If you haven’t yet read Gary Chapman’s book The 5 Love Languages, I highly recommend it. It can do wonders in your relationship with your spouse by helping you understand what they need from you and what you need from them. If you communicate love one way, but your significant other receives and feels loved in a completely opposite way there are likely to be many misunderstandings and hurt feelings between you.
The 5 Love Languages® are broken down into the following categories: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.
It can take time to figure out what your own love language is and what your spouse’s is. And even when you know, it can also take practice to use the love languages. That happened with my husband and me when we were dating. Let me share a little of our story with you.
Getting To Know Your Language
One of my top love languages that I like to receive from my husband is words of affirmation. When we were first dating my husband didn’t always verbally compliment me. He would pick me up for a date and I would immediately want him to tell me how pretty I looked. But often he didn’t. Because of my own insecurities, sometimes I would begin to think maybe he didn’t like my outfit or hair or perfume. Maybe he didn’t really think I was that pretty.
And yet every time I asked him if he thought I looked pretty he would enthusiastically say yes! He was thinking it but the thought didn’t make it from his mind to his lips. So, at the beginning of each date I started regularly asking him, Do you think I look pretty today? His response was always yes. I would ask, Well then why didn’t you tell me that? His response was always the same, I thought it in my mind but I didn’t say it out loud.
Ask For What You Need
I’ve learned that it’s helpful in a relationship to be straightforward and ask for what you need from the other person; especially with men. Ladies, men are straightforward people and would love for us to just be honest about what we want from them. Knowing this, I decided that I wouldn’t sulk or get mad at my husband. I simply let him know that his words of affirmation were very important to me and that I wanted to hear the nice things that he was already thinking about me.
Even though he understood this it still took time for him to practice it and make it a habit. At the beginning of a date I would smile and ask, Is there anything you want to say about how I look? And then he would be reminded to say what he was already thinking; that he thought I looked beautiful. Now I don’t even have to ask. He understands my love language and he now regularly compliments me, telling me all the wonderful things he’s thinking about me.
You May Need to Clarify
My other top love language is quality time. It is very important to me to have daily time with my husband where I have his undivided attention and we can talk without distractions. That would be my definition of “quality time”. For my husband, his definition of “quality time” is any time we’re together. Period. Whether it be watching TV, with other people, or in the same room but not even talking.
It took a little while for us to understand that when we talked about the need for quality time together, even though we were saying the same words, they had vastly different personal meanings. After we discussed our definitions of quality time it was easier to come up with a plan on how we could both meet each others needs in this area.
They’re All Important
All of the love languages are important at different times. For example, receiving gifts isn’t top on my list but if I didn’t get a gift on my birthday I would be upset. And while acts of service isn’t top on my list either, it sure means a lot when I’m sick or running late and my husband vacuums or does the dishes or helps me in some way. The importance of each love language can move around on your list but we all have one or more that is continually most important to us.
Take some time to think about what is important to you and to identify your significant other’s love language as well. Talk about it, get on the same page and learn how to use the love languages to regularly honor and bless your spouse.
