Thought I was finished with The Five Love Languages. No, there’s more to the wisdom and advice of Gary Chapman than just describing what the love languages are. Now that you know what they are it is time to discover what your primary love language is – and your spouse’s.

There are several ways to make this discovery. For some it will be easier than others, but Mr. Chapman offers a few simplified techniques to try first:

1. What does your spouse do or fail to do that hurts you the most? The opposite of that is probably your primary love language.

2. What have you most often requested of your spouse? Whatever that is probably an indication of your primary love language.

3. In what way do you regularly express love to your spouse? You might be speaking your own love language.

A quick note about sex for men who might mistakenly think physical touch is their primary love language. (This is a little explicit so hide your children’s eyes) Men are physically driven to have sex because of sperm production. This clouds our judgement and makes us think physical touch is high on our list (more about this subject in future posts). Think about if you were totally fulfilled sexually but each of the other love languages were being very neglected. If you would still be happy without any of the other love languages then physical touch might really be your primary love language. That little idea will work for prioritizing the other love languages too. Some people are actually bi-lingual if two of the love langauges are equally important.

There are two types of people who have extreme difficulty pinpointing their primary love language – the person who has felt so loved for so long in so many ways they can’t determine which way is most important to them, and the person who hasn’t felt loved in so long they can’t remember what it feels like. Those people have to dig deep. Think back to the falling in love experience and what was important then, or think about what an ideal spouse would be like and that might reveal the primary love language.

Dr. Chapman also has a game he recommends. Come home and ask each other on a scale of 1 to 10 how full is your love tank? Then ask what you can do to fill up your spouses love tank. After about 3 weeks you both should be having fun showing love to each other and should be getting good at it too.

This is the last but by no means the least of the Five Love Languages – Physical Touch. This is the one at the top of my list. Nothing speaks love to me more than physical contact from Shawna. This is quite a complex love language too because there are so many simple AND significant ways to speak it – depending on what dialect is more important to you. I’ll try to keep my notes short, but in my copy of the book this chapter is almost entirely highlighted…

So how important is physical touch – really?? Numerous studies show that babies emotional health is greatly affected by how much positive physical touching they receive early in life. This isn’t a new idea. It wasn’t by coincidence that Jesus himself insisted that the disciples allow parents to bring their children to be touched by him.

Physical touch is just as powerful in marriage – especially for the individual whose primary love language is physical touch. There are so many ways or dialects for communicating love through physical touch. It can be holding hands, kissing, embracing, sexual intercourse, or just coming in contact with any of the sensitive receptors throughout the body. What is liked or disliked needs to be communicated between spouses and both need to be respectful of what the other doesn’t like and don’t do it.

Love touches can be demanding of your full attention, such as a back rub or sexual foreplay, or they can be simple and only require a moment of our attention, such as putting a hand on the shoulder or rubbing together as you pass in the hallway. The point is we should be aware and take advantage of every opportunity we get to communicate love in this way – both the simple and demanding physical contact. You are only limited by your imagination. Try doing “under the table” touching or kissing as soon as you get in the car. I personally love it when Shawna kisses me as I open the car door for her. It satisfies my need for physical touch and it kinda expresses gratitude (words of affirmation) for me opening the door for her. I’ve told her I like that so she does it often.

I’m not sure why the author of the book had to talk about “open marriage” and how couples who do that eventually fail in marriage based on either moral or emotional grounds. My opinion is that people who do the “open marriage” or even “open relationship” nonsense have some other deeper more critical mental and emotional damage. They need serious help.

The discussion of that topic leads in to the damage done by a spouse who is unfaithful. To someone with physical touch as the primary love language the damage done by an unfaithful spouse is compounded. The love they long for so deeply through their spouse’s physical touch is being given to someone else. Talk about messing up somebody’s emotions. I’m just not even going to say what I might do. God is protecting my marriage from that and Shawna and I are very cautious to avoid circumstances that lead to failure. I’ll talk about that another day. My church did an awesome service on the subject…

Moving on… One of the most important times to love through physical touch is during a time of crisis. During a crisis the love we show through holding one another and sharing tender touches may be more important than any words we speak.

For some people it is difficult to recognize that their primary love language really is physical touch. For some people it is just difficult to learn the true importance of that love language to their spouse because it isn’t their own primary love language.

Before the first time Shawna and I read this book I remember going through periods of time where we weren’t filling each others’ “love tanks” because we didn’t really know about love languages. I would withdraw from her physically because of her lack of touch. It was easier to withdraw than experience the pain of feeling rejected or unwanted if I pursued physical touch. Her love tank was empty too though, so there was really a cycle of both of us not feeling loved by each other and thus not being sensitive to the others needs. It took reading Five Love Languages and a lot of time working with each other to discover what our primary love languages are, and it is a never ending adventure finding new ways to make each other feel loved.

Now that all the love languages have been described the next thing to do is discover just what your primary love language is – there’s more to come from The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman…

The author of The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman, learned a lot early in his career by teaching a couple about Love Language #4 – Acts of Service. Acts of service means doing things you know your spouse would like you to do. Often times it’s little things you don’t realize are important to them, such as cooking, doing dishes, vacuuming, washing the car, taking out the trash, cleaning the toilet, raising the lid on the toilet… ok I’m digressing. The fact of the matter is Jesus himself set the example of how to show love through acts of service when he washed the feet of the disciples, so I’d say it’s a pretty significant love language.

Now for those of you who have actually read the book and know a man who fits the story Gary Chapman is sharing… a big OUCH for those guys. I’ve been guilty of working too much or occasionally playing too much b-ball, and those are wrong too, but I’ve seen guys in to hunting and fishing so much their wife might as well claim widow status. Anyway, I will refrain from getting on that tangent.

