The language of love

"I'm in the mood for love, just because you're near me"...


The way we are loved is not the same way in which we love.

We can only do what we think we know. We use our experiences to guide us through the dark forest called life in order to get to the other side.

We raise our kids the way our parents raised us or as how we wished our parents would have raised us. In essence they come from good and bad experiences.

Luke 6:31 states, "Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you". We call this the Golden Rule.

But there's a flaw with this rule. If people loved us the same way we loved them, our love tanks would feel empty inside.

Typically, we do love our spouse the way we want to be loved.

Twice in the past two weeks someone mentioned a book called, "The five love languages", by Gary Chapman. The first time I heard about it, I nodded and listened to the other person but I had no intention of buying the book. Then within a week, someone else mentioned the book. Before he finished, he offered to give me his second copy.

I've never been opposed to reading "love" books. I've read John Gray's book about Venus and Mars.

This book is different. It has helped me understand not only the relationship with my wife but with everyone else around me.

The five languages of love are as follows:
1. Quality Time
2. Words of Affirmation
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

Everybody has a dominant language. I wrote in previous blog how I was complimenting my wife every day. She loved the positive words of affirmation, but when we sat down and discussed it, I found out she felt they were empty words.

Going beyond my comfort zone, I didn't know what else to do. This book explained to me.

After a few experiments I discovered my wife's main love language is "Acts of Service". Doing the dishes, making breakfast, cleaning the house, or doing anything that helps her in her daily routine makes her feel loved. One morning, totally out of character, I folded the laundry.

Her eyes revealed feelings for me again.

After I was certain of her love language, I sat down with her and explained what I had done. Never having verbalized what makes her loved, she realized something profound about herself. And more importantly where it came from.

We also discovered together she was loving me in the way she wanted to be loved: "Acts of Service". She didn't know that having a hot meal waiting for me when I got home was nice, but it didn't fill my love tank.

For me, "Words of Affirmation" is my love language. She can do anything she wants to show her love for me, but as long as she doesn't use of "words of affirmation", I won't feel that extra special way.

Then we took the conversation one step further. What were our children's love languages? Our son was simple. He likes to spend time with us. It took a few minutes but we think our daughter's love language is the same as mine.

Now we armed with new information to solidify our marriage and our parent/child relationships. We can also use this information to enhance relationships with other people outside of our family circle.