The Love Languages

If you’re an adult and you’ve been to couple’s therapy, know a therapist, been in a struggling relationship, watched Oprah or any combination of the above, then you have probably heard of the love languages. I will try to summarize the premise of the 5 love languages. So basically we as human beings can be summed up by the 5 ways we receive love: physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, gifts, and quality time. We each rank these things by level of importance within ourselves based on our own personal needs and here’s the catch, based on your own personal needs you also give. Does that make sense? So, you are more likely to give what you want to receive. So if I want physical touch then I more likely to give physical touch because I will assume that others cherish that as well. Now, because we are all different things don’t work out that way. What I want may not be what you want. You may want acts of service over physical touch, hence confusion in relationships because sometimes people don’t take into consideration what the other person’s needs are. I was speaking with someone and they think this whole exercise is a load of crap and they felt that what their significant other’s love languages were absolutely ridiculous. So, what do you think, load of crap or nah?

As always I think nothing can stand independently. All of the exercises developed like this one are meant to strengthen and develop relationships by opening up a dialogue between two people and ensuring that there is constant communication about each others wants and needs. So, ok we know our love languages, then what we retreat back to our corners and ignore each other. No, we discuss what that looks like and you work at it. And if you find at any point during any type of counseling or open communicating that you are so far apart in your values and expectations that you are living in separate worlds you be honest with yourselves. My two cents.  But no attempts to get to know someone on a deeper level is a load of crap.