What I really love about books is that they have the power to impart knowledge that changes our entire way of seeing the world, of living and being. I recently read The 5 Love Languages: The Secret To Love That Lasts by Dr. Gary Chapman and it did just that for me.
A while back I posted some of the most common reasons for marital breakdown from Social Worker Baldev Mutta from the Punjabi Community Health Services. One of the main reasons he had mentioned was communication, and this book entirely focuses on a core aspect of our communication- how we communicate love for one another. In our Punjabi culture especially I think we do not focus on learning and developing communication enough, so I think this topic is very relevant to all of us. As human beings we will have many loving relationships in our lives- from our family and friends, to our partner and children, and these concepts apply to all those relationships. The idea of the book is that everyone has a primary love language- a way that most makes them feel loved. There are five different love languages: receiving gifts, physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, and quality time. When we express love in a way that doesn’t fill up the other person’s “emotional tank” or “love tank”, then we might very well be loving them, but they won’t feel loved. Often times we express love in the way we saw our parents express love, or the way we want to receive love and not the way that the other person needs to be loved to feel secure.
In the category of quality time comes activities where you give one another undivided attention, or conversations in which you look one another in the eye with full attention with the intent of understanding the the others’ thoughts, feelings, and desires. Examples are going for a walk, going out to dinner, going on a vacation, etc. Some of the examples from this chapter were a husband who does acts of service all the time, but she keeps complaining that he doesn’t talk. Her primary love language is quality time in the form of conversations. Another example was a man who was working very hard all day, "doing it for the family", but she feels unloved because they never do anything together. This conversation is recorded between him and Dr. Chapman: “'Do you want to be there alone, or do you want to be there with Andrea and the children?' I asked. 'I want her to be with me, Dr. chapman. I want her to enjoy it with me. That’s why it always hurts so much when she criticizes me for spending time on the job. I am doing it for us. I wanted her to be a part of it, but she’s always so negative.' 'Are you beginning to see why she was so negative, Mark?' I asked. 'Her love language is quality time. You have given her so little time that her love tank is empty. She doesn’t feel secure in your love. Therefore she has lashed out at what was taking your time in her mind- your job. She doesn’t really hate your job. She hates the fact that she feels so little love coming from you.'" He mentions especially for people who value quality conversation it is important for them to know what the other person feels: “When a wife says, ‘I wish my husband would talk. I never know what he’s thinking or feeling,’ she is pleading for intimacy. She wants to feel close to her husband, but how can she feel close to someone whom she doesn’t know? In order for her to feel loved, he must learn to reveal himself. If her primary love language is quality time and her dialect is quality conversation, her emotional love tank will never be filled until he tells her his thoughts and feelings.”
In the category of receiving gifts, Chapman talks about how those who feel loved when they receive gifts will feel it for almost any gift- it could be a cup of cha, a flower, something handmade, or something symbolic like wedding rings. He mentioned that for a person to whom receiving gifts is their main love language, one’s physical presence must not be forgotten as a gift, because it is critical to them to have loved ones around during a crisis. In the theme physical touch, comes things like patting someone’s back, holding hands, hugs, massages, running hands through hair, etc. When a relationship is long distance he mentions things like a hand-written letter, photo, or item of one’s loved one as a way of communicating touch. Next are words of affirmation. These are words of appreciation- how they look, for what they do (taking out the garbage), how they behave (you always make me laugh), and encouraging words (you are such a good writer).
In the heading of acts of service, Chapman mentions what we think of daily activities like cooking a meal, picking up a prescription, vacuuming or doing laundry. We have seen many TV shows that mimic scenarios in real life where the wife is complaining that her husband never helps out around the house. In this section Chapman reminds us that even if we aren’t used to expressing our love a certain way, we can learn for the sake of our partner. Furthermore he clarified that acts of service aren’t just any activity- they are the ones meaningful to the other person. He reminds us that love is not a demand but a choice; we choose to do these things for our loved ones even though we might not like them because they make the other person feel secure in their love, it fills up their tank. He gives an example of a wife who asked her husband to do the laundry as part of acts of service. He explained to the husband “the love you feel when your wife expresses love by physical touch is the same love your wife feels when you do the laundry.”
