The 5 Love Languages ~ the secret to love that lasts By Gary Chapman
“Love is a choice you make everyday”
I was curious, and eventually picked up the book to learn more,although the book is aimed at couples, it had helped me with other interpersonal relationships as well.
- We all have different emotional love languages, ways we express and feel love. Rarely do husband and wife speak the same language.
- We only truly know our partner’s love for us when he expresses it in our primary love language. If your man understands only Greek, there’s no point in your telling him in French how much you love him. Repeat it as often and loudly as you want, and he still won’t get it.
- So the secret is to learn to speak your man’s/ Women’s primary love language.
“We tend to speak our primary love language, and we become confused when our spouse does not understand what we are communicating. We are expressing our love, but the message does not come through because we are speaking what, to them, is a foreign language”
“We must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love”
5 Beautiful Love Language
Words of affirmation
Words of affirmation are positive words that build people up. Affirming words can include anything from making a remark about how nice someone looks to making a list of a person’s admirable traits.
Compliments go a long way towards making people feel validated and encouraged, “verbal compliments are far greater.
Quality time
Quality time as giving another person your undivided attention, doing something the other person enjoys and having quality conversation with that person. Quality conversation is different from words of affirmation, in that quality conversation indicates that you’re listening to the other person, asking questions and taking an interest in what they’re saying.
Receiving gifts
Another love language is receiving gifts. For some people, gifts are important visual symbols of love. As an example, For example Some people never take their wedding rings off, while others have different opinion and attitude towards wedding rings.
The gift of self is another element of gift-giving, and is described as the gift of presence, of physically being there when another person needs you.
Acts of service
For others, acts of service (cooking a meal, cleaning, taking out the garbage, paying the bills and so on) demonstrate thoughtfulness, consideration and love. If this is your primary love language, you feel loved when your spouse says “let me do that for you”, and helps to ease your burdens or share your responsibilities e.g. cooking a meal, washing the car. Broken commitments, unwillingness to help, laziness/ sloppiness, or taking your spouse for granted, all send the message that your spouse doesn’t matter.
Physical touch
Physical touch is a primary love language for some people, and if they don’t receive it, they feel unloved. Chapman points out that there are many different forms of physical Physical touch can bring a sense of security and connection to any relationship. If this is your primary love language, you crave shows of care and love through is thoughtful touches, hugs, kisses, pats on the back, and/ or sexual intercourse, sitting closely on the couch, holding hands etc. For those people, physical touch is their emotional lifeline.
To discover your primary love language, ask yourself:
- What makes you feel most loved by your spouse? What do you desire the most from your spouse?
- What does your spouse fail to do or say that hurts you deeply or brings you deepest pain?
- What do you do to express love to your spouse? You tend to do what you wish he/ she would do for you
“Explore The Book 5 Love Languages”
Chapman used many real-life examples from his own marriage, and of couples that he had counselled across the years, to illustrate the concepts in his book and how they can be applied to address different marriage/ relationship issues and circumstances. These are case studies help us to identify similarities and lessons for our own relationships
“True love is not found its built….”
Soulfied 