Before you spend a fortune in your Valentine´s gift…
...Learn to speak your partner´s love language.
Does any of these scenarios sound familiar?
You spend a great deal of time and money in getting your honey a special gift just to see a lack of enthusiasm about it. Or your partner forgot to get you a Valentine’s gift. Both might make you question her love for you...
You plan a special evening for the two of you, but when you get home she asks you to mount the new TV, a project that might take more than one hour. So you get especially annoyed because today is Valentines Day, what can be more important than spending time together?
You cooked an amazing dinner but your honey wasn’t enthusiastic or grateful enough, and then keeps reaching to hold your hand, which is annoying for you right now, as all you wanted was some appreciation for the work you did.
In these examples you and your loved one might be speaking different love languages. That is, the way you express love and feel loved are different.
According to Dr. Gary Chapman, author of The 5 Love Languages, we all have one dominant “love language” that we primarily “speak”. He explains that for a couple to be happy, each needs to know and learn to speak the other’s love language.
Chapman describes the five love languages as:
Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch
Chapman explains that we learn our primary love language in our family during childhood and we carry that way of expressing love.
If your primary love language is words of affirmation, it means you like to be praised often and it’s meaningful that you are told “I love you” several times. Also means that you might be very sensitive to criticism.
If your love language is quality time, you need to feel that your partner is present. It doesn’t count to be in the same room if you are doing different tasks.
If your language is receiving gifts, you are going to be thinking about getting or making special things and will feel loved and connected if you feel your partner has taken the time and the thought to get you a present.
People who express love though acts of service will be disappointed if they did all the cooking and cleaning, or fixed the computer, but their partner doesn’t do much for her.
And those who speak love through physical touch will feel loved if you are holding hands, cuddling or snuggling as often as possible.
Perhaps your partner is expressing their love by doing small things for you often, such as picking up the dry cleaning for you, or bringing home your favorite wine, but you don’t see that it’s their way to express love. If you don’t acknowledge these acts, your partner is not going to feel loved.
I often ask my clients to take the Love Language Quiz, and ask them to guess what their partner’s primary love language is. It’s a fun activity and it’s always enlightening. This is a good activity any day, but maybe the best thing you can do the Valentine ’s Day would be to understand each other’s love language and start speaking it to each other.
So if your love language is acts of services and your partner’s is quality time a problem will brew if you spend three hours of a special evening fixing the garage door, because all he wants is to be with you having a nice conversation and talking about how the day went.
Here’s another scenario: if your spouse’s love language is receiving gifts and yours is words of affirmations. If you forget to get a Valentines gift - that might upset her so she doesn’t say how happy she is to see you… more grounds for not feeling loved.
Perhaps your partner is expressing their love by doing small things for you often, such as picking up the dry cleaning for you, or bringing home your favorite wine, but you don’t see that it’s their way to express love. If you don’t acknowledge these acts, your partner is not going to feel loved.
