What is Your Love Language?

Intrigued? I was. "The Five Love Languages", by Dr. Gary Chapman is a very good and informative must read book for everyone! The focus is on couples, but the principals also apply to your kids and really anyone in your life that you are close to.

(Dr. Gary Chapman)

Dr. Gary Chapman is a world renowned author, speaker and counselor with 30+ years working with thousands of couples struggling with many issues. He found within all the countless issues couples had (including his own), that the common denominator is: all people need to feel loved, and not everyone speaks the same love language.
Love Language? You bet! Chapman has found that there are five love languages which sum up all of the possible "love languages" one might speak. And within each love language there are different dialects. For example... how well would a person who speaks English communicate with one who speaks only Finnish? And in Spain how many dialects are there of Spanish? You might be able to get by, but in order to really communicate we must learn our partner's love language.
The five love languages are....

1. Words of Affirmation: verbal compliments and encouragement. Simple statements, such as, “You look great in that dress,” or “You must be the best baker in the world! I love your oatmeal cookies,” are sometimes all a person needs to hear to feel loved.

2. Quality Time: more than mere proximity- it’s about focusing all your energy on your mate. A husband watching sports while talking to his wife is NOT quality time.

3. Receiving Gifts: Some mates respond well to visual symbols of love. If you speak this love language, you are more likely to treasure any gift as an expression of love and devotion. These gifts need not to come every day, or even every week. They don’t even need to cost a lot of money. Free, frequent, expensive, or rare, if your mate relates to the language of receiving gifts, any visible sign of your love will leave them feeling happy and secure in your relationship.

4. Acts of Service: Sometimes simple chores around the house can be an undeniable expression of love. Even simple things like laundry and taking out the trash require some form of planning, time, effort, and energy. It is very important to understand what acts of service your mate most appreciates.

5. Physical Touch: Many mates feel the most loved when they receive physical contact from their partner. For a mate who speaks this love language loudly, physical touch can make or break the relationship.

These definitions were taken almost verbatim from his site and he goes into more detail about them HERE.

Dr. Chapman shares many simple and practical ways to which we can communicate love to our partner by recognizing and speaking their love language and finding our own. It makes allot of sense. I have to thank my dear friend, Alexandra for sharing it with me... so glad I checked it out.