask your wife which one you should do together.

60. Retake the 5 Love Languages quiz and see if anything changed since Day 1. As you show affection in one area, you’ll find that Love Languages change as things are fulfilled.

How to show your wife affection with 60 ideas in 30 days

Printable 30 Days of Affection

To turn affection in your relationship into a habit, we're giving you two ideas a day on how to show your partner love. Download and instantly access the printable 30 Days of Affection Challenge.

Closing thoughts on How to Show Affection to Your Wife

Showing affection to your wife (or partner, spouse, or anyone you love) is something that too often falls onto the back burner.

Maybe it’s because we’re so used to it coming so easily as newlyweds, or because life gets in the way.

A new job. A new kid. A new whatever. Often things seem more pressing to tackle than making time for our steadfast partner. We don’t mean to take them for granted. It’s just life.

But we’re here to say that with small but thoughtful and intentional displays of affection, you can show your wife how much you love and appreciate her.

Together with my wife, Alex, and pulling from years of research on what makes a happy relationship, we’ve put together a list of 60 ways how to show affection to your wife.

To make sure you commit and do it, we challenge you to show affection to your wife every day for the next thirty days. To accomplish this, we’ve included a free printable calendar that gives you two different ideas every day that make it easy to take action. Just fill in the form on this page and we’ll send it right over to your email address.

But don’t take our word for it. Imagine how much your relationship could change in one month from now. Take these ideas, make them your own, and create a lasting habit of showing affection to your wife throughout the years to come.

So, how’d it go? We’d love to hear in the comments!

For more resources for couples, such as our ‘proven apps for married couples’ or our 1-day self-guided non-religious marriage retreat, head over to our Healthy Couples page.

Or, download our Proven Tools for Healthy Couples below.

At-Home Date Ideas Menu_Ryan and Alex Duo Life

Proven Tools for Healthy Couples

A decade of experience, hundreds of hours of research and testing, and over 50,000 words of wisdom condensed into one PDF.

Download our guide for the best books, movies, apps, date night ideas, quizzes, questions, and games for healthy couples.

As Seen In Feature Bar Ryan and Alex Duo Life

Hey we're Ryan and Alex

A husband-wife duo, two engineers, and the creators of Ryan and Alex Duo Life. 

After eight years working in the corporate world as engineers, we left to tackle our true passion:

Helping highly motivated couples optimize their relationship and health by cutting through the muck and sharing what the research says works.

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