What happens to most of us is during the in-love obsession (see earlier 5LL posts) we just naturally spend more time and energy helping each other and doing things for each other. Then when we get married we form expectations of what our spouse should do for us, and those expectations are often based on the example we grew up with from our parents. When those things don’t happen both sides begin to resent or demand things and before you know it you’re arguing about stuff that doesn’t matter and not agreeing on much of anything. Love is a choice. Demands and criticism drive a wedge between you, so just choose to love our spouse in the way they request to be loved and they will probably be willing to do the same for you. You might think you’ve been doing things as acts of service, but you have to do the right things that your spouse considers the most important.

Gary Chapman recommends making a list of about 4 requests you have for your spouse – things that communicate love to you. Talk about the lists, agree that they are do-able, then choose to do the list out of love – it is a choice. Try the original list for two months then add one per month until you’re getting so much acts of service love you can’t think of anything else to add…

Now I can hear some guy now arguing ‘I ain’t gone wash no dishes’ or some chick saying ‘I don’t take out the trash’ because that is not what men/women do. Male/female stereotypes that were developed in the good ole days are long gone. Some of them still linger because we learned from our parents, but these days the chances of your spouse having the same perception are much slimmer than when our parents got married. So you’ve got to be willing to change those stereotypes in your mind and do things out of love for your spouse because that’s what makes them feel loved whether you feel manly or princessy or not. Shawna loves it when I wash the dishes and I certainly feel loved when she helps me with the yard work (she rides the mower and I use the weed-eater). I used to feel bad for her to help but then I realized how much time it saves me so it is valuable and important to me, plus I like that we’re both dirty and have to get cleaned up afterward. Uhh, I’m digressing again.

Everyone reading this should consider it a gift of Mark’s Notes (similar to Cliff’s Notes but they’re mine). Hope you feel the love.

So how do gifts REALLY communicate love?? They say “he/she was thinking of me” to the person receiving the gift. The gift symbolizes the thought. It isn’t whether or not it cost money and it isn’t jus the thought itself. It is the thought, the securing of a gift, and the giving of it as an expression of love.

From the time we’re kids we’re inclined to give gifts to our parents (the flower picked from the yard) as an act of love. It’s in our nature for love to be communicated through gifts. Wedding rings “are outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual bond that unites your two hearts in love that has no end”. That means they’re gifts, symbols that have emotional value. Unfortunately for a lot of people they don’t realize the value of those rings until they’re holding their spouse’s in their hand after the marriage has fallen apart.

Visual symbols of love (gifts) are more important to some people than others (different love languages). Some people will put greater value on gifts they receive and cherish them for years. They may even question love from their spouse if they’re not receiving gifts.

A disclaimer right here to keep manipulation out of the picture… A person who receives gifts as a primary love language will consider almost anything you give as an expression of love. So, if your spouse criticizes everything you try to give then their love language is not receiving gifts. If you’re the one doing this you’re not as smart as you think. Don’t be trying to manipulate your spouse to get you stuff by telling them that makes you feel loved if you’re just going to criticize every effort. Now if it’s a brand new manual can opener for the kitchen your spouse might need a little help understanding what a gift actually is, but almost anything better than that should be received well if your love language is really receiving gifts.

For those of us who don’t have receiving gifts as our primary love language we have to work at this. For me, working at it has a lot to do with being creative, because money doesn’t grow on trees at the Asbell house. (Although, I’m getting money under control with the support and encouragement of Joe Sangl). Remember, gifts can be not only bought, but made or even found as well. Then be creative with how you do it. Fru fru creativity isn’t my forte, so usually I buy small things that carry more significance to Shawna because of what it is not what it cost. It’s important to keep in mind that to people whose primary love language is receiving gifts the cost of the gift doesn’t matter much, unless it is really out of line with what the giver can afford. In other words – bringing home dollar store gifts when you can afford more will defeat the purpose. Here’s why…

All of us have different attitudes about money. Some are easy spenders and others are strictly savers. Gift giving is easy for the spenders but difficult for the savers. For the saver it’s easy to form excuses like “I don’t buy for myself why should I buy for them?”. What the saver is failing to realize is they ARE purchasing self-worth and security for theirself when they save, and they’re neglecting the emotional needs of their spouse if they refuse to loosen up and buy a few gifts. That’s pretty selfish. The savings minded people need to understand that investing in loving their spouse is one of the best investments they will ever make.

There is another dialogue to this gift giving thing – the intangible gift of giving of yourself. This is similar to quality time but different. It isn’t the time spent enjoying activity together and stuff like that, it is the time spent being there for each other during significant moments or just simply when one of you wants the other around. One extreme example of this is when there is a crisis. If receiving gifts is important to your spouse then your presence is very important during a crisis. Another example is when your spouse just wants you around for the sake of being there and having your company or your assistance. I recently signed up for our church basketball game. I’d like it if Shawna is able to come to some of the games just so I think she is pulling for me.

One thing to note right here is if the physical presence of your spouse is important, you should verbalize it to them. I have failed more than one time even when Shawna did try to verbalize it to me. Last night was one example. We have been busy almost every night of the week for a while, but last night we didn’t have any plans. She had asked me to help her do some things around the house. She was requesting my presence and asking for my help. Something came up that was more important to me and I took care of it (at least it wasn’t basketball). I made the mistake of not realizing how important the time Shawna requested was to her and it hurt her feelings. I was wrong and had to apologize.

The next love language is acts of service, which is another one of Shawna’s big ones (another reason me not helping with what she wanted was a dumb mistake), so hopefully I’ll see how good I’ve done since the last time I read this book … Check back later to see.