Cocktail Musings: Speak My Language (Take 2)

Gary Chapman is the theologian and relationship counselor responsible for developing the theory of The 5 Love Languages. I read excerpts of his book with great excitement back in 2018 when I was writing my first post on this topic, promptly took the quiz, and immediately became a huge fan of the entire concept. Originally, Dr. Chapman maintained that there were five basic ways in which we give and receive love: words of affirmation, quality time, giving and receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Although we practice all of them at one time or another, we tend to favor one more than the others, and this is considered our primary love language. It’s the expression of love that works best for us, in terms of both giving and receiving. Sometimes more than one will resonate, and so we actually prefer and employ a combination of languages. The quiz is simple to take and very revealing, especially when we have our partners take it too. We quickly learn that if we are someone who prefers acts of service and our significant other favors physical touch, we can do the dishes or fold the laundry until the cows come home, and it won’t ever score us any points. All he or she really wants to do is hold hands. Dr. Chapman believes that these differences in love languages can be the root cause of many relationship problems, and a good number of therapists use his concept as a starting point when counseling couples. It makes perfect sense. Once we understand the love language of our primary person, we can often meet somewhere in the middle and work towards an expression of love that’s more harmonious for both of us.
…