by Gary Chapman
How does he most often express love to others?
What does he complain about most often?
What does he request most often?
Though our spouse’s complaints normally irritate us, they are actually giving us valuable information. If a spouse says, “We don’t ever spend any time together,” you may be tempted to say, “What do you mean? We went out to dinner Thursday night.” Such a defensive statement will end the conversation. However, if you respond, “What would you like for us to do?” you will likely get an answer. The complaints of your spouse are the most powerful indicators of the primary love language.
Another approach is to do a five-week experiment. The first week, you focus on one of the five love languages and seek to speak it every day and observe the response of your spouse. On Saturday and Sunday, you relax. The second week—Monday through Friday—you focus on another of the love languages and continue with a different language each of the five weeks. On the week you are speaking your spouse’s primary love language, you are likely to see a difference in their countenance and the way they respond to you. It will be obvious that this is their primary love language.
3. Does your love language change as you get older?
I think that our primary love language tends to stay with us for a lifetime. It is like many other personality traits that develop early and remain consistent. For example, a highly organized person was likely organized as a child. A person who is more laid-back and relaxed likely had that trait as a child. This is true of numerous personality traits.
However, there are certain situations in life that make the other love languages extremely attractive. For example, your primary love language may be Words of Affirmation, but if you are the mother of three preschool children, then Acts of Service by your husband may become extremely attractive to you. If he gives you only Words of Affirmation and does not offer to help you with household responsibilities, you may begin to feel “I’m tired of hearing you say, ‘I love you’ when you never lift a hand to help me.” For those years, it may appear that Acts of Service has become your primary love language. However, if Words of Affirmation cease, you will quickly know that this continues to be your primary love language.
If you experience the death of a parent or a close friend, even if Physical Touch is not your primary love language, an extended hug by your spouse may be the most meaningful thing for you at the moment. There is something about being held in the midst of our grief that communicates that we are loved. While Physical Touch is not your primary love language, it is extremely meaningful on such occasions.
4. Does the five love language concept work with children?
Most definitely. I like to visualize that inside every child there is an emotional love tank. If the child feels loved by the parents, the child grows up normally. But if the love tank is empty and the child does not feel loved, he/she will grow up with many internal struggles and during the teenage years will go looking for love, often in the wrong places. It is extremely important that parents learn how to love children effectively. Some time ago, I teamed up with psychiatrist Ross Campbell and wrote the book The Five Love Languages of Children.6 It is written for parents and is designed to help them discover the child’s primary love language. It also discusses how this interfaces with the child’s anger, the child’s learning, and with discipline.
One of the points we make in the book is that children need to learn how to receive and give love in all five languages. This produces an emotionally healthy adult. Thus, parents are encouraged to give heavy doses of the child’s primary love language, then sprinkle in the other four regularly. When the child receives love in all five languages, he/she will eventually learn how to give love in all five languages.
5. Do children’s love languages change when they get to be teenagers?
A parent said, “I’ve read your and Dr. Campbell’s book The Five Love Languages of Children. It really helped us in raising our children. However, now our son has become a teenager. We’re doing the same things we’ve always done but it doesn’t seem to be working. I’m wondering if his love language has changed.”
I do not believe that a child’s love language changes at age thirteen. However, you must learn new ways to speak the child’s primary love language. Whatever you have been doing in the past, the teenager considers to be childish and will want nothing to do with it. If the teen’s love language is Physical Touch and you have been hugging and kissing on the cheek, the teenager may well push you away and say, “Leave me alone.” It does not mean that he does not need physical touch; it means that he considers those particular touches to be childish. You must now speak Physical Touch in more adult dialects such as an elbow to the side, a fist to the shoulder, a pat on the back, or wrestle the teen to the floor. These touches will communicate your love to a teenager. The worst thing you can do to a teenager whose love language is Physical Touch is to withdraw when the teen says, “Don’t touch me.”
In my book The Five Love Languages of Teenagers,7 which is written for parents, I also discuss the teen’s desire for freedom and the necessity of linking advanced freedom with advanced responsibility. As teens get older, they become more capable. Thus they need to have more responsibilities. When these responsibilities are tied with increased freedom, the teenager is motivated to become a responsible young person.
For example, if you are going to allow the teen to drive a car, this freedom should be accompanied by a responsibility such as washing the car every Saturday by noon. If they fail to meet this responsibility, there should be specific consequences already in place, such as losing the privilege of driving for two days. If the parent consistently applies the consequences, the teenager will have an extremely clean car and will learn that freedom and responsibility are opposite sides of the same coin.
