Love Languages
Love languages are a tool that can allow greater communication and understanding.
Nick’s love language is acts of service in how he expresses it to me, but (my opinion is) physical touch in receiving. He says it’s acts of service in receiving too, but really - he does the cooking and cleaning. And yet we have a great marriage… My money will remain on physical touch.
We thought initially my love language was words of affirmation, but it’s actually quality time. For a long time I expressed it through gift giving. Until I read between the lines… Nick was raised on Dave Ramsey Jr. and I was spending our hard-earned money for unneeded things that weren’t fully appreciated because that wasn’t his love language.
I was fortunate enough to be raised by a father that strives to practice all love languages. Therefore I can see where I lack in expressing love languages more easily. Those would be acts of service (again, why he HAS to be touch) and words of affirmation.
I know words have power, however, I also have a fault: if you’re doing 90% of something right and 10% wrong, I’m more likely to tell you what’s wrong because then you can fix it. Why waste words on what’s going correctly, right? WRONG! God chose to challenge me by giving me multiple officemates who had words of affirmation as their love language, but more on that later.
When you grow up an under-confident child raised by under-confident parents, words of affirmation can easily be seen as a necessity to thrive. However if you truly don’t believe those beautiful words spoken over you by others, you can’t appreciate them. Unfortunately I’ve seen too many people in my life who crave words of affirmation just to shrug off the compliment because they don’t believe it deep down. I was one of those for decades. I truly believe that’s how words of affirmation did not become my love language. I saw my mom - who had that love language, maybe bask in it for the span of a few minutes, and then move on. I believe that’s how I got in to just stating what was wrong, because I learned my compliments won’t be trusted anyway or they’d fall on deaf ears.
Inherently I believe love languages are in a large part due to nurturing. If there is something we don’t receive enough as a child, that will become what you crave. For me, that was quality time. Through sickness when I was younger, I became a self-sufficient child due to lack of quality time.
Nick, whose single mom was busy with school a lot in his early years, learned his mom’s love language was acts of service, so therefore he got in to expressing that naturally. I believe the physical touch was somewhat stifled because that wasn’t abundant in his household. We can tell ourselves interesting stories to keep from disappointment.
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The problem comes when we try to express our love for our friends or partner through our own love language and not theirs. While they may know logically you appreciate them, they don’t see it as well.
Through self-sabotaging behaviors and an addiction to distraction, I threw myself in to chiropractic school at the time. Nick was part of a carpool because he worked an hour away from home, but that required 10-12 hour days Monday through Thursday and a half day Friday. While that might have been a nice schedule for him, Friday afternoon and evening I had a clinic shift. So his extra time he bought was not with me.*
*I get that that comes across selfish, and it is. But I can embrace
that I am selfish with quality time - in trying to make up for the lack
when I was younger. I truly believe I will always be selfish when it
comes to time with him.
Evidently I spoke his language just fine, because when I expressed we were having problems, he seemed blindsided. (Again, another vote for his LL being physical touch. I had no time for acts of service.) Those problems would’ve dwindled away into nothing had I not been sacrificing time with the most important person in my life to school, to friends, and to clinic and recruiting patients.
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Don’t allow your love language to go unspoken. You are worth receiving love in the way YOU want it expressed. Ask and you shall receive, even if it isn’t immediate.
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