... all of one's ...

would work

I'm not so keen on the idea of expending tenderness, but then it depends what you want to say.

If it's a question of "ausgeben", then you might just use it. "to use up" or "to deplete" would be possible here too.

If it's in a more positive sense though maybe something like "lavish": "I lavished all my tenderness on her and I finally gained her trust" - or whatever.

to quote from one of my favorite novels, Somerset Maugham's The Razor's Edge):

http://howtolikeit.blogspot.com/2009/05/chapt...
"It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum."


So it does exist, but it still seems odd without the "of" to me.

I have no problem with the missing "of", nor with the use of "expended" together with "tenderness" in this context. Whether it's simatai's context is another matter.

The idea of some human beings not being worth a stick of chewing gum is alarming. But I guess this is hyperbole ;-)

Thank you guys, that was most helpful. I wrote this in a letter to my girlfriend, and I guess an apology to her will be in order. It was never my intention to imply a thinking in "accounts" or "depleting" myself or "spending" anything... "lavish" would have been great, but it didn't spring to mind. She's a bit more than a chewing gum to me... ;)