Just Say "Thank You"

I have a serious problem accepting compliments.  I'm not sure where it comes from, but whenever someone says something nice to me I have a hard time believing it's entirely true.  Believe it or not, this is an upgrade from what I used to do, which was take that compliment and make it into some kind of insult.  I've been trying really hard to accept compliments as true, at least for the moment.  They don't have to ALWAYS be true, just true right then.

Which leads me into my next thought, and the real one I'd like to go with this morning.  My wife is awesome at accepting compliments, and as the compliment giver, I find this much more satisfying.  I saw my wife this morning as she sat down to eat the cereal I 'made' her (more like set out for her), and I commented that she looked really nice.  She didn't argue.  She didn't tell me about how something didn't work out this morning, or that she might have looked nicer, she just said "thank you." 

When we first started dating this kind of threw me off.  I had been so used to convincing people that my compliments were sincere that I would have my case ready to argue when I gave her (my then girlfriend, now wife) a compliment, but instead of arguing, she'd just say "thank you," and we'd move on, with my argument still hanging on my lips with no place to go.  Eventually, I dropped the case.  I didn't need one.  I didn't need to prepare my compliments for my wife because she'd just accept them.  This made it so I complimented more often. 

In out year and a half of marriage my wife hasn't changed in this aspect.  My compliments are always true, but take almost no effort because they take no planning or extra energy to argue with my recipient.  So, I just keep on telling her how great she is and she keeps thanking me for doing so.

Sometimes I wonder if I would receive more compliments if I would just say, "Thank you."  I wonder if people sometimes don't pay me compliments because they know the argument that will likely follow (and I'm a pain to argue with, I've been told several times).  Maybe yes, maybe no, but it was something on my mind this morning.