The 5 Love Languages

Greetings from the Y! My sweet husband gave me the opportunity to have a Starbucks date with myself today, but my ancient laptop couldn't find the Starbucks wireless internet. So...instead of foregoing my chance to have some alone time, I'm fully using all of the benefits our monthly gym membership. Don't worry...I wore yoga pants so people would think I worked out before lounging in the couch area :-)

Recently, my hubby and I had a big breakthrough in our relationship. I wanted to write about this a few weeks ago, but I thought I would save it for "love" week! I've mentioned that I've started to read The Five Love Languages many times, but I've never been able to get through the book. It's a great book, but I always get side-tracked into something else. Now, the author has included the love language quiz, and explanations of the five languages, on their website! Check it out at this link:

The Love Language Quiz

I took the quiz, read through the explanations, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I had actually guessed the order of my love languages with great accuracy. Here are the ways in which I love others, and how I enjoy receiving love from others:

• Receiving Gifts - 11 points
• Acts of Service - 7 points
• Words of Affirmation - 6 points
• Quality Time - 3 points
• Physical Touch - 2 points

I'm not that hard to figure out. Give me lots of presents and don't touch me! Just kidding :-) In his book, Gary Chapman explains that while we all need to be loved and to love others in all of the five methods, our hearts and spirits respond the most to our top one or two love languages. Meaning? My natural inclination is to love others by giving them gifts, and my heart leaps at a small token given to me in thoughtfulness. It's easy to think of "gift people" as materialistic. But in fact, it's almost the opposite. I don't accept gifts and buy things in order to collect stuff. To me, there is a story that I remember behind every trinket, each piece of home decor, and every Christmas or birthday present. The act of giving a gift to someone makes me just as thrilled as when I am accepting one, and I get pure joy out of simply shopping and buying things for others (on clearance and with coupons, of course!).

My husband will be the first one to tell you that he never quite got this concept until we both took the quizzes and explored what it meant together. I mean, he really never got it. Look at his love language profile:

• Words of Affirmation - 8
• Physical Touch - 8
• Quality Time - 6
• Acts of Service - 6
• Receiving Gifts - 1

My top two languages are his bottom two, and Receiving Gifts is nearly off his chart. It's not that he's just naturally bent in other ways of love, he truly doesn't see the need or the point of gift-giving and receiving. All of those painstaking hours I spent creating the perfect, and ginormous, sparkly Valentine for him, searching out for a ridiculous amount of perfect Christmas gifts, wrapping everything just perfectly in paper I had found to look exactly like out dog...it was how I naturally chose to love him. He always graciously accepted, but it was strange to me that he would rather keep a stack of my heartfelt cards easily accessible in his "man treasure area" (a.k.a. his corner in the basement!). I wrote a card for him in bible study a few months ago, and he hung it open on the side of the fridge for all to see as soon as they walk in the room. Wouldn't you want to display that fancy new snowboard instead?!?

Here's the point...I didn't get it, and he didn't get it. I would have said the physical touch was his top love language (by far!), but then I learned that he's just a man :-) He would have said that quality time was my top love language, but really I just like to hang out with him. He's kinda cute :-) Honestly, we have struggled over the years with me nagging him to bring me something fun from his business trip, or to pick up some flowers for me at the grocery store, or to leave me a note with my favorite snack downstairs before he left for work in the morning. On the other hand, I always thought he acted way too sensitive if I criticized his behavior, whined about how much time he spent at work, or used the "never" and "always" words when we would fight. Unlike me, hurtful words don't just bother him, they scar him. You see, as much as we enjoy receiving love in our primary language, we can get hurt the most when that language is used to attack us.

We have had several wonderful conversations since taking this quiz, and I truly feel like the Lord will bless our desire to better understand each other. I am making a point to shower my husband with affirmations, encourage him daily whether he needs it or not, and to keep a guard on my tongue whenever I am speaking to him. He is going to try and better understand how to love me with gifts. Gifts have always equaled money-spent to him, and for the sweet cheap-o that he is, it's a hard balance. But, gifts don't always mean money. Gifts simply mean a token that represents someone's feelings for another. We want to love each other better, and this book will definitely set us on the right track.

I pray that you and your husband will take this quiz together. It's super easy, fast, and you can even do it with The 5 Love Languages iPhone app! We really have no excuse to not figure out how to love each other better. Today and everyday, be blessed!