No, I’m not talking about French, Italian, Portuguese, or Romanian. Did you know you have a love language? According to Gary Smalley, there are 5 primary love languages: quality time, giving and receiving of gifts, words of affirmation, acts of service and physical touch. I know there is a lot of argument as to whether or not this is true, but for the sake of this blog post, let’s say it’s true.
A quick overview:
1. Quality Time-You enjoy spending time with your significant other. It doesn’t have to be anything especially “special”; you just enjoy being together. You feel loved when someone wants to/goes out of their way/makes it a point to spend time with you.
2. Giving and Receiving of Gifts-You put a lot of thought into and enjoy giving gifts to show that you love people. They don’t have to be large gifts—even a note or card. You feel loved when people think enough of you to give you a gift.
3. Words of Affirmation-When you love someone, you tell them how good they are, how proud of them you are, how much you appreciate them, etc. You feel loved when others tell you how good you are, how proud they are of you, how much you are appreciated, etc.
4. Acts of Service-You show love by “doing” things for people-washing the car, running an errand, cleaning the house, etc. You feel loved when others “do” things for you, to help you out.
5. Physical Touch-You love to hug, snuggle, and just be close to those you love. You feel loved when someone wants to hug, snuggle, and just be close to you.
The 5 love languages theory in a nutshell: We all give and receive love differently. If my love language is giving and receiving gifts, but my husband’s is words of affirmation, it doesn’t matter how many gifts I give him (even though there’s nothing wrong with that); he needs me to TELL him that I appreciate him and love him. I, personally, have to be so careful in how I interpret my husband’s actions.
***Case in point: One of my husband’s love languages is acts of service (i.e. cleaning for me, doing laundry for me, washing the car for me, etc). He is SO VERY good at doing all of these things for me. He has every Friday off, and he usually spends it cleaning…for me. Now, at first, I thought to myself, “Awesome! He’s finally helping out around here!” WRONG ANSWER!!! I had to kick myself in the behind to realize that he was doing it to show me love—he knows how insanely busy life has been for me the past few years and has stepped in and taken over things that would have otherwise weighed me down with more “stuff” to do.
As you read the 5 choices, you may have already been able to pick out your primary and secondary love language. If you aren’t sure, go to http://www.5lovelanguages.com/assessments/love/ to take a little quiz. If you’ve never read the book, The 5 Love Languages, it’s a great read…there’s even a version for kids. This was great for me to learn my kids’ love languages.
I’ll be doing a series on the Love Languages, how to use them, how to figure out other’s love languages and more. I’ll be sharing what mine are, but until then, keep checking back for more posts! What do you think your love languages are?
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