Introduction
Have you ever been in a situation where someone just doesn’t get what you are communicating to them and you can’t see why? We are all unique and experience the world in unique ways – we all have our own ‘model of the world’. We need to ensure we are communicating in a way that the recipient understands, which fits with their ‘model of the world’, which can be quite different to ours. The same is true when it comes to love. So a pertinent question might be “are you communicating love to your partner/loved ones in a way they understand?”
After more than 20 years of experience Gary Chapman identified five typical ways in which we tend to give and receive love. We each have a preference as to the ways in which we give and receive love, in the same way that we have a preference as to the way we give and receive information generally (Representational Systems) whether it be visual, auditory, sensory etc. The thing is, we tend to give or express love to others in the same way that we prefer to receive it ourselves, which may or may not be the same way our partner prefers to receive it! Our ‘love languages’ may be as different as English and Chinese and no matter how hard we try to express love in English, if our partner only understands Chinese, our love will lost in the translation and, more likely than not, be failing to fully appreciate, experience or understand one anothers love. This means they may not be understanding and thus receiving your tokens of love, leaving them feeling rather unloved and you confused and frustrated as to the reasons why. This tool enables you to identify and understand your own preferred love language as well as your partners so that you can start communicating in a way each other understands, which can result in both feeling more loved and loving and the relationship being transformed. Another good thing about this tool is that it only takes one person in the relationship to understand the tool and make the difference to the relationship.
What is Love?
What do we mean by love? There are many definitions of love. The Greeks have five words for love, we have just the one, but with many meanings. When I say “I love my wife”, that is a very different kind of love than when I say ‘I love apple pie” (you would hope!). This tool focuses on the kind of love that is essential to our emotional health – the need for love and affection, the need to sense one belongs and is wanted. Gary Chapman uses the concept of an ‘emotional love tank’ as a gauge of how loved someone feels. Gary’s experience with his clients, just as with our clients, usually boils down to the core issue of not feeling loved in one form or another (by self or others). Just as a car behaves differently when it has fuel in its tank, people’s behaviour can radically change when their love tank is full. This means it can take just one partner in the relationship to understand these principles to be able to transform the relationship. Gary gives an example of a women asking him what to do about her husband because he wouldn’t listen to her requests and now nagging to decorate the bedroom. Gary asked her whether he did other useful things around the house like take care of the car maintenance or putting the rubbish out and she confirmed that he did. He also asked whether she thinks he knows she wants him to decorate the bedroom. She said that given the amount of nagging over the last few months she was sure he knew! Gary’s advice was to a) not to mention the decorating again and b) compliment him every time he does anything good, show him that you appreciate him. She wasn’t happy with the advice as she couldn’t see how this was going to get the bedroom decorated. A couple of weeks later however she returned to Gary’s office to tell him that it had worked! She learnt that verbal compliments were a far greater motivator for her husband than nagging, it was filling his love tank and he was feeling appreciated and wanted. When you are feeling loved you are more likely to reciprocate and do something your partner desires.
OK, so what are the five Love Languages? I’ll take each one in turn. Like with spoken language there are various ‘dialects’ within each love language and it’s also key to understand specifically what dialect your partner is within their primary love language.
1. Words of Affirmation.
The love language of Words of Affirmation has dialects within it such as compliments, encouragement, affirmation and kindness. Compliments can be anything from simple compliments such as telling them that you think they look nice in what they’re wearing or thanking them for doing something. Words of encouragement or affirmation can be powerful as we all have untapped potential or areas where we feel insecure which may be transformed by our partners words. It might be kind words. How often do we communicate by the tone of our voice rather than with our actual words;. using a harsh tone when we’re angry or frustrated, rather than expressing our feelings in a gentler tone?. Another dialect is not the presence of words of affirmation but the absence of criticism. This is true for me. The positive words by-pass me quickly, whereas criticism cuts deep and stays with me (do you know a good therapist?!) – which also means I am slow at giving my wife compliments but rarely criticize her.
2. Quality Time.
Quality Time has dialects such as undivided attention, shared activities, listening and sharing. Undivided attention means focusing on each other without any distractions. It’s not just about staring into each other eyes, it could be sharing an activity together that has a sense of cooperation or camaraderie, working together. When a parent rolls a ball to a toddler it is not about the activity itself, but the emotions that are created between them. My wife and I sometimes find that holding hands when we are talking is a means of demonstrating that we are giving each other our undivided attention – something important to my wife as this is her primary love language!! It may not just be talking, it might well be quality activities; doing something with your partner that you know they will enjoy whole-heartedly, even if you do not particularly like the activity. For example, perhaps you partner likes going to the ballet. You could suggest going together. It can become a quality activity if one party wants to do it and the other party is willing to join in in order to express love by being with each other. This also creates future memories. Start by making a list of the things they would like to do with you.
Quality time also involves quality conversation. This requires learning to listen as well as learning to talk. I am going to expand this further as my experience is that clients have really benefited from this understand.
