The Five Love Languages We Hear So Much About – A Guest Post with Joel!

When we sat down to think about what we wanted our business to stand for, we knew right away that encouraging couples to build the foundation they’ll need for a strong marriage was at the top of the list.

We often gift our couples a copy of The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman because we’ve seen the impact it made on our own marriage.

We’re kicking off our Tuesday Mocha series on the Five Love Languages with this guest post from Joel!

 

“No matter what I seem to do, she just doesn’t appreciate me.”

“He does so much for me, but I just want him to stop and listen.”

 

“Sound familiar? For many of us, it seems like we work so hard to serve our spouse yet we never feel like they notice. Or we just want our spouse to do one or two little things for us, yet they never seem to do the right thing.

I heard this very amusing story about an older couple that characterizes this so well.

Frank and Nancy sat on their front porch every afternoon sipping their tea and enjoying the outdoors. Across the street a young, newly married couple had just moved in, and the old couple took up the “hobby” of observing them. Every afternoon, when the new husband would come home, his wife would come outside and greet him with a hug and a kiss. And every afternoon this new husband would have something for his wife – flowers, a gift, chocolates, or something else nice.

Nancy was impressed by this young groom’s thoughtfulness! So after a couple weeks, Nancy finally turned to Frank and said “That’s really sweet of him to do that for her every day. You know, you should think about doing something similar!”

Frank hesitated and mumbled for awhile. Finally he managed to say “I’m not quite sure he’d appreciate me giving her gifts too!”

Sometimes it seems like no matter how many hints we might drop, the other one just isn’t getting it. What’s worse is they continue doing things that they think should impress, but may end up only getting on your nerves!

This is where the 5 Love Languages come in, which is a fantastic book written by Gary Chapman. These are 5 ways of expressing your love to your wife (or soon-to-be wife!) Everyone tends to have one primary love language – one area that you’re most receptive to. It’s also normal to have secondary love language – another area (or even two) that you’re very open to.

So without further ado, the 5 Love Languages are:

-Words of Affirmation

– Quality Time

-Gifts

-Acts of Service

-Physical Touch

Words of Affirmation is using your language to encourage, comfort, and praise your spouse. “Thanks for dinner” or “thank you for cleaning up the house” or “you’re a really great leader of our family” go a long way to encouraging someone with this love language.

Being specific on your genuine compliments helps them understand that you really are paying attention and aren’t just flattering them. Similarly, saying negative things to someone with this as their love language or quickly shooting down new ideas they have can be particularly damaging.

This is not to say you can’t correct or guide them, it just has to be done a little more delicately. Sandwich the negatives with positives!

{Read more here!}

Quality Time is when you have a chance to spend time together without any distractions. No TV, no iPad, no computer, just the two of you. This gives an opportunity to talk, to plan the future, to vent, and to simply understand each other better.

{Read more here!}

Gifts is giving something special to your sweetheart. Not just for birthdays or Christmas or other Red Letter days, but for all the in-between days too. Usually it’s something simple, such as flowers, chocolate, even a handmade card. It doesn’t have to be anything too big like a car or a couch or a yacht!

{Read more here!}

Acts of Service can include all sorts of things. This tends to be more popular among women, so guys, pay attention!

Acts of service include doing the dishes, cleaning the house, making dinner – basically anything where you’re physically helping lift the load off her shoulders. It gives her a sense that you truly care for her well-being when you do specific things for her.

{Read more here!}

Physical Touch is just that. Holding hands, hugging, sitting next to each other on the couch, kissing, putting an arm around each other and so on. For those with Physical Touch as their primary love language, not getting physical touch really seems to hurt.

When shown this love language such as if your wife initiates holding your hand, it really makes you feel truly loved. It may seem trivial to some, but even just the act of touching makes a big difference.

{Read more here!}

Primary and Secondary

Everyone will have one primary love language, and most people have a secondary (or sometimes more than one secondary).

This secondary language gives you another way to love your wife even more. If you want to really express your love to your wife, focus on her primary love language as well as her secondary. You can’t over-love her!

For those wondering, my primary love language is Physical Touch, and my close secondary is Words of Affirmation.

What are yours? Post in the comments and let us know!”

Joel :)