Jumping Rainbows

If I told you that each of us had a primary "love language", would you want to know more?  On the other hand, wold uyou look at me like I was crazy, and even start making me the topic of conversation with your friends?  Maybe if I got really lucky, you would know exactly what I was talking about, and it would spawn into an entire conversation about your love language, what it meant, and how it could best be fulfilled by the people around you.

Believe it or not, there is an author by the name of Gary Chapman who has written a book entitled The Five Love Languages.  In the beginning of the book, he names the five languages, and gives a brief description of each.  They are as follows: words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, giftgiving, and last, but certainly not least, physical touch.  At the end of the book, there's a 30 question quiz to allow you to see how important each of the five languages are to you.  I took the quiz myself.  My results are below:

Now, most of these are pretty self-explanatory, except for maybe words of affirmation, and acts of service.  Words of affirmation are phrases like "I love you", or "good job", or even the occasional "thank you".  Pretty much anything that acknowledges someone, or something that they've done, regardless of whether it was done specifically for you, or not.  Acts of service is when someone does something for you to show you that they love you.  For instance, if someone in your life offers to clean your house every time they come over "because they love you", then they're using the acts of service love language.

The author of this book says that as adults we use the primary love language that we grew up with.  For instance, growing up, if your primary love language was acts of service, then chances are that's how your going to show somebody else that you love them, and also how you need to be shown that somebody loves you.  Before I go any further, let me give you an example using acts of service. 

Let's say that your primary love language is acts of service.  One afternoon, after working all day long, you come home to discover that your partner has left a vase of 10 long stemmed roses on the kitchen table.  You thank them for it, give them a little peck on the cheek, and then head upstairs to take a shower.  As you're taking a shower, you start thinking about the fact that yes, they went to the trouble of giving you those roses, but the house is a mess, and then on top of that, and even worse than that is the fact that you put in a 12 hour day at work, pretty much making all the money, and yet never really get any acknowledgment for putting in the work that you do.  When you come back downstairs, you notice that your partner has vacuumed the living room, wiped off the kitchen counters, and loaded the dishwasher.  The instant you see this, the first thought that runs through your head is: wow, they really do appreciate everything I do for them, and how hard I work.  During dinner that night, you continue to verbalize how appreciated you feel on this particular day.  You even go to bed that night talking about it.  Why did your partner cleaning make you feel so loved and appreciated?  Quite simply, it's because that's your primary love language, and that's how you're best able to process the fact that you are loved.

As stated by the author, it is very, very, very, very rare that two people will speak the same love language from the very start.  He also makes a point of talking about how crucial it is that you learn your partner's love language, and be able to speak it.  He says that knowing and being able to speak your partner's love language could drastically change his/her behavior, and could even save, or better a relationship.  I believe that this is not only true with couples, but maybe even close friends, or people who you are currently dating.  Look at it this way, if you're currently dating someone and are able to identify their love language and speak it, it could potentially mean that it will develop into something stronger, such as a full relationship!

So, in closing, what's your primary love language?  If you can't answer that question at this point, I would highly, highly, highly recommend picking up a copy of this book, reading it, and then doing a little self exploration to figure out what your love language really is.  It could be extremely beneficial to you, and any future relationship you intend to have, or will have.