Rich, rewarding marriage relationship, #2

Wendy introduced me to the book THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGE, by Gary Chapman, and this author has some useful things to say about how to communicate love to a spouse. First, he suggests there might be five different ways (“languages”) in which love can be expressed. These are:
1) Words of affirmation (Complements, words of appreciation, encouragement, asking forgiveness, humble requests)
2) Quality time (Doing things together, empathetic listening, conversing on areas of interest)
3) Receiving gifts (Visual symbols of love)
4) Acts of services (Doing things that please your spouse)
5) Physical touch (Physical contact, holding hands, kissing, hugging, sexual intimacy)
(Note that each language also may “dialects”.)

Somehow, in our own developmental processes, from models we have or other experiences, we each develop individual patterns (languages) for expressing and identifying love. Typically persons learn to rely on one or two of the languages as primary. This may lead us to assume that when we are doing what we understand to be loving things (our language of love), that our partner is getting the message of our love for them. Likewise, it is possible that we may only credit our partner with expressing his/her love for us if they are doing these specific things that fit our way for identifying expressions of love (again, our language of love).

What if our partner has a different language of love and cannot recognize our efforts to express love? Or, what if we are unable to recognize his/her efforts to express love for us? Chapman suggests in these cases that each of us has a “love bucket” that remains unfilled. We are not experiencing the full rewards and fulfillment that marriage could have.

The solution: Each partner identify and share their particular language(s) of love (and dialects). Then each use those insights to improve their expressions of love by learning to speak (using) the other’s language.

How might one discover their own primary love language?
1) What does your spouse do or fail to do that hurts most deeply? The opposite probably is your love language.
2) What have you most often requested of your spouse? That thing is likely what would make you feel most loved.
3) In what way do you regularly express your love to your spouse? Your method may be an indication of that which would also make you feel loved.