The Five Love Languages

One of the classes I was required to take as part of my undergraduate studies at Criswell College was called "Marriage and Family Dynamics." Though it wasn't my favorite class by any means, the discussions were always interesting, especially due to the mix of people. Some were married, some were not. Some had children, some did not. Some came from large families, and some from smaller ones.

One of our assignments was to choose a book dealing with marriage and/or the family and write a review of it. Probably because it was considerably shorter than others, I chose Dr. Gary Chapman's bestseller The Five Love Languages.

In this book, he explains that we as human beings have a love language; we each have a way that we like to receive love. He believes that most of these ways fall under one of five categories:

1. Words of Affirmation

2. Acts of Service

3. Receiving Gifts

4. Quality Time

5. Physical Touch

If you take just a second, I'm sure you can identify what your love language(s) is/are.

But the book is more than informational, it is also instructional. The purpose of the book is to encourage married couples to understand their spouse's love language and to begin loving them in that specific way.

Well as an unwed college student, the concept didn't make much sense to me. I thought, "Hey, I will express love to my wife the way I want to." In fact, here is an actual quote from my paper, written over five years ago: “Though a man should want his wife to love him the way he desires to be loved, he should also desire to be shown love the way his wife knows how to express it. Instead of adapting the way you show love, why not adapt the way you receive it?”

Even though I still understand the point I was making, I have no problem in saying, “Boy was I wrong!” I have now been married for just over three years, and I can tell you what a difference it makes when I express love according to my wife's love language and receive it according to mine. I feel so strongly about this that I include it in the pre-marital counseling I do with engaged couples.

So whether you've been married for 5 years or 50 years, or even if you are newly wed, I encourage you to discover your spouse's love language. I truly believe it can save a failing marriage, and it can take a great marriage and make it even better.