Gary Chapman’s bestselling book The 5 Love Languages has been read by more than eleven million people throughout the world. It is consistently one of the bestselling marriage books on the market, indicating that it has resonated with many. In it, he identifies and describes five different ways of giving and receiving love that affect the way we interact with our family and friends. These love languages are:
- Words of Affirmation—Using kind words and nurturing tone of voice to encourage the other person and affirm their goodness and accomplishments.
- Giving Gifts—Concrete expressions of love in the form of money or material things with the goal of meeting a personal need or desire.
- Acts of Service—Showing love by meeting physical needs or doing practical things to meet immediate needs, such as cooking a meal, washing dishes, vacuuming floors, or house repairs.
- Quality Time—Being present and offering undivided attention as an expression of love, such as taking a walk together or sitting and listening attentively.
- Physical Touch—Expressing love through physical touch, holding hands, hugging, kissing, or sexual lovemaking.
Each one of us has the capacity to express love in all five of these ways. However, Chapman proposes that each of us has a primary love language. I have found that most people also have secondary and tertiary ways they prefer to give and receive love. These love languages are expressions of our unique spiritual gifting (see Rom 12:4–8). When you fail to recognize these differences in the way you are each gifted, you may come away from interactions feeling unloved and underappreciated.
Like many couples, Margie and I had different primary love languages. Though complementary, these differences were also a source of conflict between us. We often missed each other in our primary love language, but we found places to meet each other’s love needs through our secondary love languages. Margie had an incredible gift of service. Whether with our family or at work as a nurse, she found great joy in serving others selflessly, and she did it with great love. She cared for people very actively, whether it was cooking a meal, starting an IV or assisting in a delivery as a nurse, or offering a helping hand to anyone in need.
Unfortunately, service is probably the least prominent of my love languages. While I admired her for this and benefitted from her loving me and others in this way, service didn’t communicate affection to me. Neither did it come naturally for me to love her well in this area that she valued so highly. I had to learn over time how to consciously serve her in ways that communicated love to her. By cleaning the kitchen before she got home from work, I could tell her in a concrete way that I cared about her. She told me she became more attracted to me even when I did some small service, such as changing a light bulb in the kitchen. (That shows you how poor I was in this area and how little it took to say “I love you” in her love language.)
My primary love language is quality time. I’m a good listener and love one-on-one quality time with people. It usually takes me a while to open my heart to share intimately, but when someone takes the time to listen and be attuned to my needs, I enjoy receiving attention in this way. I also enjoy listening as they share. At those times, I feel deeply loved and known. Unfortunately, this was not high on Margie’s list of love languages. So, I sometimes felt unloved when she didn’t come and sit down and engage in a deep conversation or participate in a favorite activity of mine. At times, this created a sense of loneliness for me in our relationship. I wanted to have deep sharing together, but it was not a natural desire for Margie.
Thankfully, we were a good match in our secondary love languages, physical touch. From the very beginning of our relationship, we both enjoyed holding hands, cuddling on the couch, kissing, and hugging. Though we frequently missed meeting each other’s needs in our primary love languages, we made up for it through this secondary love language of touch. This is one of the things I now miss most since Margie is gone—just sitting next to her and holding hands.
Discovering each other’s love language, along with personality and gender differences, saves a lot of unnecessary conflict and misunderstanding. So, before going further, take a moment to see how you and your spouse differ in these areas. Then identify some of the critical issues of conflict in your marriage, which we will address in the second part of this chapter.
Take a Moment
- Describe your differences in personality. How do your temperaments and gender differences influence the way you address conflicts in your relationship?
- What is your primary love language? What is your spouse’s love language? In what ways are these complementary? How do these differences in love languages create conflicts between you?
- What are the critical issues in your marriage that threaten your unity? What conflicts are repetitive in your marriage?
This excerpt from Be Devoted: Restoring Friendship, Passion, and Communion in Your Marriage is reprinted with permission of Ave Maria Press.
Bob Schuchts is the bestselling author of Be Healed, Be Transformed, Be Devoted, Be Restored, and Do You Want to Be Healed? He is the founder of the John Paul II Healing Center in Tallahassee, Florida, and cohost of the Restore the Glory podcast with Jake Khym.