Overall we have to figure out the love languages of other people and make sure we are expressing our love to them in a way that fills up their tank the most. He has examples of people that saved their marriages after 20-30 years of feeling like their relationship was dead! There’s a lot weight from all the hurt but it is still possible as long as we are dedicated to filling the tank of those we love. If we aren’t sure about our love language, he gives some ways of figuring it out in the book- there’s a quiz, he talks about asking yourself some questions about what you request the most and what you desire above all else, or alternatively what hurts you the most. For example he describes that the silent treatment will be hurtful more than anything else to someone whose language is words of affirmation, whereas someone’s partner not spending time with them is most hurtful to someone who values quality time above all else. If we want to discover the language of someone else, think about what they “nag” about the most- this is them asking for what they need the most. (However unfortunately sometimes people don’t know how to ask, so they might be starving for touch or words of affirmation but don't know that's what's going on. This book is great for us to know more about ourselves too and give us the language to know what we need).
I realized a lot about myself while I was reading the book. I realized for example that while receiving gifts has zero importance to filling up my emotional tank, I often give gifts because gift-giving is commonly done in my family. I realized why certain things bother me, what I need for my tank to feel whole. I also recognized that while some things are certainly nice, others are simply necessary to survive. During covid we have all learned what its like to be in a long-distance relationship with almost everyone we know. This is worked ok for certain people’s love languages- they can still have quality conversations on facetime, spend time together in outdoor settings, hear words of affirmation on text, mail gifts, etc. It is much harder to do acts of service for one another virtually, and impossible to touch. Although we all appreciate some touch, it is devastating to a person whose primary love language is physical touch, to not be able to fill their cup for such a prolonged period of time. Thus I think that covid has made a real difference to the amount that our love tanks might be full too, and be deeply affecting our relationships. In the book Dr. Chapman talks again and again about how there is a phase of being “in-love” that is the euphoric experience of wanting to do everything together, longing for them, they seem perfect, you would never do anything to hurt them, etc. and lasts for a maximum of 2 yrs. He then says naturally this phase ends and then people start to get unhappy as their love tanks empty and might then end up looking for someone else to start the cycle again. Perhaps this cycle will be much shorter during covid as people's cups are already running on empty for so many other reasons.
Chapman emphasizes that when we love someone in their primary love language, we are allowing them to feel secure in the relationship, to feel worthy. People often blame one partner or another (some examples were given in a book) for their unhappiness or insecurity when it might very well be that they just aren’t getting what they need in the relationship to feel secure about it. They might be dearly loved but they aren’t feeling loved because the other person isn’t communicating in the language that they need. Some people in the book mentioned how they had changed over time- used to help with a lot of projects but stopped, used to talk daily but stopped talking and somehow we expect that the other person will not be affected by these changes. The very beginning of a relationship sets a precedent for how and why someone falls in love, something about it is filling their emotional tank. Chapman describes, “we feel secure when we are assured that our mate accepts us, wants us, and is committed to our well-being” and “Without love, I may spend a lifetime in search of significance, self-worth and security. When I experience love, it influences all of those needs positively. I am now freed to develop my potential. I am more secure in my self-worth and can now turn my efforts outward instead of being obsessed with my own needs. True love always liberates.” The thing that really stood out to me was all the examples in the book of people willing to try, to learn how to do things they aren’t used to doing or saying, because they wanted their loved ones to have their cup filled. It was their commitment to one another, to not give up.
There are so many relationships we can apply these same principles to, the examples in this version of the book were largely of partners but the other versions apply to parent-child relationships and for single people as well. I think the main takeaways here are all around communication and how crucial it is in how we select the language of love that we communicate to those most important to us. At the same time we need to be introspective in knowing and requesting what we most need as well.
References:
Chapman, Gary. The 5 Love Languages. Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.
No comments:
Post a Comment