I used to buy into the idea of The Five Love Languages. Identifying a partner’s love language and sharing our own seemed ideal for relationships. But then I came across article after article about the author’s misogynistic and homophobic beliefs. Suddenly, what once seemed like a foundational guide for relationships didn’t seem to pass the vibe check.
Frankly, I was always conflicted about people broadcasting physical touch as their love language. It came across as a red flag on many dating profiles. While many of us do enjoy physical touch with the right person, knowing that it’s someone’s preferred love language doesn’t entitle them to receiving touch before the other person is comfortable with giving it.
Clear Communication: Better Than Love Languages
I do believe there’s merit in the idea of exploring how each person expresses love and how they prefer to have it expressed to them. Partnerships require compromise, and what might seem appropriate under one circumstance might not be what is needed in another. We don’t need to know each other’s “love language”. We just need clear, direct communication.
Self-Advocacy
Advocating for what we want and need is part of communicating clearly. If we want or need something from a partner, we have a responsibility to communicate it. Maybe they can and will meet the need, or maybe they can’t or won’t. We’ll handle that when it happens. First, we need to speak up and stop assuming everyone should read our minds and intuit what it is we expect.
Part of that self-advocacy is setting strong boundaries and sticking to them. When a former partner stopped saying that he loved me and couldn’t explain why, that should have been a hard boundary for me. Not hearing the words when I once heard them regularly made me feel unloved and insecure in the relationship. When he stopped saying what I needed to hear to feel safe and cared about, I should have left the relationship and let him figure out the why of it all on his own. That would have been advocating for myself. I told him what I needed. He couldn’t or wouldn’t meet that need. I should have stayed true to a boundary and left instead of waiting for him to leave me.
Clarification
Sometimes, we just need clarification. So many relationship problems could be resolved just by asking rather than assuming. Misunderstandings might be avoided if we speak up and talk things through.
I grew up with a lot of socialized ideas about relationships that kept me from communicating clearly. There was this idea that I needed to be the “cool” girlfriend. You know the kind. She doesn’t nag (remind him to do what he said he would). She’s low-maintenance (doesn’t speak up for what she needs and is totally cool with his low-energy, low-effort kind of love). She’s chill (doesn’t get sad or mad or have any other human emotions). She certainly doesn’t ask to be his girlfriend, fiance, or wife (instead lingering in the uncertain state without complaining about it).
It’s easy to see how this particular attitude doesn’t lead to clear communication. I didn’t ask for clarity in those early relationships because I wanted to be seen favorably in comparison to past girlfriends. I didn’t ask myself how they were treated or if they had cause to make a little noise about not getting their needs met in the relationship. I set my mode to people-pleasing, and it would take a long time to get comfortable with clarifying what was said and meant in relationships. It would take even longer to seek that clarity in the moment rather than simmering in hurt feelings or resentment before seeking clarification.
Gratitude
One of the easiest ways we can communicate clearly to our partners that we love them is to show gratitude that they are in our lives. That sort of reassurance is a “love language” all its own — certainly not one described in the book. Being grateful will have us more attuned to what they want and need — and if we don’t know what that is, we’ll be more likely to ask when we genuinely value the relationship.
Nurturing a state of gratitude might not be easy when conflict is present. It’s still important. When we stop being thankful for our partner, we’re that much closer to dissolving the relationship — whether intentionally or by taking them for granted. By giving each person the grace to have flaws and make mistakes, we can still maintain a state of gratitude for the relationship while still prizing accountability within the relationship.
Openness
Clear, direct communication requires keeping ourselves open. That should include both an open mind and an open heart. We need to be non-judgmental and emotionally available if we want to have deeper intimacy and more loving relationships. In truth, it’s really hard to love someone who is closed off and detached, and it’s nearly impossible to get anything that feels like love from them.
It’s also a vicious cycle. We get our feelings hurt and shut down. Then, our partners can’t reach us. They get their feelings hurt and shut down. The problems get worse because no one is willing to be vulnerable enough to open up and talk it out.
Openness is better than all the love languages combined. It leaves room for grace. It allows us to keep connecting — even when it feels uncomfortable and scary.
Relationships are More Than Love Languages
I still think some of my relationships truly did get lost in translation. We weren’t on the same page. Or sometimes, in the same book. In those cases, knowing all the love languages or communicating as clearly as possible wouldn’t make the wrong relationships right.
But in other cases, we unintentionally harm our relationships by not being attuned to our partner. We can be so self-focused that we forget to pay attention to their needs, or we can be so partner-focused that we don’t honor our own. In both cases, we hurt the partnership. We need a balance of giving and receiving love, but what we don’t need is a scoreboard.
Frankly, the love languages always baffled me a little. What if my love language is all of them? What if it’s something that didn’t make that list? After the last partnership, I’d add Reassurance as a language of love.
It’s just not a comprehensive list, and it can’t be because human beings aren’t simple. We’re complicated, and it’s okay that we need more communication than just rattling off our love language, personality type, and Zodiac sign. We need to be able to be attuned to our partner and to adjust as needed. We need to keep talking and showing up for each other. We need to keep giving love and receiving it — however imperfectly.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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Photo credit: Juan Rodriguez Duarte on Unsplash
