How To Communicate Love
- Communication problems grow when you overlooked one fundamental truth: People speak different love languages.
- “No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other.”
- To be an effective communicator of love, you must learn your spouse’s primary love language and speak it.
- If you want your partner to feel the love you are trying to communicate, you must express it in his or her primary love language.
- Almost never do two people fall in love on the same day, and almost never do they fall out of love on the same day. Chapman calls this “The disequilibrium of the ‘in-love’ experience.”
- Love is not the answer to everything, but it creates a climate of security in which we can seek answers to those things that bother us.
Keeping The Love Tank Full
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How we act in a relationship has all to do with how we feel about the relationship. If your spouse feels safe and loved, she is more likely to give back.
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The love tank is a metaphor for how secure you feel in a relationship.
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Your love tank fills up when your partner nurtures your emotional needs. In contrast, your love tank starts to empty when your partner neglects your emotional needs.
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When your spouse’s emotional love tank is full and they feel secure in your love, the whole world looks bright and your spouse will move out to reach their highest potential in life.
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However, how you fill your spouse’s love tank depends on the language of love she speaks.
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For example:
- Giving presents is one of the ways you can show love. But if your partner only cares about sharing quality time, no gift can substitute your presence.
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Running a relationship on an empty love tank is a problem waiting to unfold.
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Often, relationship problems like misbehaviors, withdrawals, harsh words, and critical spirit are just a symptom of an empty love tank.
The 5 Love Languages
- We have been led to believe that if we are really in love, it will last forever. However, once the experience of falling in love has run its course, we return to the world of reality and begin to assert ourselves.
- Some couples believe that the end of the “in-love” experience means they have only two options: a life of misery with their spouse or jump ship and try again.
- However, there is a third and better alternative: We can recognize the in-love experience for what it was—a temporary emotional high—and now pursue “real love” with our spouse.
- Your partner’s complaints are the most powerful indicators of her primary love language.
- There is nothing more powerful than loving your partner even when they’re not responding positively.
Words Of Affirmation
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“I can live for two months on a good compliment.” ― Mark Twain
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The words of affirmation love language are all about expressing affection through spoken words, praise, or appreciation.
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Encouraging words have the power to unlock your partner’s potential.
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“All of us have areas in which we feel insecure. We lack courage, and that lack of courage often hinders us from accomplishing the positive things we would like to do. The latent potential may be awaiting your encouraging words.”
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Give honest compliments without expecting anything in return. When we receive affirming words, we are more likely to return kind words of our own anyway.
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If your partner’s love language is words of affirmation, the way you give your compliments also matters. Make those moments as special as you can.
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Sometimes our words say one thing, but our tone of voice says another.
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Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in the way in which our spouse requests will make our love most effective emotionally.
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People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.
Quality Time
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By quality conversation, Chapman means sympathetic dialogue where two individuals are sharing their experiences, thoughts, feelings, and desires in a friendly, uninterrupted context.
- Words of affirmation focus on what we are saying, whereas quality conversation focuses on what we are hearing.
- We must be willing to give advice but only when it is requested and never in a condescending manner.
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Ask yourself, “What emotion is my spouse experiencing?” When you think you have the answer, confirm it. For example, “It sounds to me like you are feeling disappointed because I forgot.”
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One way to learn new patterns is to establish a daily sharing time in which each of you will talk about three things that happened to you that day and how you feel about them. Chapman calls this the “Minimum Daily Requirement” for a healthy marriage.
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Togetherness has to do with focused attention.
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Your partner doesn’t just want to be with you, she wants to be the center of your attention.
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Tips for better quality time:
- Maintain eye contact when your partner is talking. It communicates that she has your full attention
- Don’t listen to your partner and do something else at the same time. Remember, quality time is giving someone your undivided attention
- Listen for feelings. Ask yourself, “What emotion is my spouse experiencing?”
- Observe body language. Clenched fists, trembling hands, tears, furrowed brows, and eye movement give you clues as to what the other is feeling
- Refuse to interrupt. Let your spouse communicate their feelings without interjecting
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Individuals whose primary love language is quality time also emphasize doing activities together while giving each other undivided attention.
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Quality is the keyword here, which excludes activities such as watching TV together (TV gets your attention) or driving (the road gets much of the attention).
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Avoid postponing dates, being distracted, and not listening to them.
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For example:
- Playing a board game together after dinner. Or traveling alone with your partner.
- Going for a walk just the two of you
- Eating together while having personal conversations
- Doing new experiences together
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The essential ingredients in a quality activity are:
- At least one of you wants to do it
- The other is willing to do it
- Both of you know why you are doing it—to express love by being together
Receiving Gifts
- Gifts are one of the simplest ways to express love.
- Every culture in human history used gifts as a way to show love to one another.
- This love language isn’t necessarily materialistic. It just means that a meaningful or thoughtful gift makes your partner feel loved and appreciated.
- “A gift is something you can hold in your hand and say, “Look, he was thinking of me,” or, “She remembered me.” You must be thinking of someone to give him a gift. The gift itself is a symbol of that thought.”
- If this is your partner’s love language, keep a list of all the gifts she has expressed excitement about receiving in the past.
- On top of gifts, your physical presence in a time of crisis is also important. Your body becomes the symbol of your love. Remove the symbol, and the sense of love evaporates.
