Love Languages
After reading my post last week, I had someone comment that they were disappointed that I didn’t talk about the other Love Languages – I just spoke about the one that’s about gifts. So for those of you who don’t know about the Love Languages (or if you just need a bit of a reminder), the concept comes from the book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.
In the book, he describes 5 ways that people show and like to receive love:
Words of Affirmation
Acts of Service
Gifts
Quality Time
Physical Touch
Chapman explains that in his experience as a couples therapist he found that oftentimes one partner was feeling like they were not appreciated/loved by the other partner – but what the issue was that the person was not being shown love in the way that makes sense to them.
For example, Partner A stays up late one night and does the laundry. They have expressed their love using Acts of Service. Partner B may or may not recognize it as an act of love. If Partner B does not understand the concept of Love Languages, to them it may just seem like an ordinary act – something that needed to get done – quite matter of fact – or they may even resent the fact that their partner did not come to bed and stayed away. However, if they recognize it, they may say: “Honey, thank you for taking care of the laundry – it means a lot to not have to worry about that tomorrow.” - acknowledging the act.
Do you see the difference? Partner A did not do anything different. However, by understanding that it was an act of love, it reframes it for Partner B.
This got me thinking about my Love Language – I do believe that we are all a combination of the different languages. I have taken the quiz before but I wanted to do it again – to see if the work I have been doing on myself may have changed the results. You can do the quiz for yourself here
Interestingly, my results did change. When I did the quiz several years ago, my result was “Words of Affirmation”. That made a lot of sense. For me (and in no way am I saying this is the case for anyone other than myself), at that time, I was looking for validation from others. As I have been going through this self-healing journey, my need for that has decreased (it hasn’t gone away completely by any stretch of the imagination).
Today, however, when I did the quiz my result came back as “Quality Time” being my most dominant language and “Physical Touch” being a close second. This actually makes me happy. Seeing these two languages is a sign of progress for me. To me, these two speak of more confidence and are a more accurate depiction of where I am at now. That doesn’t mean the other languages don’t speak to me.
I love a truly thoughtful gift.
I still love to hear I did a great job.
If you want to do my laundry, please go ahead!
However, the way I truly feel appreciated and loved is when you spend time with me (please put the phone away!) and I love a good hug!
I’m curious – what is your primary love language?