How Love Languages Make Your Relationship Sweeter
It’s happening again… You and your romantic partner are arguing.
The more your partner talks, the more frustrated you get with them.. You’re trying to be patient but it’s hard when they’re just not listening! You wish they’d understand how you feel but everything you say goes in one ear and out the other. It’s like you’re speaking two different languages.
If you’re in a relationship, you know how important it is to communicate effectively with your partner. One of the best ways to do this is by understanding love languages. It's crucial to understand your partner's love language and your own so you can communicate your needs to each other.
If your partner’s love language is still a mystery to you, or you have no idea what a “love language” is, keep reading to find out about love languages and how you can use them to make your relationship a whole lot sweeter.
What is a love language?
Relationship expert Gary Chapman introduced the concept of love languages in his extremely popular book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts. A love language is a way someone likes to be shown love. Love languages can apply to any type of relationships, not just romantic, but they’re often used in romantic relationships.
The five love languages are:
Words of affirmation
Quality time
Receiving gifts
Acts of service
Physical touch
Everyone has a primary love language, which is similar to how you have a native language when it comes to talking and reading. Just like how you understand your native language more than any other, your love language is what you understand most when your partner is trying to show love to you. So when your partner shows you love in a way that matches your love language, you get the message loud and clear!
I’ve experienced the power of love languages in my own relationship. I got married recently and it’s been absolutely wonderful. My husband and I are constantly learning and growing together every day, and that’s because we’re speaking each other’s love languages. (Mine is quality time!)
Love languages aren’t rigid boxes. For example, if your partner’s language is receiving gifts, it doesn’t mean they don’t like hearing words of affirmation or spending quality time with you. It’s great to show love to your partner in multiple ways, but giving gifts is the most effective and meaningful way you can reach their heart.
Want to know what your own love language is? Take the official 5 Love Languages quiz or read the checklist in this article by MindBodyGreen. Knowing your own love language is important because it helps you learn more about yourself.
What happens when you don’t understand your partner’s love language?
Plenty of misunderstandings can happen when you don’t understand your partner’s love language. As an example, let’s say their language is acts of service but you give them lots of words of affirmation because that’s what you think they’d enjoy more. Your partner may think your words are insincere and you’re all talk, no action.
On the other hand, if their language is words of affirmation and you do a bunch of acts of service for them, they may not understand the intention behind your acts. They may wonder if you’re just doing them favors with the expectation that you’ll owe them favors in return, even though that’s not what you meant.
I used those two languages as an example, but misunderstandings can happen with any love language when your partner really wants one thing and you give them a lot of something else. Again, this doesn’t mean you should only ever show them love in one way but maybe you should try to focus on their favorite one.
What happens when you do understand their language?
The night we took the test together and found out our love languages, we decided to each plan a fun date off of what we discovered. It honestly became easier to communicate and understand his needs and vice versa based on this one test.
When you’re fluent in your partner’s love language – and they know yours too – your relationship becomes much stronger. You and your partner will be in tune with each other’s feelings and needs. You both will be a lot happier because you’ll both know you have a partner who truly cares. It’s like pouring gas on the fire of your relationship.
Also, Chapman points out in his book that when people are consistently shown love in their language, they change for the better. He makes sure to “warn” readers: “WARNING: Understanding the five love languages and learning to speak the primary love language of your spouse may radically affect his or her behavior. People behave differently when their emotional love tanks are full.”
How to speak your partner’s love language
One cause of couples arguing or growing distant is that one person tries to show love and the other doesn’t care, making the first person resentful. But maybe the person had tried to show love in a way their partner didn’t understand, which is why the partner seemed not to care. Imagine if you said to your partner “I love you” in Swedish. It wouldn’t matter how sincere you were or how passionately you said it. If your partner didn’t know Swedish, they wouldn’t understand!
You have to use a language they do understand, and that means knowing what that language is. You can find out your partner’s love language by paying attention and observing their behavior and also by asking them. Pay attention to the way they react when you do or say certain things. What really lights them up? And being direct and asking how they feel and what they want is always a game-changer.
In general, here are things you can do depending on your partner’s love language:
Words of affirmation - Give your partner a genuine compliment, especially if it’s about their personality and not their appearance. Bonus points if you handwrite a note or card.
Quality time - Ask your partner if there’s a particular activity they’d be interested in you two doing together and schedule a time for that. While doing that activity, focus on your partner and don’t get distracted by your phone.
Receiving gifts - Surprise your partner with a small gift “just because.” It doesn’t have to be expensive. It just has to be something meaningful that shows you carefully thought about it.
Acts of service - Ask your partner if there’s any way you can help them do a difficult or time-consuming task.
Physical touch - Make it a habit to give your partner little touches throughout the day like hugs, holding hands, and rubbing their back.
There’s no such thing as a perfect relationship. Even when you and your partner understand each other’s love languages, there will still be times you two get frustrated with each other. But if you make an effort to learn each other’s love languages and commit to each other for the long haul, you two can overcome those bumps in the road and create a beautifully sweet relationship that stands the test of time.
