Did You Read The Five Love Languages?

Did you tell your partner all about it, so they would know how to show you they love you?

Then You Got It Wrong!!

Sure, it’s important to tell your partner that you like to have them hold your hand, or say “I love you” (physical touch and words of affirmation). If they were confused about why you were often frustrated, that might help. But this is not actually the thrust of the popular theory proposed by Gary Chapman in his 1992 book, The Five Love Languages.

Chapman posits that people have differences in the ways they prefer to show and receive love. The five ways he describes are:

·      Quality time

·      Physical touch

·      Acts of service

·      Giving and receiving gifts

·      Words of affirmation

You don’t need to take a 5 Love Languages quiz to know your own love language. Just look at the 5 categories above and think about which ways make you feel the most loved, and which ways you like to show love to your partner. Plot twist—they might not be the same. It’s great to be aware of the ways you like to give and receive love, but…

What Does The 5 Love Languages Really Tell Us to Do?

As a recent article in The Atlantic points out, Chapman wrote the book in order to help people identify their partner’s love languages, so that they could make their partner feel loved. Looking at the theory from this viewpoint is more helpful.

If you have been trying and trying to show your partner how much you love them, but they have not been responding to your efforts, it can be extremely helpful to take a minute to ask them about their love language.

If your partner’s love language is giving and receiving gifts—which perhaps you yourself couldn’t care less about—and you’ve been knocking yourself out giving them acts of service, then nobody is happy. Your partner doesn’t feel particularly loved, and you are not getting any credit for all the effort you’ve been putting in!

If you’ve been spending a lot of quality time with your partner, but what they really want is words of affirmation (“What? Don’t they already know how much I love them? It’s obvious! I shouldn’t have to say it!”) then you’ve been spinning your wheels. You’ve spent a lot of time and energy and they don’t even appreciate how you skipped that meeting to get home early, or cancelled plans with your friends when you realized they needed some emotional support.

Knowing your partner’s love languages means that when you put effort into showing them how much you care, you will be appreciated!

That’s a win-win!!

If you know your partner’s love language,  you can tailor your loving actions to their needs, so that you will get credit for all you do!

But I would take this idea a step further.

 A New Way to Use the 5 Love Languages

Knowing your partner’s love language means you have a much better chance of feeling loved!

Often we tell our partner our love language, but because it’s not their love language, they struggle to show us love in that way. They’re human; they forget. They try, but fall short. Their efforts are sporadic, and it can leave us feeling like we aren’t important enough. That sucks. We all want to feel like we are important to our partner!

There’s a Better Way!

If you know what your partner’s love language is, notice that!

Sounds simple, right? But then they show up on your birthday without flowers, (which of course you were expecting!) and it bums you out. You can’t help it, you had the vase all ready to go and everything.

Your disappointment keeps you from noticing that they got all dressed up for you, because they know you hate their normal “uniform” of jeans and a T-shirt. They’re even wearing nice shoes.

Or maybe they remembered that place you said you wanted to go that one time, and made reservations there. But it was actually something you just said in passing, and you really wanted to go somewhere else. It’s still okay to say you want to go to a different restaurant, but if you notice the extra effort they went to, then you will feel better about the whole thing.

The purpose of noticing what your partner does to show you they love you, is not to give THEM credit for every little thing they do so that they don’t have to try to meet you in your love language.

Rather, the purpose of noticing what your partner does, is to give YOU that warm fuzzy feeling of being loved. You deserve it!

At the end of the day, the idea of the 5 Love Languages is most useful because it reminds us that when your partner says or does something, it does not usually mean what it would if you said or did that same thing.

It reminds us to meet people where they are, to translate what they are saying and doing with their own dictionary, not ours. The result is not only better communication, but also many more loving feelings being sent and received!

Do you think you don’t do this??

Have you ever obsessed about why they didn’t text you right back? Or right before bed? Or when they landed at LAX? Do you think their lack of communication means what it would if you didn’t text them? You can be sure it does NOT!

Translating the absence of text responses is probably the most common miscommunication I see in my therapy practice. It drives everyone nuts! If you worry about waiting for that text, it can ruin your day, your evening, and your peace of mind. Eventually it can ruin your relationship.

Translating our partner’s words and actions goes way beyond love languages, and I can guarantee you it sneaks up on us in the most insidious ways!

Texting is actually engineered to drive you crazy like this, because that makes it more addicting. You can read all about those 3 dots of doom here…

Could You Use Some Extra Helping Figuring Out Your Partner’s Love Language and Letting Them Know Yours?

Therapy can be so helpful with learning how to communicate in positive ways. Chances are you already love each other, and are deeply connected—you just speak different languages! If you would like to learn more about how I can help you communicate with your partner, give me a call at 323-999-1537 or send me an email at amy@thrivetherapyla.com, and set up your FREE in-office or phone consultation. I look forward to talking to you soon!