Monday, 11 January 2010 17:22 | and posted in Relationships
When I'm on holiday abroad I feel like an ignorant Brit.* I only speak English and I assume/hope that everyone I meet knows it too or at least knows enough for me to get by. But we all know that not everyone does speak English and that there will come a time in life when you’ll end up doing the cringe-worthy thing of talking very loudly and slowly to a French-speaking waiter while miming a drinking motion with your pinkie sticking out: “A - cup - of - tea - siv - voo – play.” I shudder to even think about it!!!!
Communication is very awkward and somewhat embarrassing if you try to speak in a language the person you’re talking to doesn’t know. You may as well be speaking gobble-de-gook.**
What if expressing love is similar to this? What if there are different languages that we can use to express love? Wouldn’t we simply go around assuming that everyone knows the love language we speak like my holiday example above? Wouldn’t this lead to marriage difficulties and divorces and children feeling unloved by their parents…???
A Christian marriage counselor and author, Dr Gary Chapman says there are 5 different love languages people use to express and receive love. Out of these five languages we will each have a primary love language we are most fluent in, but we can also learn secondary languages, much like I could learn French if I wanted to.
A huge number of marriage and parent-child relationships would be much healthier if people realised that the way they are expressing love to their loved ones may not be in a language their spouse, child or parent can understand. If we can’t speak a loved one’s primary love language they will not be receiving love from us, regardless of how much we love them.
The five love languages we can speak are: (1) attention, (2) compliments, (3) gifts, (4) action and (5) hugs.*** Over the coming weeks we'll be exploring each one in turn and as we do so, why not try to work out what love language you speak, your parents, your grandparents and your friends all speak too.****
Based upon Dr Gary Chapman's book, The Five Love Languages.
FOOTNOTES:
* Probably because I am!
** A highly technical phrase I think my mother used when I wasn’t making any sense.
*** Based upon Dr Gary Chapman's book 'The Five Love Languages'. I have adapted the names of the five love languages he uses. He calls them: Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch.
**** It’s kinda like a game that leads you to be able to better express love to these folk!