My Love Language

According to Gary Chapman, there are five love languages: words of affirmation, acts of service, physical touch, gifts, and quality time. You've probably heard of these, they're really famous. I've learned about them multiple times--in church, in almost every class for my major at school, reading other books on marriage and relationships--and have taken the test in multiple settings, including with Benjamin. 

The funny thing is, I thought after taking the test that I knew what my love language was. I thought I was a balance of physical touch and words of affirmation, with a little bit of quality time. Gifts are nice and I appreciate when people serve me, but those aren't huge for me. They're just nice additions. 

And so I read the book, thinking I wouldn't take tons away from it, but reading it because we had it. I feel like I learned so much, though, especially about myself and my own love language.

 

I realized while reading through the different love languages that mine is very much quality time. Looking back over my life and especially my marriage, I can definitely see that showing through. I think physical touch would be next, especially when combined with quality time. I also really like words of affirmation still, but again, words of affirmation as a part of quality time is really what is big for me. 

I realized, thinking about it, that this is probably one reason I love pictures so much. I love taking pictures of a moment and looking back on it, remembering the quality time I spent with those I love. I also realized that in high school, the people I felt closest with were those that I spent a lot time with. I would plan a lot of activities, especially once I started dating, and felt so much closer to my friends when we would do those things together. 

My love language explains why I love planning parties and events so much. I get to anticipate the quality time I'll be spending with my loved ones by planning all the little details. 

It also explains why it was so hard for me to date Benjamin long distance. When you're long distance and your boyfriend's love language isn't naturally quality time, it can be hard. I felt like I didn't see him very often and that I wanted to spend time with him more than he wanted to spend time with me. While this probably wasn't true, I can see with both our personalities and our love languages why it would seem that way to me when we had an hour and a half between us. 

Some of the biggest misunderstandings we've had in our marriage have come because I was looking for quality time with Ben, but our definition or expectation of that quality time was different. That's something that we're still working on, though we've made a lot of progress already. It's just interesting to see how my love language has affected those disagreements. 

I really think it's important that we learn the love languages of those close to us, especially our spouses, and learn to show love that way. I also really think that showing love in all the languages is wonderful. Just because acts of service isn't my main love language doesn't mean I don't love it when Benjamin does the dishes after I've made dishes. I still understand that this is an act of love on his part and that he is doing it to help me. Just because gifts aren't my main language doesn't mean I don't love getting little gifts from him, especially ones where I can tell he put a lot of thought into it. 

The most important thing is to find ways to show others that we think and care about them. We can find out from them what makes them feel most loved and try to focus on their love language, but really, we just need to be thinking about it.