River: The Languages of Love

[mdlbear]

This one's about the languages of love. No, not the Romance languages, despite their suggestive name and the fact that both French and Italian lay claim to the appellation. I'm talking about The Five Love Languages -- Dr. Gary Chapman's hypothesis that

unhappiness in relationships is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. Sometimes we don't understand our partner's requirements, or even our own. We all have a "love tank" that needs to be filled in order for us to express love to others, but there are different means by which our tank can be filled, and there are different ways that we can express love to others. Dr. Chapman's divides love languages into five categories: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.

There's a good summary of the languages here on Chapman's website, but a much better way to assess yourself is to take this 20-question version, since it actually compares each language against the other and gives you numeric scores. I strongly suggest you and your spouse/partner/SO/sweetie both taking it, and discussing the results. I found mine (behind the cut) somewhat surprising -- I would have expected words to come out higher. For that matter, see if you can get your (older) kids to take it.

You see, love isn't about treating the other person the way you want to be treated, it's about treating them the way they need to be treated. Saying "I love you" in the language they understand best. I've written about this upstream, but this clarifies it a lot.

Mismatches in language can cause a lot of havoc. If your language is "gifts" but your partner's is "quality time", they may weep at an expensive present because you could have spent the money on an intimate dinner for two at their favorite restaurant. If "acts of service" is high on your list but low on theirs, they might not even notice all the little things you've done for them. They might be waiting for a good-night kiss or a simple "I love you".

So, query for the audience: Were your results surprising? Your partner's? Will knowing this make a difference?

My results were:

	Physical Touch: 	12
        Quality Time:   	9
        Words of Affirmation: 	6
        Receiving Gifts: 	2
        Acts of Service: 	1

I was a little surprised to see "Words" coming out so low, and touch so high. The fact that "Gifts" is down near the bottom, though, explains why I have so much trouble answering questions like "What do you want for Christmas?"

I haven't had Colleen take the quiz yet -- I expect she may have the top two flipped, but we've been lucky in being basically compatible. Quality time being so high probably explains why we've come to enjoy long drives together.

Comments

[kyrielle]

Yes! There's an interesting side effect of this, too. Scott and I did it quite a while ago now...and I learned that acts of service was big for him. It wasn't for me. And now? Now I do feel loved when he does all those little things for me, because I know what they mean to him. I was always appreciative (I like having things done so that I don't have to), but that's not the same as understanding it as a love gesture. I'm taking the quiz again now, and I suspect my balance will have changed because of that.

Edited to add: Yep. It's still fourth on my list, but it's got a higher ratio than it did before. And words of affirmation dropped to accomodate it.

I feel loved when...

The Five Love Languages

My Primary Love Languages are probably Physical Touch and Quality Time

My Detailed Results:
Physical Touch:	9
Quality Time:	9
Words of Affirmation:	6
Acts of Service:	5
Receiving Gifts:	1

About this quiz

Unhappiness in relationships is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. It can be helpful to know what language you speak and what language those around you speak.

Tag 3 people so they can find out what their love language is.

Take the Quiz!
Check out the Book

[mdlbear]

Colleen's results:

Quality time: 10
Physical touch: 9
Receiving gifts: 4
Acts of service: 3
Words of affirmation: 1

As I said: top two flipped. I'm a little surprised that gifts is in the #3 slot -- that explains a few things. Fortunately, lying in bed snuggling and talking covers the first two no matter which order they're in.

[katster.livejournal.com]

Your Detailed Results:
Quality Time: 10
Words of Affirmation: 8
Acts of Service: 6
Physical Touch: 4
Receiving Gifts: 2

Having the boy humor me and do it has his results come out to:
QT: 8
Aff: 8
Touch: 7
Serve: 7
Gift: 0

So fairly close.

I'll have to think about it, though.

-kat

[septemberlilac.livejournal.com]

Quality time: 9
Acts of service: 6
Words of affirmation: 5
Physical touch: 4
Receiving gifts: 1

This was interesting, but also problematic because I had to make a choice between answering as the ideal or as the reality. Thirty years of living with a binge alcoholic left me with some warped perceptions and those inevitably colored my responses. For example, it caused me to have a deep distrust of words; although such episodes could be weeks or even months apart, I came to loathe hearing protestations of 'love' from someone who might not be able to stand unaided at the moment they were spoken. Thus, a younger, less damaged version of myself would have given words of affirmation more importance and also ranked physical touch more highly, while acts of service would probably have been rated lower. The one thing of which I am certain is that the top ranking for quality time would be unchanged.

[idea-fairy.livejournal.com]

As long as we're all posting our results:

Quality Time: 10
Physical Touch: 9
Words of Affirmation: 5
Acts of Service: 5
Receiving Gifts: 1

I'm uncertain as to whether LJ comments (and analogous comments on other lists and in paper-based fanzines and such) count toward the Words item. I suspect they do, but they probably don't get full weight. The time spent reading postings and composing replies may also count very slightly toward Quality Time. Or at least I think they do for me.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I took the test, and had my husband take it also. We've been married for almost 36 years, so it wasn't too surprising that our styles are rather similar (but with important differences). But then I got to poking around on the website, and I discovered that the author is coming from a very specifically Christian (Baptist) point of view, which made me feel that maybe the results didn't apply to me as much as I first thought. And then I came across this:

"Having confessed your failures and accepted God’s forgiveness, ask your partner to forgive you. Then ask God to let you be His agent for loving your partner. Ask Him to fill you with His Spirit and His love."

I'm sorry, but as a Wiccan Priestess, I'm very uncomfortable with that. I don't feel any necessity for confession and forgiveness involving the Christian god (*). This also sounds an awful lot like what I dislike most about the psychology of twelve-step programs.

(*)I don't feel any need for confession and forgiveness involving my own gods, either. And I don't feel any need for anything involving the Christian god.

[mdlbear]

I believe the author is also involved in 12-step programs :(. It doesn't appear to invalidate the results, in my opinion.

I'm not going to buy the book, though.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Twelve-step programs do, apparently, work very well for some people, but they never do anything but irritate me. Any time that substance use has slipped towards substance abuse in my life, I've dealt with it in ways that have been almost the exact opposite of the way twelve-step programs are structured. No, Dr. Chapman isn't getting my money either.