Gary Chapman, a successful marriage counselor by profession, concludes by his experience of five years that the language of love isn’t black or white but rather a canvas of colors painted by he who feels it and how he chooses to express it. To make it simpler for the common man, he deduced and explained in his book, the 5 basic ways by which people speak and understand emotional love. Chapman’s strong belief is once you understand your partner’s primary language of love; you will be successful in keeping a peaceful and harmonious everlasting marriage.
The effect of time on love:
Every relationship, as passionate as it might be, peaks to a high until it reaches a plateau. At that point most couples feel like someone put down those beginner fireworks with a cold water hose and killed all the butterflies that once used to get them all giddy and excited. Couples often complain that they’ve lost their spark.
Chapman in his book concludes that the euphoria of being in love lasts for only two years of the relationship. It is this fading of love after said time that makes partners question their relationship as they begin to lose the warmth and excitement.
Every human is supposed to comprise a tank for love just like a car would have for gas. The fuller the tank the better the performance of the car for longer distances. Hence, every individual operates ideally in a relationship with a full love tank.
In the initial stages of falling in love, the strong feeling on infatuation fills your heart with the fuel it needs to drive you to making your partner happy and satisfied. You want to be the “one” for them to always count on so you’re always ready to sacrifice and do what it takes to keep them in your life. You go out of your way to do things for them and support them.
However, maintaining a loving relationship is vastly different than falling in love. Once, the initial feeling fades, both partners revert to their original personalities before the relationship. It is at this point they try to establish their own individuality within a long term relationship. They start thinking about what they expect and want from their respective partner and start focusing on their individual happiness. Often times, the reality of un-met expectations, slowly drains their respective love tanks and end up making them feel unloved.
Chapman Big idea
Couples often believe that the end of the “in-love” experience means they have only two options: a life of misery marriage or to cut the thread and find a new path. However, there is a third and better alternative: To recognize and accept the in-love experience for what it was—a temporary emotional high—and then pursue “real love” with their spouse.
Chapman identifies that the main problem lies in the way love is understood by each individual within the relationship and listed the 5 basic languages of love every person. Each language corresponds to the types of actions or behaviors that make someone feel the most loved.
It is likely that one speaks a different language of love from their partner. This is the root of how conflicts stem within a relationship as there is miscommunication. It’s like trying to explain someone in English your home address but he only speaks Mandarin. Only once when both parties have learned to understand each other’s language for love, can they act in a way that can be fruitful for the relationship and fill each other’s love tanks.
The 5 Love Languages
- Words of Affirmation
This are the words or phrases that when said, instill a sense of encouragement and confidence in your partner. It is crucial you make them feel good about who they are and what they do by expressing it verbally.
For people whose language of love is words of affirmation, a compliment about their good looks or their beneficial contribution to the relationship/family can fill up their love tank. Reminding your partner how lucky you are to have them and how much they are appreciated would make them feel valued and loved.
Words of encouragement like “I believe in you” or “you can do anything if you put your mind to it” would not only uplift them but also remind them of your support and enthusiasm in watching them succeed.
Asking them for help with a task involving a skill they are good at would make them feel contributive and trusted.
The tone of voice is important as you would not want your words to be taken the wrong way. Having to request them for their help not only affirms them of their worth and abilities but also gives them the element of choice. This is important as one cannot get emotional love by way of demand.
- Quality Time
This is the time appointed only for you to spend with your partner with no other distractions. A person with this love language must simply want to spend time in their partners company and consider them their safe space to talk about anything of everything. Hence, this activity is secondary to the act of just being together.
Having deep meaningful conversations with your partner, talking about your troubles and anxieties and listening to their struggles shows them that you trust them while having interest in their life as well. Chapman defines quality conversations as sympathetic dialogue where two individuals share their thoughts, feelings, experiences and desires in a friendly uninterrupted context.
He recommends a daily sharing time for couples during which each of them has to tell the other at least three things that happened in their respective days. Chapman calls this time the: “minimum daily requirement” for a healthy marriage.
Having a common creative outlet and doing activities together like taking up a cooking class, a morning jog or couple cruises can also ensure your partner feels attended to and cared about, which is bound to fill their love tank.
- Receiving Gifts
Gifts serve as a symbol of love for a relationship and it makes your partner feel like you think about them in their absence. The type of gift holds less value than the effort to procedure it or the desire to give it.
A pretty scarf would equate to the same feeling of receiving a diamond bracelet which is the feeling of being loved enough to receive something from you.
Sometimes your physical presence can be the best gift for you partner so being there when times are tough can show them how much you care.
- Acts of Service
These are the things you can do to make your partner’s life a little bit easier. For example if they complain of doing a certain chore every day, offer to do it for them, like checking up on the baby at night or doing the night dishes. Whether you act to reduce a burden from their life, completely remove it, or provide space for them to do something else, these acts of service will tell a partner with this language that they and their time are respected.
- Physical Touch
People with this language feel loved the most through intimate contact. The most important thing to learn in this case is your partner’s specific preference for touch. A hand on the waist may be preferred over hand holding in public or vice versa. Hence it is important to always communicate experiment and discover your partner’s likes and dislikes when it comes to touch. Touching someone in a way they don’t like, “negative touch” does not communicate love and should always be avoided.
How can one discover their own language for love?
Chapman proposes three questions a person in a relationship to ask themselves for them to find their own personal love language.
1. What does their spouse do or fail to do that hurts them the most? The opposite of what hurts them deeply is probably their love language.
2. What have they most often requested of their spouse? The thing they have most often requested is likely the thing that would make them feel most loved.
3. In what way do they regularly express love to their spouse? Their method of expressing love may be an indication of what would also make them feel loved.
The reality of Love
Almost never do people fall in love or out of it the same day. Chapman calls this the dis equilibrium of the “in-love” experience. Love is not the answer to everything but it gives a blanket of security under which partners can find solutions to their relationship troubles.
Love can be rebuilt at any stage of a relationship .To love is a choice and it cannot be forced. Each day an individual makes a choice to continue loving their partner or not. If they do make the choice of loving them then doing it in the language they understand can have the best effect.
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