Book: The Five Love Languages
Author: Gary Chapman
Rating: 5 Stars (Out of 5)
Practical application of The Five Love Languages
My husband and I enjoyed the book The Five Love Languages. The idea is that if you and your spouse identify your love languages and begin expressing love in your spouse’s language, you will avoid miscommunication and frustration. Often misunderstandings can occur when one spouse is trying their best to express love, but the spouse does not recognize the effort because they speak entirely different languages.
The five love languages are:
- Words of Affirmation
- Gifts, Acts of Service
- Quality Time
- Physical Touch
When we read this book over ten years ago, my love language was primarily gifts. When we revisited the book a year ago, I realized that my love language had changed to acts of service.
I still enjoy gifts, but I appreciate that gifts can be experiences, the gift of someone’s time, the gift of labor, or things like food that get used up. A gift doesn’t need to be a material object I need to keep forever.
I am now at a point in life where I need to get rid of things. Thus, receiving gifts that I do not have space for or use for is often more frustrating for me than a sign of love. That doesn’t change the fact that I love giving. I believe that I enjoy acts of service because I have begun to see acts of service as gifts. The gift of helping me get something done or fixed that I could not do myself.
Giving gifts was never easy for my husband. He tried, but it was obvious that gifts were not his love language. When I finally told him to stop buying me gifts and to fix things around the house for me, he probably breathed a sigh of relief. His love language is Physical Touch, with acts of service being a close second.
I am still learning to give physical touch. I have to remind myself to do this, but knowing it’s my husband’s love language makes me try harder.
This book can be revisited during new phases of life. Each time I read it, I discover something new.
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