A: There’s being cuddly at the supermarket, and then there’s being cuddly in a way that says, “We usually do this with whipped cream.”

Even if what you’re publicly displaying is affection, not foreplay, there are a number of reasons it may make onlookers uncomfortable: It’s them. (They were raised to think PDA is not okay.) It’s their relationship. (The more warm, cuddly, and adorbs you two are the more you remind them that their relationship temperature is about 3 degrees above “bitter divorce.”) It’s the wrong time and place. 

(They’re watching you do huggy headlocks at Granny’s funeral.) 

You’re actually onto something by being so physically demonstrative. Charles Darwin observed that expressing the physical side of an emotion — that is, “the outward signs,” like the yelling that goes with rage — amps up the emotion. Modern research finds that he was right.

For example, clinical psychologist Joan Kellerman and her colleagues had total strangers do something lovers do — gaze deeply into each other’s eyes. Subjects who did this for just two minutes “reported significantly more feelings of attraction, interest, warmth, etc. for each other” than subjects in the “control” condition (who spent the two minutes looking down at each other’s hands). Research on touch has found similar effects. The upshot? Act cuddly-wuddly and cuddly-wuddly feelings should follow.

Maybe you can science his mom into feeling better by explaining this. Consider that she may just be worried that you two are going to burn yourselves out. If you think that’s part of it, you might clue her in on what the greeting cards don’t tell you: Love is also a biochemical process, and a year and a half in, you’re surely out of the hormonal hurricane stage. 

You also might dial it down a little around her (not because you’re doing anything wrong but because it’s nice to avoid worrying Mumsy if you can). The reality is, we all sometimes get in other people’s way when we’re trying to find something at the supermarket — organic Broccolini…grape kombucha…precancerous polyp in the girlfriend’s throat.

Florist Gump

It is a little crazy that when you love a woman, you’re supposed to express it with a handful of useless weeds — that is, “Say it with flowers” and not something nice and practical, a la “Say it with a repeating stapler.”

“A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,” wrote Gertrude Stein. Sorry, Gertie. It’s actually not. A rose can also be a form of information — one that anthropologists call a “costly signal.” A costly signal is a message that’s more than just words — meaning it involves an investment of time, effort, risk, and/or money, which tells the recipient that it’s more likely to be sincere. 

So, the pointless extravagance of buying a woman flowers is exactly the point. To be willing to burn money on something so intrinsically useless suggests you’re either a natural-born idiot or so in love that it makes you droolingly dim.

But — as you might argue — you only spent a few bucks on that rose. Well, context counts. Research by evolutionary social psychologist Yohsuke Ohtsubo and his colleagues points out that buying just one flower will make you look cheap— but only when “a more costly option (is) available” (like if you’re at a florist). Otherwise, effort counts. In other words, if you only bring your woman a single rose, casually mention that you got it by crawling over broken glass to 7-Eleven while dodging gunfire from the Albanian mob. (Or that you at least tried Rite Aid, CVS, and 12 other 7-Elevens first.)

Talk dirt-cheap to me

Your husband comes into the living room, and there you are — sitting on the floor with a Starbucks cup and a cardboard sign that says, “Anything helps. God bless.”

Unfortunately, the passive-aggressiveness of the wife-as-panhandler approach is toxic in the long run. However, the theatrics would get your message across better than the nonverbal forms of communication you’ve probably been using — pouting and closing cabinet doors a little more forcefully than usual. 

Like a lot of women, you may assume that whatever subtle emotional cues you can read, men can also read. However, research by social psychologist Judith A. Hall finds that women are far better than men at spotting and decoding nonverbal signals in facial expressions and body language. Women’s having evolved greater aptitude for this makes sense, as newborn infants generally aren’t in the habit of expressing their needs with, “Hey, mom-lady…would you grab me a pack of smokes and a beer?” 

So, yes, if you want something from your husband, you do have to put that out there in spoken-word form. But beyond that, you two need to sit down and hammer out a fiscal policy for your relationship — where the lines get drawn on “yours”/“mine”/“ours” and “what if one of us has a financial crisis and needs an alternative to, oh, stealing a mule to get to work every day?”  

In coming up with this policy, it’s important to go beyond the cold dollars-and-cents view and discuss each other’s attitudes surrounding money, especially any issues and fears. Then, when there’s a conflict, each of you can maybe start with a little compassion for the other’s point of view. 

It also might help to understand that our views about money are influenced by genetics and what behavioral ecologists call our “life history strategy” — a term that relates to whether our upbringing was stable and “safe” or risky and unpredictable. Child development researcher Jay Belsky and his colleagues find that a stable childhood environment tends to lead to a more future-oriented approach (saving, for example), whereas, say, growing up ducking gunfire or just having divorced parents and getting moved around a lot tends to lead to a more now-oriented approach (spendorama!). 

Whatever your past, going off into the sunset being chased by creditors can be a marriage killer. Family studies researcher Jeffrey Dew finds that married couples with a bunch of “consumer debt” (owing on credit cards, loans for consumer goods, and past-due bills) fight more about everything — from sex to chores to in-laws. And research by sociologist Carolyn Vogler, among others, finds that couples who pool their money (like their money got married, too!) tend to be happier. I would guess that the spirit in this is important -- going all in financially…“us against the world!” instead of, “If you lose your job and can’t pay your share of the rent, don’t worry, baby. I’ll help you pitch your tent on the front lawn.”

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 (c.) 2016, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, #280, Santa Monica, CA  90405, or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (advicegoddess.com).