- Reversal: If you never buy gifts and your partner’s love language is gifts, you are hurting them. Especially hurtful is missing gifts for celebrations, birthdays, and anniversaries.
- by not purchasing gifts you ARE purchasing for yourself. You are purchasing emotional security and self-worth. You are caring for yourself… And hurting your spouse.
Acts Of Service
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Acts of service: things you know your spouse would like you to do
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“Let me do that for you” is the keyword here. You use your own time and resources to take a load off your spouse’s shoulders.
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For people with this love language, making your partner’s life easier is the best way to show your love.
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Examples of acts of service:
- Cooking a meal
- Setting a table
- Washing dishes
- Taking out the garbage
- changing’s children’s diapers
- Walking the dog
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They require thought, planning, time, effort, and energy. If you do them with a positive spirit, they are clear expressions of love.
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Love is a choice and cannot be coerced.
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“Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love.”
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Different Dialects
- Here Chapman introduces the possibilities of “dialects” within the same love language.
- For example, you can both speak acts of service as your love language but value different types of services.
- He might feel his duty is mowing the lawn, but she should take care of the children. While she could feel they are both parents and it’s not loving of him not to help with the kids.
- Chapman recommends you ask your spouse to come up with a list of tasks she would appreciate help with.
Physical Touch
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A common mistake many men make is assuming that physical touch is their primary love language because they desire sexual intercourse so intensely.
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Most sexual problems in marriage have little to do with physical technique but everything to do with meeting emotional needs.
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Physical touch is the first way a child learns about love. Physical contact has a big impact on how we develop in our infancy.
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“Numerous research projects in the area of child development have made that conclusion: Babies who are held, hugged, and kissed develop a healthier emotional life than those who are left for long periods of time without physical contact.”
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Physical touch brings security and connection to the relationship.
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But physical touch can also break a relationship. It can communicate hate or love:
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there are different dialects that are expressed through situational physical touch and which parts of the body one likes most. Don’t assume, but ask or, better, observe.
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A slap in the face is devastating for someone whose primary love language is touch
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Withdrawing from sex means your partner doesn’t love you like they used to
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If your spouse’s primary love language is physical touch, nothing is more important than holding her in a time of crisis.
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For children, if their primary love language is touch, they will remember a slap for their whole life.
Discovering Your Primary Love Language
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3 questions to discover your primary love language:
- What does your spouse do or fail to do that hurts you most deeply? The opposite of what hurts you most is probably your love language
- What have you most often requested of your spouse? The things you request are likely the things that would make you feel most loved
- In what way do you regularly express love to your spouse? Your method of expressing love may be an indication that that would also make you feel loved
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let your partner know about it.
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Find Your Partner’s Love Language. And communicate with him/her using his/her love language.
Criticism/Questions
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Is It Sexist / Traditional?
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One of the main critics is that Chapman recommends a woman try to revive her marriage on her own. And since her husband always wants more sex with her, he recommends she have sex once a week first and then increase it to two times a week.
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If one wants to give it a try to revive a marriage -or any relationship for that matter-, why not start from oneself first?
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If it doesn’t work, that’s fine, at least you have tried everything.
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On the sex question, if one party wants to have more sex, there are only three ways to solve it.
- have more sex and make him happy;
- don’t have sex and only make yourself happy;
- or meet in the middle.
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And it was smart in the sense that sex also underpins an emotional connection, and can be an indicator of an improving relationship.
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Is It Too Religious?
- Chapman is a pastor and there are biblical references in “The 5 Love Languages“.
- But it’s not all based on religion and scriptures like, for example, Boundaries is. And personally, I didn’t find those references to take anything away from the main message.
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Is It Unscientific?
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One of the main criticism against the 5 Love Languages instead is that of having a little scientific background.
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As I listened to the audiobook, indeed, I couldn’t help but notice that Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages had little scientific research backing its claims.
- But the more I listened, the more it made sense.
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But that’s not enough to validate such a big theory that can also be easily tested.
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And since I have a deep distaste for pop psychology myths, I had to look deeper.
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Turns out, research to confirm (or disprove) the 5 Love Languages don’t seem to reach a strong conclusion, partially because of the difficulty of measuring the phenomenon.
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However, they seem to lend some scientific credibility to the 5 Love Languages
- See: construct validation of the 5 languages of love and a validity test of Chapman’s 5 Love Languages.
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I believe an experienced and good observer can be better than a few researchers in drawing valid theories. But those solid theories are better confirmed by research then.
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How does your spouse respond when you try to show affection?
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On a scale of 0–10, how full is your love tank?
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Can you pinpoint a time in your marriage when “reality” set in? How did this affect your relationship, for better or worse?
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What would you most like to hear your spouse say to you?
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What in your marriage detracts from spending quality time?
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Reflect on ways to give gifts even if finances are tight.
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Many acts of service will involve household chores, but not all. What are some non-chore ways of serving your mate?
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Recall some non-sexual “touching times” that enhanced intimacy between the two of you.
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Do you think by now you have a good sense of what your spouse’s love language is? How about them for you? What more could you do to explore this?
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A key thought here is the idea of speaking our mate’s love language whether or not it is natural for us. Why is this so fundamental to a healthy marriage?
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What does your spouse do to make you feel more “significant”? How about what you do for them?
Quotes
“No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other.”