What’s Your Love Language?

One of my favorite relationship theories/concepts is what was created by Gary Chapman who is the author of the famous “5 Languages of Love” book. Most people I know have at least heard of the book while not necessarily having read it or understood it. I’d like to share my experience and how it changed behaviors in my own love life.

I had been hearing about this book for the longest time and took the time to read it back in the Summer of 2015. It was a very easy and fast read that really resonated with me. Essentially, each of us express love in five ways (languages) and each way in varying degrees. The way we are most comfortable with and use the most frequently tends to be the way we experience/receive love in the highest degree. Couples sometimes drift a part not because they don’t love each other but because they are simply expressing their love language in a way that their partner may not appreciate as much.

When I took the free online test, these are how my languages ranked (in order of highest to lowest):

1st – Physical Touch

I’m a super touchy feely guy. I love giving hugs, putting my arm around someone, pats on the back, hand on the shoulder you name it. What I also began to realize is that when I receive a “weak” hug back from someone, Physical Touch is probably not their primary love language. On the flip side when I get an equally powerful hug from someone I’m pretty confident that this language is high on the charts for that person.

2nd – Acts of Service

I truly love to help other people. Acts of Service in which I know I’m expressing love is when I cook, help with house chores, run simple errands like re-parking the car for street cleaning and more. When other people help me with projects I feel totally loved. The book talks about the concept of having one’s love tank filled and when others do services for me I absolutely feel like my love tank is getting refueled.

3rd – Quality Time

I love connecting and spending Quality Time with people, more so in a 1:1 setting than in large groups. I find that I’m able to connect on a deeper level and that the other person is willing to share more and be vulnerable with me. When I am connecting with someone, I put devices and distractions away to give my full, undivided attention and appreciate it when the person I’m with does the same. I get bummed when I look around at restaurants and see friends/couples engaged in their devices rather than with the person that they are physically sitting with!

4th – Words of Affirmation

This one is my biggest challenge and remains my largest opportunity. I’ve always been more of a “doer” than a “sayer” for someone else. And of course in my personal relationship, this is my boyfriend’s primary love language. When I discovered this, I got to stretch myself to speak this language more often and in different ways. The photo in this post is actually an idea I got from Gary’s Team of dry erase writing on the bathroom mirror little love notes from time to time. I also make a concentrated effort to hand write cards, gratitude journals, played word games in which we went back and forth sharing a personality trait we admired about each other and my next stretch will be a poem!

5th – Receiving Gifts

I have not been a big gift giver and when I saw this rank dead last it made sense to me. However I also got to understand that just because I don’t appreciate receiving gifts doesn’t mean that other people do not. Especially in the Asian culture, bringing and giving gifts to friends and family is considered quite customary. I make an intentional effort to give gifts to those in my circle I know who really like getting them. I also tend to give gifts more spontaneously when I see something that makes me think of a friend whether it’s a t-shirt or a jar of Bone Broth when someone is not feeling well.

If you haven’t taken the test I would encourage you to invest the 5-10 minutes to do so online for free here:

http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/

I would recommend providing your real email to get semi-monthly newsletters with ideas as to how to express specific love languages, super helpful for the ones that may not come as naturally for you. I’ve tried a bunch of the Words of Affirmation suggestions from Gary’s team and they have been uncomfortable because they are new behaviors for me but also fun and rewarding to see the result.

Do you know know your significant other’s primary love language? Imagine having them confirm by taking the test and sharing their results with you. You might be surprised not only by what ranks highly but also what is not so high.

This also applies to family members and close friends, back in Christmas of 2015 I enrolled my entire family in taking and sharing their test results. I was not surprised to learn that I must have picked up Physical Touch from my Mom but then got surprised when I learned that my Dad’s highest is Words of Affirmation so I’ve been shifting to acknowledge him with words more often since then. 

Last Updated/Enhanced: February 9, 2017