Lost Parent Diary

Recently, I finished The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, a professional marriage counselor. The premise of his book is that we all express our love in essentially five ways and this is the key to having a happier relationship. Chapman claims to have helped many couples work through low points in their relationship by helping each spouse identify their own love language and that of their partner’s. By bringing each partner’s attention to the other’s love language, each learns to “speak” that language and ensures that the other feels loved. In others words, we all perceive love differently and we should know what to do to make our spouse feel loved.

Before I go any further, I recommend watching Dr. Chapman introduce his own book:

THE FIVE LANGUAGES OF LOVE

words of affirmation
quality time
receiving gifts
acts of service
physical touch

The Lexicon of Love

Words of affirmation are praise we give to our partner. Complimenting a tasty dinner or the excellent job done in painting the house goes a long way for these people. In contrast, verbal insults cut deep and are probably remembered for a long time.
Quality time is not an issue of proximity or physical location, but of engagement and presence in a mental and metaphysical way. This person may say that they and their spouse “never talk anymore” or that their spouse “doesn’t listen to them”. The solution is taking a few minutes every day to fully engage and listen to your spouse without any other media, people, or distractions. Eye-contact a must!
Receiving gifts has been practiced as a way of expressing love in all cultures, modern and ancient. A gift doesn’t have to be bought, it can me made as well. People who speak this love language really like to get gifts, not matter how expensive. It’s a sign that they are special, appreciated, and that you took the time to think of them and put your energies into finding something especially for them.
Acts of service come in many forms and in a way are gift giving, but are actions rather than physical, tangible things. These people place great importance on doing chores, running errands, doing favors, taking care of responsibilities and actively helping. To these people, a spouse who is resigned, lazy and passive is showing great indifference and doesn’t love them.
Physical touch is not necessarily sexual touch. Hugs, holding hands, back rubs, and brushing up when passing by are just as important as sex. But, for these people, the physical aspect of sex is tremendously important. A relationship without touch is cold and distant to them.

Dialects and Primary Love Languages

Chapman is far from saying that each person falls into one of these languages and that’s it. He reminds us that each love language has its “dialect”, so it’s different for everyone.

More importantly, we all speak all the love languages, but we have a primary love language, one that’s paramount over the rest and needs to be satisfied in order to truly feel loved. If you want to make someone feel especially loved, you should learn to express your love in their language, not yours.

Keep in mind partners have different love languages and may express love in various ways, but they aren’t as effective as they could be. That is, a husband may speak the love language of words of affirmation while the wife speaks acts of service. Below I’ve given two scenarios where a couple like this may try to show their love for one another, but miss the mark.

Scenario 1: The husband constantly tells his wife how much he loves her, how beautify she is and how he appreciates everything she does for him. One evening, he brings her a dozen roses and the next day takes her on a romantic weekend to her favorite get-away. He constantly shows his affection for her through hugs, kisses, loving words and written cards and poetry. She of course loves it, but there’s something missing to make the occasion perfect. That’s right, she can’t stop thinking about the fact that she asked him to paint the house this weekend and, obviously, he won’t be able to.

Scenario 2: The husband arrives home one evening to find the house spotless, the kids at a sleep-over, and a very delicious dinner ready on the table. His wife is radiant, smells wonderful and is wearing her sexiest dress. After a relaxing dinner, she lures him upstairs were she gives him a sensual massage and surprises him with some very new, very sexy lingerie. He’ll remember the night for sure, but, in the back of his mind, he’ll also feel a bit unappreciated for how hard he works to support the family and that she never really thanked him for the weekend get-away he took her one or the flowers he bought her.

In both of these scenarios, the spouse is expressing love in all the ways except in the primary love language of the other. Each has put a focus on their own love language rather than their spouse’s: the husband’s using words of affirmation a lot while the wife acts of service. This is because of the natural tendency to express love the way we want to get it. However, instead, we should communicate our love in the love language of our partner not our own: the husband should focus on acts of service and the wife, in turn, should verbally communicate her love more. This sounds easier said than done and… well, you’re right.

Filling up the love tank

To bring it all into perspective, Chapman creates a metaphor of an emotional fuel tank he calls the “love tank”. Each person has a love tank for each language they speak, five in all. The primary love tank is the biggest one, then comes the secondary and so on. By expressing love in each of the love languages, we pour a little into each love tank. A person with empty love tanks will be miserable and completely out of love. Someone with half full love tanks will feel better but still not fully happy with their life. However, somebody with filled-to-the-brim love tanks will be on cloud 9! Again, it’s especially important to fill the primary one, being as it’s the biggest and most important.

We can also do things that empty our love tanks. We can say or do hurtful things. Just remember that hurt also translates into these languages. If a person is a words of affirmation speaker, then insults will be more painful and damaging than for someone whose language is physical touch, who will find physical violence immense hurtful.

What’s your love language?

GreatQuest.com provides a Love Language Test online that will give you an idea on what you are. I took it and found out that my primary love language is words of affirmation, followed by quality time, physical touch, acts of service and then receiving gifts. This sounds about right, although while and after reading the book I did some sole searching and came more or less to the same conclusion.

The Love Languages of Children

Dr. Chapman has written a gambit of follow up books to this original. He’s tailored his message to singles, Christians, teenagers, men and women as well as written other books on how to apologize, save your marriage and even making love. The book I would like to read next is The Five Love Languages of Children, co-written with Ross Campbell, M.D. a doctor with years of experience working with children. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get these kinds of books living abroad and it’s not available in audio format for download. The preview looks nice though.

Final Thoughts

A student of mine originally recommended this book to me with great enthusiasm. After reading it myself, I understand and share his enthusiasm. Rarely do I find books that set a new paradigm for me and this book has certainly done that. I feel that it’s given me a tool to better understand those close to me. I encourage you to go out of listen or read this book and chime in with your own comments about it. Really, let me know what you think!