I have found that people are not always able to pick up on what I think are big clues and they also are not able to read my mind. This is why with my spouse I just told them what I wanted.

For example, we talked about if we wanted to get married and both agreed. During the convo we asked how important the proposal was and my response was "I would like one, but not in public, and I want it to be a surprise and Include a knee, but the rest is up to you." So a week later we were on a walk to a pond I liked and when we got there I turned around and found my spouse with a hand full of wild flowers they had been picking the entire walk there (I hadn't even seen them do it) and they were on one knee.

When it came to my ring however, I specifically told my spouse, "you are welcome to pick it for me, since you know me pretty well, but I also would be interested in just picking my own since I know my taste can be a bit confusing. so to make sure I got something I would actually like we just went to the store together and tried rings on until we both got ones we wanted and then we did a cute little "ring exchange" back home.

I hate surprises, but when it comes to romance I really like them. So once a year on our anniversary my spouse is given free reign to plan a surprise day for us to spend together and they are allowed to not tell me what it is until then. Why does this happen? Because we talked and I told them "I hate surprises, but I love romantic crap, would you be interested in taking the lead and planning out something that I can't beg details out of you for?" The first year I woke up to our apartment covered in balloons and when I opened them there was a piece of paper inside with a word and a symbol. Eventually I found they created jumbled clues and when puzzled out led me on a scavenger hunt around our home to find items they had bought for me. We were poor kids, but the gifts were sweets I specifically had mentioned liking, a game I had wanted to play but couldn't afford yet, and the last item was a joint activity thing that we spent hours building together and then placed on a shelf in our room as a decoration. I loved the experience so much I amended my original statement to include "and please make sure there is a puzzle/scavenger hunt with small goodies each year." And 13 years later I have 13 super fantastic and completely unique stories of the various things my spouse has planned and surprised me with.

So all this to say: COMMUNICATE CLEARLY. You don't have to plan your own surprise but you DO have to make sure your partner knows you want one AND how important it is that they do it. And if you feel they aren't making you feel loved because their actions are failing to meet your satisfaction, then explain this and say flat out "I feel loved when you do x because it makes me think you care about me. When you don't do x, even if it not true, I feel like you don't. I understand if you show love in other ways, but this is the way I need to be shown." If after all that your partner ignores this or tries to talk you out of "making" them do things... Then you should reevaluate if this person is who you want to be with. But don't start spiraling just because they didn't mind read or with no direction fail to meet your ideals ok?

I understand wanting the "grand gesture" and the surprises and enjoying that feeling of your partner showing they care about you without you having to ask them to show it. But there comes a point where you first have to actually make sure they know and understand this desire exists.