MY LOVE LANGUAGE

I’ve been married almost 8 years now and Keith and I just discovered something the other day.  My love language is: physical touch.  My secondary love language is: words of affirmation.  Have you read the 5 Love Languages?  That book has been on my list forever but I’m yet to read it (I even think I bought it and it’s in a pile of books somewhere).  But with the trusty dusty internet, I was able to look up the synopsis of the book and glean quite a bit of good information.  Enough to be able to determine my love language.

The premise of the book is this: “Unhappiness in marriage often has a simple root cause: we speak different love languages.”  This author of this bestselling book (over 5 million sold), Dr. Gary Chapman, has been a marriage counselor for 30 years and has identified what he says are the 5 love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.

Who would have thought my love language would be physical touch?  And we just discovered not only is it mine but it’s also Keith’s.  Both of us have a secondary love language (which is almost equally as important but not as much) and that’s words of affirmation.  You can pick up the book for more info (or just go to its website as they do a good job explaining the love languages there: www.5lovelanguages.com).

The way I found out was a bummer though: withdrawal.  I was recently in Costa Rica for a month on a Spanish immersion trip (one of the things on my bucket list I’d been hoping to cross off for years) and was without Keith for a month.  We video Skyped every day and his mom went on the trip with me so it wasn’t that bad.  While I was away, he was promoted to a role in his company that took him from overseeing US government relations to worldwide.  Needless to say, he had plenty to keep him busy while I was gone.

When I returned, it was like he’d missed me his whole life.  I came back late on a Saturday night and for 24-hours, we never left each other’s side (almost literally).  But then the work week began again and his days ran into night and he was exhausted by the time he got home.  As soon as I returned from the trip, I was also inundated with work.  I began a Spanish class here at the local college to make sure I didn’t lose everything I’d just spent 6 hours a day for a month learning (I don’t know why I thought I could add classes 2 days a week to my schedule – more on this another day).  We became two trains passing in the night.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I could feel we were more distant but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.  Something didn’t feel right but I didn’t know what.  I’m the type of person that looks for patterns and tries not to jump to any conclusion until I’ve see a pattern emerging.  It wasn’t until we went to see Moneyball this past Friday night that I realized what it was.  We’d been away from each other so long we’d begun doing things on our own.  We found a coping mechanism while apart which was keeping ourselves as busy as possible – and a bit detached.

Usually, when we are sitting near each other, we are always intertwined.  My head is nuzzled in his chest, his arm is wrapped around my shoulder or his hand is rubbing my leg.  We’re always touching.  Stroking each other’s face, lightly massaging each other’s neck, holding hands, etc.  We sat next to each other for two hours through a movie and barely touched.  He reached over for, maybe, 5 minutes to rub my legs.  And then I immediately knew what was off.  What I’d been feeling for a few weeks but couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

When we got in the car, I addressed the issue but we didn’t discuss it much because we have an agreement not to discuss potentially weighty issues when we’re tired (10pm ish).  We made this agreement in premarital counseling 8 years ago and we’ve stuck to it.  So although I brought it up, we didn’t really deal with it until the next morning.  Keith woke me up early with a kiss and back rub and…ummm…  And then we talked.

In our conversation, we realized not only was physical touch (outside of the bedroom) how I received love it was also his way of receiving love.  Meaning, I didn’t need him to tell me he loved me verbally.  He could just look me in the eyes and stroke the side of my face and it was more powerful to me than him saying a word.  Me kissing him on his forehead or ear while holding his hand was more powerful to him than any word I could say.  Then it hit me.  Wow, what if we never figured this out.  If we simply continued at the hectic pace we’d somehow adopted and become two trains passing in the night?  We could have begun growing apart and never realize the cause until years down the road.

Hmmm…this is starting to sound like an endorsement for buying the 5 Love Languages.  Maybe that’s what this is (although I can’t endorse something I haven’t read).  What I will say is this: it is worth your time to identify your love language and your husband’s.  You don’t have to know everything about the “language” just knowing what it is can be helpful. 

I think it’s pretty easy to identify.  Which of the 5 languages Dr. Chapman identified make you feel the most loved?  When your husband cooks, washes the dishes and takes the kids to school to give you a day off, do you feel most loved then?  When he comes home with a gift for no reason, does that say ‘I love you’?  Knowing what your love language is can be hugely beneficial for you both.  For instance, if Keith brought a gift home for me I’d be appreciative but it wouldn’t speak to my heart.  I don’t care much about gifts.  Acts of service…ditto.  What I care about is physical touch.  Embracing me says “I love you” more than anything else he could ever do.

What is your love language? What is your hubby’s?  What are your kids?  Do you know?  Well, that seems like a fun exploratory mission if you haven’t already done this exercise.  If you’ve done this before, I’d be curious to know how you learned of your love language and if it’s had a positive impact on your relationship.  Post your thoughts below…we’d love to hear them.

Until tomorrow…make it a great day!