5 Reasons You Should Learn Each Other’s ‘Love Language’ In Your Relationship
Understanding each other's love language can change your relationship completely.
getty For those of you who aren’t familiar with love languages, Gary Chapman's book The 5 Love Languages created a whole movement around the concept of there being five languages of love, and thus, five ways to express love to your partner.
Expressing love seems straightforward, no? Well, not so much.
Love languages are about expressing love in a way that respects your partner's needs.
It seems that most of us express love in ways you want to be loved — as opposed to in ways that your partner wants to be loved.
You might feel loved when you get a piece of jewelry as an expression of affection, but your partner might feel loved by getting to spend a full day together, just the two of you. You might feel loved when you get a hug, but your partner might feel loved if you take out the trash.
The key is learning what your partner needs to feel loved. When you learn what that is and express your love using those actions, your partner will truly feel adored and your relationship will stay healthy.
Here are the 5 Love Languages.
1. Quality Time.
While this love language might imply more time in the presence of your partner, it means the time you spend together is quality time.
It’s the time that you put down your phone and look your partner in the eye. It’s doing things together that will keep you connected.
For a person whose love language is quality time, it’s time that, no matter how limited, is time that makes them feel loved.
2. Words of Affirmation.
This love language is quite clear — it’s using your words to express how you feel about someone.
While you might assume that your parnter knows how you feel, someone whose love language is words of affirmation is someone who wants to be told how you feel; that you love them, that you're important to them, that you like who they are.
3. Physical Touch.
This love language seems quite clear, but there are nuances to it. Yes, in relationships physical touch often alludes to sex, but in this case, touch can mean a hug, a pat on the back, or touching someone’s arm.
Touch can excite someone, but it can also show that you care and that you love them.
4. Acts of Service.
"Let me do that for you," or, "Can I help you with that?" are magical words to a person whose love language is acts of service. Anything that you can do to make life easier for your person will make your person feel loved.
5. Receiving Gifts.
If your person’s love language is receiving gifts, they believe that the giver of gifts is using those gifts to represent how they feel. They believe that the thoughtfulness and the time spent around the gift speaks volumes about how much their person cares about them.
So, now that you're familiar with these love languages, here's what you need to know about why it's important to learn each other’s love language to have a healthy relationship.
Here are 5 reasons you and your partner should learn each other's love language.
1. You won't have to guess what makes them feel loved.
You know when you're in a new relationship and you want your partner to feel loved and appreciated, but you don't know where to start? You're motivated to make an effort so that they will feel good.
Unfortunately, if you don’t know your partner’s love language, you might fail in that effort.
Let's say a man's girlfriend is celebrating her birthday. He wonders what to get her, and decided to pick up a bracelet. To him, it would be a thoughtful gift, and most women love jewelry.
So, he bought her a bracelet and while she did like it, her response upon opening the gift was, "Is this what you think I want?"
She couldn’t verbalize it, but what's really important to his girlfriend is quality time and words of affirmation. The gift didn’t make her feel loved.
What would have worked best for her birthday was a dinner out and declarations of affection. So, while the bracelet was appreciated, his stab in the dark about what she might want for her birthday fell flat.
2. You give what you want, instead of what they need.
When you don’t know your partner’s love language, you tend to express your love through what you would want to be done to you.
Many men struggle with emotions in a relationship. Giving someone words of affection and quality time can be a challenge. What they want, often, is physical touch, so they express that love language when they're trying to communicate those feelings to their partner.
Unfortunately, if their partner’s love language isn’t physical touch, they won’t feel loved by their partner’s affection. Instead, they will feel like their person doesn’t understand them, and they'll feel rejected.
So, it’s important that you know your partner’s love language, and your own, so you don’t project what you want on your person.
3. It will help resolve fights and bring you closer together.
As in anything, knowledge is power.
Let’s say you know what your partner’s love language is, and you're learning what that looks like for them. Let’s say you and your partner argue, and you want to do something to make up for it.
If you know their love language, you'll know exactly what your partner would want to feel loved after the fight.
Perhaps it’s a walk in the park, cell phones at home. Perhaps it’s a heartfelt, "I'm sorry and I love you." Perhaps it’s a hug. Perhaps it’s picking up the kids from school. Perhaps it’s a small thoughtful gift.
Whatever it is, knowing what it takes to make your partner feel loved will give you the power to set things straight quickly, so that you can get past your fight and move forward together.
4. It builds consistent love and connection between you.
Relationships can be long and hard, and one of the things that can keep them strong and healthy is consistency.
What I mean by consistency is that the partners always feel loved and valued, even if issues and disagreements arise. If you don’t know your partner’s love language, there are times where you will do something for them that will make them feel less-than and disrespected.
Perhaps a woman tells her husband all the time that she needs more sex. He says OK, and promises to step up his game.
He obliges her once, but then goes back to taking the garbage out and giving her time away from the kids — acts of service. While she certainly appreciates those things, that doesn’t override her need for sex.
He thinks those things make her feel loved, but it actually frustrates her and causes a significant amount of discord in their relationship.
So, if you can consistently help your person feel loved, instead of riding the roller coaster of unmet expectations, your relationship has a much better chance of staying healthy.
5. It can save a relationship — even one that's dying.
Here is the magic of love languages — they have significant power to save a dying relationship.
I know a couple whose marriage was circling the drain. They had been married for a long time, and she felt ignored and disrespected.
Her husband was confused about her feelings — he felt like he did things that she would like to make her feel that he respected her. But for some reason, she still felt that way.
When they went over the love languages together, they learned that their love languages were quite different.
She needed quality time and words of affirmation. He needed physical touch and words of affirmation. They had both been giving each other acts of service with the intent of making each other feel like they were cared for.
As soon as the couple learned what the other needed to feel loved, they were able to identify and implement, with confidence, what the other person needed. There was a little bit of trial and error, but it didn’t take long for both of these people to feel loved and respected in their relationship.
Their marriage grew stronger as a result.
If you are looking for a way to make your relationship stronger quickly, knowing each other’s love language could be just the thing.
So, now you understand what love languages are, and hopefully you understand why knowing each other’s love language is the key to a healthy relationship.
Go to the 5 Love Languages website and take the online quiz together. You will be five minutes away from understanding each other in a profound way — a way that will keep your relationship strong.
Mitzi Bockmann is an NYC-based certified life coach and mental health advocate. She works exclusively with women to help them to be all that they want to be in this crazy world in which we live. Contact her for help or send her an email.