What’s a Love Language Anyway?

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This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about love languages.  I’ve read the book and taken the quiz, as I’m sure many of you have, but what do you do with that information afterwards anyways?  What makes it even tougher is when you discover your spouse has a different love language.  How do you go about fulfilling each other when you want (better yet, NEED) different things?  You don’t just wake up one day and say, “from today on, I’m going to be everything my spouse needs me to be” and just do it perfectly.  It’s unrealistic and actually, probably quite impossible to do and make it last.

A love language is just that- a language.  We all speak in different love languages.  It does not mean that one is better than another, more important than another or should be practiced more.  It means each of the five is different.  They are all five different languages that require more than just trying to understand it.  In order to be effective in loving your spouse through his or her language, you need to learn to speak it!

I realized that it is just as if I came into the marriage speaking only Spanish and Mikey came in speaking only English.  We could not just get married and hope that we are able to make out what the other is saying.  We can’t be okay with just not understanding each other and refusing to learn the other’s language.  We would have lots of problems like that!

Instead, we must be proactive in actually LEARNING the other’s love language.  We need to learn to go out and discover what language our spouse speaks and take lessons, practice and show our spouse that we are trying to learn what they love.  We take lessons and practice by asking questions, trying out new ideas (date nights if you don’t have them, hand holding if you don’t already, gift giving if you haven’t in a while) and being willing to fail at something.

I know Mikey’s primary language is quality time together.  For quite a while, I was afraid of setting up a date or time together myself because I was afraid I’d fail at it.  And to be honest, I have.  I set up a little weekend trip for us that turned out to be a bust of a location.  Despite the circumstances, we still had an awesome time together, laughed a ton and actually spent time together- what he wants in the first place anyways. 

We have to be willing to actually learn what our spouse’s language is and speak it.  Imagine knowing each other’s native languages, but still refusing to speak it.  It’s stubborn and just asking for problems.  Learn your spouse’s likes and dislikes.  Don’t try to force them to learn your language, because odds are, it’s not the same as yours.  Learn what language they speak.  And once you learn it, don’t be afraid to speak it!

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