Do You Speak Your Spouses LOVE Language?

Are you familiar with the book, The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman?

It's a pretty good book.

In it he points out that there are five primary love languages, which are:

Words of Affirmation

Quality Time

Receiving Gifts

Acts of Service 

Physical Touch 

Chapman explains that each of us have a primary and secondary love language and we typically show love in the way we like to receive it. That can be a big problem if your spouse speaks a different love language than your own.

My Marriage and Family Relations teacher explained it something like this...Speaking the wrong kind of love language is like sending a package to the wrong address. It never reaches it's desired destination and therefore has little or no affect on the intended recipient.

I read this book years ago and found it very helpful to understand my own love language as well as Ken's love language. When I finally realized the way we both individually feel love and in return show love it made understanding each other so much easier. My primary love language is acts of service, and my second is quality time. Ken's primary love language is more physical touch and words of affirmation. You can imagine how badly we would miss the mark if we only spoke our own language instead of learning the language of our spouse.

I am inclined to DO things for Ken to show my love, but what he really needs sometimes is just a hug and an encouraging word. Ken is inclined to show affection when what I really need sometimes is for him to just DO something to lighten my load. We both try and look past our own love language and instead speak the language of our partner. For me personally, I know I try and speak Ken's language but my love language is generously applied as well, because that's who I am. I just have to know that he may not get as much out of those things as I get out of doing them.  If anything, it at least helps explain why our spouses sometimes do the things they do or think the way they think. Life becomes a ton more simple and enjoyable when you understand this concept. It's HUGE, really. 

If I were really cool I would add a link to the quiz you can take to find out what your love language is, unfortunately I'm not that cool. Still, I encourage you to find it or read the book. It's worth it.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!