5 Love Languages

After starting this blog, I realized that I also have awesome resources about relationships that I have sought out in the past semester.  One of my favorite books and quiz in this past year is The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  I found the book in my mother's office (she does premarital counseling) and absorbed the book within a couple of hours--it is helpful in understanding how to make someone feel loved and how you need to be loved.

I'm going to start talking about the 5 Love Languages, so if you don't want me to spoil it for you before you take the quiz, click on this link to the website and it will guide you to the quiz!
Find Out What Your Love Language Is!

This book maps out 5 specific ways of loving: Words of Affirmation, Receiving/Giving Gifts, Physical Touch, Acts of Service, and Quality Time.
There are two ways to interpret your love language; you can see it as the way that you express love to another person and/or as the way that you would like to be loved.  Most often, a person uses loving acts that are how they would like to be treated, so someone who is Acts of Service would mow your lawn to show you that they love you.  However, some people love the way that they think they should; someone might be Quality Time but they think they are supposed to give you gifts, so they seem like Receiving/Giving Gifts if they buy you flowers or jewelry to show their love.  The importance of this book is to show that people love and want to be loved in different ways, so the typical buying flowers for a date might not be the best way to a person's heart.

This book also examines situations where people can experience miscommunication if they speak different love languages.  For example,  I am Words of Affirmation and my mother is Acts of Service.  My mom knows that I love her if I put the dishes away, but if I don't, she might nag me to do them. Since I am Words of Affirmation, I shut down if someone nags me, so I get reclusive and do not put the dishes away.  This miscommunication creates anger and resentment, and over time, can create huge frictions in any relationship, especially an eros love.  Gary Chapman challenges people that are full of resentment and feel empty of love to spend 6 months encouraging their partner by using their partner's love language.  For example, a person that is Quality Time, whose spouse is Words of Affirmation, will write love letters and verbally say things they appreciate about their spouse, while their spouse will spend half an hour a day talking or hanging out with their Quality Time spouse without the interruption of TV, computer, or other technology.

What is your love language?  Do you think that knowing your love language can be helpful in relationships, friendship or love?  Would you use it within your romantic relationship?  Let me know at loudharmony58@gmail.com or comment on here!