6. What if the primary love language of your spouse is difficult for you?
“I did not grow up in a touching family and now I have discovered that my spouse’s love language is Physical Touch. It is extremely difficult for me to initiate physical touch.”
The good news is that all of the five love languages can be learned. It is true that most of us grew up speaking only one or two of these love languages. These will come natural for us and will be relatively easy. The others must be learned. As in all learning situations, small steps make for big gains. If Physical Touch is your spouse’s language and you are not by nature a “toucher,” begin with such small things as putting your hand on the shoulder of your spouse as you pour the cup of coffee or give a “love pat” on the shoulder as you walk by. These small touches will begin to break down the barrier. Each time you touch, the next touch will be easier. You can become proficient in speaking the language of Physical Touch.
The same is true with the other languages. If you are not a Words of Affirmation person and you discover that your spouse’s language is Words of Affirmation, as I indicated in the book, you can make a list of statements that you hear from other persons or read in magazines or books. Stand in front of a mirror and read the list until you become comfortable hearing yourself say those words. Then choose one of the statements, walk in the room, and say it to your spouse. Each time you affirm them, it will become easier. Not only is your spouse feeling good about your changed behavior, but you are also feeling good about yourself, because you know that you are effectively expressing love to your spouse.
7. Are some of the love languages found more among women and others with men?
I have never done the research to discover if the love languages are gender-slanted. It may be true that more men have Physical Touch and Words of Affirmation as their love language and more women have Quality Time and Gifts. But I don’t know if that is true.
I prefer to deal with the love languages as being gender-neutral. I do know that any one of these love languages can be the primary love language of a man or the primary love language of a woman. The important thing in marriage is that you discover the primary and
secondary love languages of your spouse and you speak these regularly. If you do this, you will create a healthy emotional climate for marital growth.
8. How did you discover the five love languages?
In the book, I share some of my encounters with couples through the years that brought me to realize that what makes one person feel loved does not necessarily make another person feel loved. For a number of years, I have been helping couples in the counseling office discover what their spouse desired in order to feel loved. Eventually, I began to see a pattern in their responses. Therefore, I decided to read the notes I had made over twelve years of counseling couples and ask myself the question, “When someone sat in my office and said, ‘I feel like my spouse doesn’t love me,’ what did they want?” Their answers fell into five categories. I later called them the five love languages.
I then started sharing these languages in workshops and study groups. Every time I shared the concept of the love languages, the “lights came on” for couples and they realized why they had been missing each other emotionally. When they discovered and spoke each other’s primary love language, it radically changed the emotional climate of their marriage. Therefore, I decided to write a book in which I would share the concept, hoping to influence thousands of couples whom I would never have an opportunity to meet in person. Now that the book has sold over five million copies in English and has been translated into thirty-eight languages around the world, my efforts have been more than rewarded.
9. Do the love languages work in other cultures?
Since my academic background is anthropology, this was my question when the Spanish publisher came first and requested permission to translate and publish the book in Spanish. I initially said, “I don’t know if this concept works in Spanish. I discovered it in the Anglo setting.” The publisher said, “We have read the book and it works in Spanish.” So I was glad to know the book was to be translated and published in Spanish. Then came the French edition, the German, the Dutch, etc. In almost every culture, the book has become the bestseller of the publisher. This leads me to believe that these five fundamental ways of expressing love are universal.
However, the dialects in which these languages are spoken will differ from culture to culture. For example, the kind of touches that are appropriate in one culture may not be appropriate in another culture. The Acts of Service that are spoken in one culture may not be spoken in another culture. But when these cultural adaptations are made, the concept of the five love languages will have a profound impact upon the couples in that culture.
10. Why do you think The Five Love Languages has been so successful?
I believe that our deepest emotional need is the need to feel loved. If we are married, the person we would most like to love us is our spouse. If we feel loved by our spouse, the whole world is bright and life is wonderful. On the other hand, if we feel rejected or ignored, the world begins to look dark.
Most couples get married when they still have the euphoric feelings of being in love. When the euphoric feelings evaporate some time after the wedding and their differences begin to emerge, they often find themselves in conflict. With no positive plan for resolving conflicts, they often find themselves speaking harshly to each other. Harsh words create feelings of hurt, disappointment, and anger. Not only do they feel unloved, but they also begin to resent each other.
When couples read The Five Love Languages, they discover why they lost the romantic feelings of courtship and how emotional love can be rekindled in their relationship. Once they begin speaking each other’s primary love language, they are surprised to see how quickly their emotions turn positive. With a full love tank, they can now process their conflicts in a much more positive manner and find solutions that are workable. The rebirth of emotional love creates a positive emotional climate between the two of them and they learn to work together as a team—encouraging, supporting, and helping each other reach meaningful goals.
