I am hopelessly in love with my boyfriend. I feel like the luckiest girl alive and he makes me so incredibly happy. But….I’m always the one to kiss him first or to hold his hand. I suppose I feel like he doesn’t want me as much. He’s generally a confident person and very confident when we get to kissing. But he never initiates. Is there something I could do?

Yes, there is something you could do: talk to him! Say “hey, I know it might seem like a small thing to you, but I’m always the one who initiates contact. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, or if there’s a reason for it, but it would make me happy if you went in for a kiss or took my hand sometimes.”

Maybe he really just hasn’t noticed the discrepancy; maybe he just figures you’ll hold his hand when you want to; maybe he has been socialized to always let his partner initiate contact; maybe he has a lower drive for physical intimacy than you do; it could be anything! Bring it up in a gentle, casual way, and see what he says.

If it helps, you two could take a “Love Languages” quiz together. Maybe physical contact just isn’t a primary way he communicates affection - and maybe there’s something he does for you that you don’t realize you’re not reciprocating evenly. Finding a way to talk about that, recognize that it doesn’t mean you love less, just differently, and learning how to communicate in each other’s love languages can really help.