5 Love Languages
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Tons of books are written on this subject. Television and radio talk shows deal with it, the internet is full of advice and our parents and friends have a lot of advice. Keeping love alive in our marriages is serious business. With all this help available, why is it so few couples have found the secret to keeping love alive? How can couples attend workshops or seminars on communication, hear a lot of wonderful ideas, return home, try two or three of the ideas, feel it’s not working then give up on all the other ideas they heard?
The problem is that people speak different love languages. Not everyone receives love just like you do. There are 5 emotional love languages. 5 ways people speak and understand emotional love. Once we discover the love language of our spouse and also our own, then we can begin to “communicate” love to our spouse.
We all have a need to feel love and affection and the need to sense that we belong and are wanted. Love need not evaporate after the wedding, but in order to keep it alive, most of us will have to put forth effort to learn what language our spouse is speaking.
The 5 Love Languages are:
1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch
We all have inside of us a “Love Tank”, just as our body needs food (fuel) to fill our physical needs; we need LOVE in our “Love Tank” to fill our emotional needs.
Let’s talk about our love languages.
Words of Affirmation
One way to express love is to use words that build up. In Proverbs 12:25 it says, “An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up.” Verbal compliments or words of appreciation are powerful communicators of love. Be sincere in your compliments. Don’t use verbal flattery to get what you want! “The object of love is not getting something you want, but doing something for the well being of the one you love.”
Encouraging your spouse with words of affirmation will inspire courage. We all have areas in which we feel insecure or we lack courage. You never know what a difference you could make in your spouse by just giving them some words of encouragement.
Remember to use Kind words (A soft answer turns away angrer) and Humble words (Love makes requests, not demands)!
Quality Time
Quality Time means giving someone your undivided attention! In this day and time when everything is so fast paced, with places to go and things to do, we find it hard to just stop, sit down, turn everything off and just talk to one another or take quiet walks. Focus your attention on what your spouse is saying, and you may find you don’t know them as well as you thought you did.
Quality Conversation – is a sympathetic conversation where two people are sharing their experiences, thoughts and feelings. Be a GOOD listener! Pay attention to what is being said with body language, along with the words that are being said.
Here are 5 practical tips for Quality Conversation:
1. Maintain Eye Contact
2. Don’t be doing something while listening to
your spouse
3. Listen for feelings
4. Observe body language
5. Refuse to interrupt
Receiving Gifts
Everyone loves to feel special by receiving a gift. Gifts are visual symbol of love. Visual symbols of love are more important to some people than to others. Gifts can come in all sizes, colors and shapes. They can be made, found or purchased. They do not have to be given only on special occasions. Don’t forget the gift of SELF. Sometimes this gift speaks more loudly than a gift that can be held in your hand.
Acts of Service
Acts of service is doing things you know your spouse would like, without them asking. You seek to please them by serving them. This does not mean you have to become your spouse’s slave, but when you do thoughtful things to help them out, you are communicating your love to them.
Physical Touch
Physical Touch is probably the most well known way of communicating love to one another; such as holding hands, kissing, embracing and intimacy. For some people this is their primary Love Language and without it they feel unloved. Physical touch can make or break a relationship. It can communicate Hate or Love. Sometimes it’s as small as a touch on the shoulder or a kiss on the cheek as you leave the room. This communicates to them that you are thinking of them.
Love is a choice, and we need to make the choice that we are going to learn how to communicate with our spouses that we love them above all others.
I encourage all of us to start learning how to love our spouses and make our marriages what GOD intended them to be.
You can take a profile test to see what yours and your spouse’s Love Language is at:
By Kathy Robertson (Adapted from the book)
Originally printed in the Winter 2012 issue V5N1