How do you express and best receive love?
We all have unique ways we share love in our intimate relationships. Some of us like showing love through touch, others appreciate gifts or saying it with with words. We’re grateful to spend time together or let our partners help us with everyday tasks.
The Five Love Languages, as described by Dr. Gary Chapman, are as follows: physical touch, receiving gifts, words of affirmation, quality time, and acts of service.
We may have love languages that overlap, and some that differ. The key to relationship fulfillment is communicating our needs and desires with our partner. When we pay attention, we can learn to speak each other’s language. We can become bilingual.
Each of us differs in the ways that we receive love. By learning to give love in the ways that our partner can best receive it, and by asking our partner to give us love in the ways that we can receive it, we can create stronger relationships. —Tchiki Davis, Ph.D., psychologytoday.com
We tend to emphasize one or two of these languages as the most important. There are nuances and language fluctuations in our relationships, just like any other variations. For those of us who have love language barriers in past relationships, it’s sometimes hard to discern how we desire to communicate our love.
No two people are exactly alike in the way they communicate love for one another. Like a fingerprint, we have a unique signature for our shared language.
Each relationship is unique, therefore so is the love language
Our love languages don’t have to match up exactly. We need only to be willing to show we care by communicating in the other’s language.
As I examined how I communicate love in my relationships, it occurred to me that a couple could combine love languages. What if we became bilingual? These expressions of love overlap, so why not learn them all?
We grow and change over time and communicate differently with every person. Learning each other’s love language is advantageous for you and your partner. When you seek to understand and express how you care in a way that resonates, youre relationship will flourish.
My friend and I, who I call Chris, have discussed our love languages. We brought our friendship to a new level of awareness last year, and explored our attraction toward one another.
When he told me that touch and acts of service were his most important love languages, I paid close attention. He shared how touch could be felt with the eyes, in the way someone looks at another person.
Because we were on the phone, he didn’t know he evoked emotion within me. He touched me with his words. I know how lovely it feels to be touched by an eye gaze. Touch is the most important love language for us both. He formed an exquisite commingling of our love languages by affirming with words the experience of touch.
Our past influences our love language experience
As he described his preferred love languages, I noticed where we coincide. Before I took the Love Language quiz, I had reason to believe words of affirmation were most important. When I answered the questions, however, like Chris, I scored highest on physical touch and acts of service.
Part of me wishes we could implicitly know what the other wants without words. We could communicate without them in many ways. But verbal communication has always been my go-to for connection.
Words can make sense out of our emotions. They can show and tell what’s inside of us. Yet, one can affirm without words. The eye gaze he spoke of is a way to affirm. But some of us need someone to tell us aloud to know it’s real.
I had an epiphany that probably changed the way I communicate in a relationship, or at least in this one. Because Chris and I find so much common ground, I urged myself to find deeper reasons for why particular love languages are at the top of my list.
If you’re wondering how to become bilingual in your love languages, let’s take a look at each one and how you could blend them together.
Physical touch
If touching is the way you express and receive love, you might appreciate holding hands, kissing, and other types of affection throughout the day. You’ll probably connect with the physical aspect of sex because it’s a form of intimacy.
If your partner isn’t prone to showing physical affection, you could ask for it or find other ways to experience touch. Like Chris mentioned, an eye gaze can communicate volumes. When they gaze at you, do they look into you? Do you look into them? Eye gazing is one of the most intimate acts a couple can experience.
A partner who values acts of service could take a literal hands-on approach to help you, providing physical touch as a way to blend both love languages.
You can incorporate touch into everyday activities. Perhaps you wash dishes together, and your hands meet. You might slip your hand around their waist as you put away your plates.
Receiving gifts
Gift-giving can mean different things to different couples. Chris listens to what I might need and surprises me with a package at my door. We live far away from each other, so that adds to the allure. He’s given me a few gifts that hold meaning without being practical, but mostly he’s good at fulfilling my needs.
Offering a practical gift is also an act of service, which is another way Chris expresses his love. He once sent me a kilo of yerba maté because I said I enjoy a fresh daily brew. When I discovered he didn’t yet have a squatty potty, I sent him one.
He’d been singing its praises and had already sent me one. It was my turn to offer a gift I knew he could use and enjoy.
We grow closer with this particular blended love language. We both appreciate the gift and service aspects. Because of our distance, we combine being there to help out with something tangible. I smile every time I glance at that huge bag of yerba maté.
Even when he doesn’t text or call, he’s with me when I drink my morning cup o’ yerba. What a lovely way to deepen a friendship. If we had become lovers, I imagine drinking yerba maté being one of our shared love languages.
Words of affirmation
Our words have an impact. And when your partner can combine the words you crave with other love languages, you’ll thrive. If affirmations bring you closer, you can express through writing, speaking, or gifts with messages, like a greeting card or meaningful quote.
Choosing what to say and when to say it can foster intimacy. Chris has a knack for well-timed written messages. As a fellow writer, words on paper or on a screen appeal to me. His words bring me to tears sometimes, especially now that we’ve shifted back to being platonic friends when I was still hoping for more.
Words of affirmation can be anywhere from “I love you” to subtle yet powerful reflective statements that express one’s support or encouragement.
Some people know what to say at the precise moment you need to hear it. And the words stay with you.
What we say to each other, face-to-face or on a note, has the power to bring us closer no matter where we are on the planet.
Affirming love through a conversation can be communicated with body language as well as words. Incorporating touch as a means of connecting is a common blend of love languages.
Quality time
Some couples like going out on dates — dinner and a movie, going dancing, etc. But what if your partner isn’t into that as much? They’d rather share a chore or errand. That’s when you blend acts of service with quality time.
Washing your car together could be a great way to connect. Not only is your partner helping you by offering a gift and performing an act of service, they’re sharing time with you.
Acts of service
As mentioned, you might consider running an errand or cleaning the house an act of service. But when you stop and think of what “service” truly means, you know that all of our love languages are a way to be of service to our partners.
Chris was of service to me when he sent me a big bag of yerba maté because I needed it. He also knows I’m living on a limited income. So offering that was almost like making it for me, if that makes sense.
Affirming your love through the spoken or written word is an act of service. Everyone needs to hear how much you care about them or how they’re a rockstar parent, or they’re doing great with work-life balance. Compliments and words of encouragement serve some of our greatest needs — to be loved and supported.
Doing chores and errands for you are a way to acknowledge you need help sometimes, and they’re willing to take the time to lighten your load. When they take care of that kind of business alongside you, they’re showing you they care about you and are willing to put in that extra effort to support you. And doing it together can add to your quality time.
Final thoughts
Being bilingual in your love language is easy when you think of all the different ways we demonstrate our love.
Even if Chris and I didn’t end up being a couple, we’ve continued to express blended love languages within our special friendship. We taught each other to be bilingual through our actions. We’re closer because of that.
Love languages are unique to each pair as our fingerprints are to each of our hands. And if we pay attention, we can hold each other with many displays of love. We can hold hands, hold our gaze, and hold our hearts. And the language of the heart knows no bounds.
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Previously Published on medium
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