For me, the giving and receiving of gifts has love written all over it. I enjoy selecting and giving gifts to people I care about, and receiving a gift makes me feel loved. I suspect that this is not as much the case for my husband who, especially when compared with my own enthusiasm, appears indifferent to the excitement of curling ribbons and ripping paper. But since my birthday is in March, he will soon have an opportunity to speak my love language!

What Are Love Languages?

If you’ve not read Gary Chapman’s best seller The Five Love Languages, I recommend it. The five love languages are:

• Words of Affirmation (say kind, encouraging things)
• Quality Time (make eye contact, listen, focus)
• Receiving Gifts (a gift means someone thought of you)
• Acts of Service (offer help)
• Physical Touch (give a hug!)

Chapman writes that most people use each of the languages in some degree, but one or two tend to be dominant. As you read (and by answering the profile questions in the book), you will begin to see how you and your spouse are the same or different in the primary ways you express love. The examples he gives, using couples he has counseled, demonstrate how this seemingly subtle miscommunication can add up to big trouble.

Learning to Speak Your Spouse’s Love Language

If you are a Gift-Giver and he is an Acts of Service guy, it might explain why your present did not elicit the reaction you hoped for and why he thought cleaning out your car was a far better thing to do for you than give you flowers. Chapman stresses the impact you can make by discovering and using your spouse’s primary love language, and he provides plenty of examples for how to do it, even including lists of ideas that suit each particular language. The things that communicate love to your spouse might not be your natural inclination (and vice versa), but it can make all the difference in the world if you speak his language.

Do you know (or suspect) that you and your spouse have difference love languages?

(Chapman has also written versions of The Five Love Languages for communicating with children and teens. This is not a sponsored post.)