Once this happens, they want to share the message of the five love languages with all of their friends. Every year since its first publication, the book has sold more than it did the year before. I believe the success of The Five Love Languages can be attributed to the couples who have read it, learned to speak each other’s language, and recommended it to their friends.
11. What if I speak my spouse’s love language and they don’t respond?
“My husband would not read the book so I decided to speak his love language and see what would happen. Nothing happened. He didn’t even acknowledge that I was doing anything differently. How long am I supposed to continue speaking his love language when there is no response?”
I know that it can become discouraging when you feel that you are investing in the marriage and are receiving nothing in return. There are two possibilities as to why your husband is not responding. First and most likely, you are speaking the wrong love language. Wives often assume that their husband’s love language is Physical Touch. Therefore, they make significant changes in the way they respond to their husband’s sexual desires. Often they will initiate sexual intercourse. She is sincerely trying to speak his love language. When he does not so much as acknowledge her efforts, she becomes discouraged. In reality, his primary love language may be Words of Affirmation. Because she feels no love coming from him, she may be verbally critical of him. Her critical words are like daggers to his heart, so he withdraws from her. His only pleasure in the marriage is those moments of sexual intimacy, but they are not enough to alleviate the emotional sense of rejection he feels from her critical words. He suffers in silence while she becomes frustrated that her efforts for improving the marriage are unsuccessful. The problem is not her sincerity; the problem is that she is actually speaking the wrong love language.
On the other hand, assuming you are speaking your spouse’s primary love language, there is another reason why they may not be responding positively. If the spouse is already involved in another romantic relationship, either emotionally or sexually, they will often reason that your efforts have come too late. They may even perceive that your efforts are temporary and insincere and that you are simply trying to manipulate them to stay in the marriage. Even if your spouse is not involved with someone else, if your relationship has been hostile for a long time, they may still perceive your efforts as being manipulative.
In this situation, the temptation is to give up, to stop speaking their love language because it is not making any difference. The worst thing you can do is to yield to this temptation. If you give up, it will confirm their conclusion that your efforts were designed to manipulate them. The best approach you can take is to continue to speak their love language on a regular basis no matter how they treat you. Set yourself a goal of six months, nine months, or a year. Your attitude is “Whatever their response, I’m going to love them in their love language over the long haul. If they walk away from me, they will walk away from someone who is loving them unconditionally.” This attitude will keep you on a positive road even when you feel discouraged. There is nothing more powerful that you can do than to love your spouse even when they are not responding positively. Whatever the ultimate response of your spouse, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you have done everything you could do to restore your marriage. If your spouse eventually chooses to reciprocate your love, you will have demonstrated for yourself the power of unconditional love. And you will reap the benefits of the rebirth of mutual love.
12. Can love be reborn after sexual infidelity?
Nothing devastates marital intimacy more than sexual unfaithfulness. Sexual intercourse is a bonding experience. It unites two people in the deepest possible manner. All cultures have a public wedding ceremony and a private consummation of the marriage in sexual intercourse. Sex is designed to be the unique expression of our commitment to each other for a lifetime. When this commitment is broken, it is devastating to the marriage.
However, this does not mean that the marriage is destined for divorce. If the offe
nding party is willing to break off the extramarital involvement and do the hard work of rebuilding the marriage, there can be genuine restoration. In my own counseling, I have seen scores of couples who have experienced healing after sexual infidelity. It involves not only breaking off the extramarital affair, but discovering what led to the affair. Success in restoration is a two-pronged approach. First, the offending party must be willing to explore their own personality, beliefs, and lifestyle that led them to the affair. There must be a willingness to change attitudes and behavior patterns. Second, the couple must be willing to take an honest look at the dynamics of their marriage and be open to replacing destructive patterns with positive patterns of integrity and sincerity. Both of these will normally require the help of a professional counselor.
Research indicates that those couples who are most likely to survive sexual infidelity are those couples who receive both individual counseling and marriage counseling. Understanding the five love languages and choosing to speak each other’s language can help create an emotional climate in which the hard work of restoring the marriage can be successful.
13. What do you do when a spouse refuses to speak your love language even when they know it?
“We both read The Five Love Languages, took the profile, and discussed our primary love languages with each other. That was two months ago. My wife knows that my love language is Words of Affirmation. Yet, in two months, I have yet to hear her say anything positive. Her love language is Acts of Service. I have started doing several things she has asked me to do around the house. I think she appreciates what I am doing, but she never tells me.”