The
Five Languages of Love
"Love one another, but
make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf."
Kahlil Gibran: The Prophet
So
often in our relationships our "cups" become empty from meeting
the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of our children. There is little
time and space for self let alone the time energy and creativity needed to
nurture our relationship with out partner. 'Who takes care of the
caregiver?'
Focus on our primary
relationship is in fact a vital source of soul food to fill us up again. We
have high expectations of ourselves and it is impossible to keep giving when
we are emotionally dry and empty. Everything becomes overwhelming; it's
all too hard.
One way of providing nurture to encourage
the growth of our love relationships is to increase our awareness of our
love languages. Dr Gary Chapman in his book "The Five Languages of
Love" has outlined five love languages that he has observed in his work
with hundreds of couples over the past twenty years.
Basically our experiences
of love as children form in us a particular language or way that we give and
receive love. These are:
1. Words of encouragement
2. Quality time
3. Acts of service
4. Touch
5. Gift giving
To identify our own primary
love language we need to ask ourselves: What makes me feel really loved
and cherished? When I want to share my love with someone what do I most
enjoy doing? What is it that I wish my partner would do for me to make me
feel loved?
Once we have identified
what fills us up we can focus in on the love language of our partner.
Often we find that couples
do not speak the same language so we may need to teach each other a new
language and appreciate the needs of each other.
Here
is a personal story to illustrate the point.
Over
the nine years of our marriage I have heard myself say to my husband,
'I wish you would just spend some time with me, I wish you would turn
off the TV and talk to me…We never go dancing, bike riding or things I
want to do... My love language is quality time.
My husband vacuums the
floors every night; he used to wash my car (before I complained bitterly
that is). He cooks special meals for me - his love language is acts of
service.
It
hit us like a bolt of lightning when we realised the fact that we have been
speaking different love languages until now and so often in the process we
have missed each other completely and have unwittingly hurt each other - no
wonder we were both running dry - we were not meeting each others needs. We
were draining each other and our three children were certainly taking all
our precious reserves.
After our third child came
along I jettisoned my husband in a way by thinking, “He’s a big boy and
can look after himself. I stopped ironing his work clothes as friends and
family said, "You're crazy! Let him do his own ironing, you have enough
to do.” I stopped helping to prepare his lunches, the offers of a cup of
tea were sparse, serving up the evening meal was a trial. In essence, what I
was doing was taking away the very things that made him feel loved and
cherished and filled up emotionally. On the other hand how could I give even
another drop when I had run dry? I had been running on empty for quite some
time because I was starved for quality time.
Needless
to say things have improved since then at our place. We are learning the
nuances of each other’s love language and have been growing steadily in
our love life, one step at a time. I have found that performing acts of
service for my husband is becoming more natural for me now and is actually
enjoyable. I know that he is receiving my love, it has benefits for all of
us and now when my husband washes the kitchen floor, before I blaze out, “
For crying out loud why don’t you spend that time with me? The floor will
be dirty again tomorrow!” I say, “You are loving me aren’t you?” And
of course he says, “Yes.” I don’t feel particularly loved by the
gesture but it is important for me to validate him in his efforts, and
realise that I am being loved.
We
are taking more seriously the fact that we need to have the children babysat
more often so we can get some quality time together. Just to have fun with
each other is so invigorating; having a few laughs is vital to offset the
tensions and seriousness of our responsibilities.
I
have also been working with the love languages of our children; one is
quality time, for sure. One is touch, I believe, and our two year old wants
it all right now!
A
smattering of all five languages is worth using, for their needs will surely
be met. A couple of questions to leave you with: What is my primary love
language and what language does my partner speak? Can we meet each other’s
deepest need for love by tuning into each other’s love language?
Have
fun learning!
by
Chris Fernandez - Marriage Educator CNES
This article first appeared in Waldorf Weavings Autumn 2001 edition
Seasonal Newsletter of West Coast Steiner School, Perth Western Australia
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