Learning to listen
I find that too often when I am ‘listening’ to my wife I am busy in my head thinking of solutions and I am missing completely what she is trying to communicate – which is how she feels; she is looking for understanding. My giving solutions leaves her feeling lonely, resentful and frustrated as she thinks I have failed to hear what she is trying to communicate and have offered solutions when she is perfectly capable of finding her own solutions. Listening involves listening for what is being communicated and demonstrating that understanding by asking questions of clarification and perhaps asking whether it is like a situation you have experienced. Martin Seligman, in Positive Psychology, talks about a speaking floor where the person doing the speaking is standing up (having the speaking floor) the listener is seated and cannot say anything other than questions of clarification until the person sharing gives them the floor. We sometimes write things down, I personally find this useful as a means of my sharing how I am feeling and it also enables me to really ‘listen’ to my wife without interrupting. We can then discuss the matter we were writing about to gain common understanding. When someone says they are “angry” to the other person it can mean anything from “rage” to “slightly hacked off”! When you are listening and trying to understand what someone is saying you cannot say ‘I understand’, only they can say you understand, your role is to demonstrate your understanding. We find the use of analogies or pictorial visualisations helpful in sharing our experience.
Learning to talk
A number of years ago I realized that I found it hard to register my feelings, let alone communicate them. Quality communication requires sharing of yourself which requires sharing of your feelings. Feelings are what is going on inside you, they are your experience of life which is what your partner wants to share with you and they are the part of us that is most truly alive. Gary Chapman suggests a ‘feelings audit’ where you check in with yourself every few hours and go over the last few hours since the last audit and review what you have done and how you felt about it at the time or now. Even small things like having to run for a bus and missed it and your feeling frustrated by this. By the end of the day you will have a number of experiences and feelings to share with your partner
When sharing your feelings it is easy to share thoughts rather than feelings, particularly judgments. ‘I feel you spend to much money’ is not a feeling, it is a thought and a judgment. If you can replace the word ‘feel’ with ‘think’ it is not a feeling! ‘When I see what you have bought, I feel anxious as I need to know we are in control of our spending’ is sharing a feeling. For more information about identifying and sharing feelings rather than judgments – which too often are heard as criticism resulting in an unhelpful communication pattern see ‘Non Violent Communication’ by Marshall Rosenberg – probably the best book I have ever read and one which I frequently recommend to clients.
3. Gifts.
Gary Chapman studied anthropology and has visited and studied a huge number of fascinating people groups all over the world. In every culture he studied he found that gift giving was part of the love-marriage process/ceremony. In our culture it is the giving and receiving of rings. Giving and receiving gifts is a fundamental means of expressing love and for some people it is their preferred love language. When someone gives a gift they are generally thinking of the recipient when they obtain it. You can look at a gift and it reminds you of the person who gave it to you and the fact that they remembered or thought of you and valued you enough to give a gift. Again there are a number of dialects in the language of Gifts such as the expensive gifts, home-made tokens of love or gifts of your time.
Gifts can be extravagant or simple, they can be bought, made or found; from huge and expensive displays of affection, to the single daisy we pickedon the way home because we were thinking of our partner When my wife and I were first married I often bought her flowers on the way home from work. It was not until a number of years later that I realized buying cheap carnations from the old bloke outside the station for someone who used to be a florist was not the best idea. I never knew she used every floristry trick in the book to make them look good and last longer (e.g. pins in the heads of roses keeps them upright when they start drooping!). I now know Gifts is not her primary love language, and that if I do buy her flowers she would rather have quality than quantity!! A friend of ours was snorkling on his honeymoon and came out of the water minus his wedding ring. His new bride made him go back in and would not let him out until he found it. He quickly learnt that Gifts was her primary love language (and thankfully he found the ring!!)
4. Acts of Service.
The dialects within Acts of Service what is important to your partner. This is doing something you know your partner would like you to do – not what you think is important or what you want to do! I do lots of things around the house like maintaining the car and computer but this can often fail to register with my wife. If I clean the bathroom then it gets noticed! This can often challenge our stereotypical roles for men & women which may come from the assumed roles our parents played. The trick with this one is knowing what is important for your partner. For my wife I know she has a far greater attention to detail than myself so when I do something for her I know I need to take more care and ensure I am doing it as if she would – without my lazy short-cuts!
5. Physical Touch.
Touch is a powerful way of communicating emotional love. What do we often do in a time of crisis to demonstrate love? – we hug someone. Touch can communicate love or hate, a caress can be life enhancing and tender, a push or shove can be devastating. Men often think this is their primary love language because of their love of sex. However, sex can be a physical, biological drive rather than an emotional one . One question to ask is “would you want sex with your partner if they were not demonstrating your second love language? i.e if your second love language is words of affirmation, would you want sex with your partner if they have criticized you all day? If the answer is no then perhaps Physical Touch is not your primary love language.
The dialects within Physical touch can be explicit touch such as massage where you are focused on the act of touch, or it could be implicit such as a glancing touch as you brush past your partner or reach for something.
Understanding your love language.
Just reading the explanations above may give you an indication of what your and your partners primary love languages are. In addition, here are some questions that may help you to identify your primary love language:
What does your partner do that hurts you most deeply?
What have you most often requested from your partner?
In what ways do you regularly express love to your partner?
If you find it difficult to identify your primary love language it could be that you love tank has been full for some time and has been filled using a variety of love languages making it difficult to identity which is the key one for you or that your love tank has been empty for some time and you cannot remember which one makes the difference to you. If this is the case try asking yourself:
What did you like about your partner when you fell in love with them?
What would your ideal partner be like?
Communicating love to your partner in their preferred love language can transform a relationship as they will feel emotionally loved and wanted. They will automatically respond and reflect that love back to you. Give it a go. See if you can identify your partners primary love language. Do something to express your love to them in that way for every day for two weeks. Watch the transformation unfold.
