The Five Love Languages
By Gary Chapman
Love is not an emotion or feeling, it is an action. Many relationships and marriages fail because the two get married during the early euphoric stages. After reading this book, I could just about tell which language of love all of my ex-relationships were, but I could not narrow down my love language. It wasn’t until I got to the end of the book and took the test that I found out what love language I am! Although this book is written to tell married couples how to love each other in their own unique love language, I read this book to prepare myself for marriage, and had so much fun reading it. The five love languages are as follows:
1. Words of Affirmation
This would be the language of love for the one who is always complaining that they are not told how much they are appreciated or how much they are loved. This person feels most loved when the other person tells them how they feel about them, care about them, and how great of a person they are.
2. Quality Time
Quality time is not sitting in the same room with each other. When you spend quality time with someone, you are engaging in meaningful conversation without any distractions. The person whose love language is quality time will feel most loved when the other person gives them their undivided attention. This person whose love language is quality time will constantly complain that they don’t get to spend any time with you if you don’t love them in their language.
3. Receiving Gifts
The person whose love language is receiving gifts will not feel a genuine sense of love unless you give them something. Keep in mind, the gift does not have to be expensive or specific, but the gift should be meaningful. The person who complains that you never give them anything has a love language of receiving gifts.
4. Acts of Service
The person who complains, “You never do anything around here”, has an acts of service love language. This person will need you to help out around the house, or get their car washed, take their clothes to the cleaners, or take care of an issue that frees up some of their time.
5. Physical Touch
This person is also known as “touchy feely”! They love to be touched on the knee, or shoulder, they love to hold hands, and smooch in public. They feel most loved when you are near them or touching them. Physical touch does not mean sex. Sex is not a love language; it is a symbol of union between two people in love (preferably married).
After taking the test I found out that I have two love languages: 1. Words of Affirmation & 2. Acts of Service. How did I get two? I scored a tie between the two. For me, I like a person to say, “Thank you for all that you do around here. By the way, do you need me to do anything?” I especially love when my significant other tells other people how great I am! And if I come home to a cooked meal, I’ll feel overwhelmed with love. I recommend reading this book because there are definitely some thorough breakdowns on how to love and save a marriage, whether you are married or not.
I’ve heard about this book a few times before, but never read it. Thanks for a quick breakdown. Is there an actions of affirmation? I think that’s mine
Yes. That would fall under Acts of Service. Acts of Service is another way of showing you love someone. The book was an easy, quick read.
I was wondering about that. I guess “actions” wasn’t the right word for me to use. Maybe interaction or someone’s behavior toward me, like how they treat me, because having people do tasks for me helps, of course, and can show that they care, but doesn’t really speak love to me. I feel like anybody that hates me can even say some nice words to me, do something for me, touch me, or give me a gift and trick me because those things can be easily done without the heart. At best, those other things can show that they want me (for whatever reason), but not necessarily that they love me. (in my mind)
I think it’s much harder to spend quality time with me and pretend like you enjoy it if you really don’t, especially after we’ve gotten into some deeper conversations. Maybe that’s the closest one for me, not quantity time, but quality time, which the main key is that the person is just genuinely happy to be around me or to talk to me. So it’s not really about time or formality much at all to me, but that they are generally just happiest when they are with me just because they’re with me (unless something else has them down). Personally that’s how I can best feel that they love me, though it still has its flaws
But I think I could easily overlook signs of their love if their love language is different than mine, but I assume it’s the same. I guess that’s the big lesson here. Thanks for causing me to think about this. I’ll have to see about giving this a read.
You should definately read the book! The book will give you a better understanding of each love language.