This week my sixteen-year-old daughter walked into my bathroom and caught my husband giving me a very long, sensual kiss. She acted way more shocked than grossed out.

“Whoa, I didn’t know you guys ever did that kind of thing?”

Besides making me laugh it also started a conversation about the importance of understanding your partner in a relationship. My husband is a quiet introvert. Interacting with people exhausts him, especially when they try to push into his personal space. Lucky for him he married an outgoing extrovert that doesn’t need constant touch to be assured that he loves her, so I don’t mind letting him be the one to initiate physical touch.

Public displays of affection wouldn’t bother me, but with my husband I know those are never going to happen. Because of this, to an outsider one might think we are never affectionate. Again, I don’t care how my relationship looks to others so this works for us. And like I told my daughter, “The sooner you figure out what you can or cannot live with in a relationship the better.”

And being the awesome mom that I am, I gave her a heads up. “By the way, you’re like your father so you’re not going to like a real clingy man.”

Groaning, my daughter pretended a shiver. “That I already know.”