Navigating Different Love Languages

Live Class Recording - Mismatched love languages can cause misunderstandings and unmet emotional needs. Understanding and honouring each other's ways of expressing love strengthens emotional connection and creates a deeper sense of partnership.

Transcript

So we talk about the five love languages and the idea behind these languages is that each of us has a different way of how we feel loved.

Not on how we give love,

But how we feel loved by someone else,

By our parents,

Our partner,

Friends,

Etc.

So these five love languages,

We have quality time.

That means spending time together,

Doing something or just watching telly,

Just having this other person present with us.

And usually alone,

Like quality time doing something together that both of you enjoy and that gives you fun and where you can connect.

So that could be dinner dates,

For example,

Or going for a walk where you just focus on yourself or on the two of you.

So that's the quality time.

Then we have physical touch.

And you might ask,

What about sex?

Is that physical touch a love language?

And it's a grey zone.

So if you want to count it as how you feel loved,

If you have sexual intercourse with your partner,

Then do that.

It's up to you.

There is no rule.

And in general,

Physical touch is holding hands.

It's hugging.

It's kissing.

It's just sitting close to your partner or having one hand on their back or on their thigh.

So it's just having this physical next to each other,

Touching each other,

Etc.

Then we have words of affirmation.

So words of affirmations are when you say I love you,

When you say thank you,

When you say I appreciate you doing this for me,

Or when you say I'm happy that you're in my life.

Things like that.

Things that show them in that sense that you are happy that they are there.

These are words of affirmation.

Could also be compliments.

So you tell them you look amazing or whatever it is.

And then we have acts of service.

As acts of service,

We count things your partner does without you telling them.

So that could be a coffee in the morning.

If they bring you a coffee in the morning while you're still in bed,

It's an act of service.

It could be that they cook dinner now,

Not like you're at home.

So you're cooking the dinner.

Of course,

We appreciate that.

But that's not the act of service that we would count into feeling loved,

Even though it might be for some people.

But in general,

It's something you don't ask for and your partner does it.

And then we have gifts and gifts is anything that you get given or that you give.

It doesn't have to be a big,

Expensive,

Overwhelming gift.

It can be a handpicked flower from the garden.

It can be like a chocolate bar that your partner picked up at the petrol station when they got the petrol and thought of you like,

Oh,

That's your favorite here.

Here's a gift for you.

So that's what we say.

These are gifts.

Everything from small to little,

From expensive to hasn't cost anything.

And like I said,

Everyone feels different.

Everyone has their own preference in what love language,

Which thing is it,

The quality time,

Acts of affirmation,

Acts of service,

Words of affirmation,

Et cetera,

Which one gives them the feeling of being loved.

And I have to say my personal experience with this is that I prefer quality time and my partner doesn't.

For him,

It comes third place or something like that.

And I remember when we first discussed having dinner dates,

For him,

It was like,

Oh my God,

You want my time.

And I'm at home every day.

I come home every day.

We have the weekends together.

What more do you want woman?

He couldn't understand it.

And I said to him,

For me,

The difference is that we planned it.

So it's in your calendar.

And if something else comes in,

I get priority because this is fixed and this is planned.

And this is what you and I do.

So we can look forward to it's not just coming home every day.

I said,

There's a difference.

And then we also talked about what I want in,

For example,

I said,

When you come back from work and we go then out,

I want you to change.

So I want you to put something on you haven't worn that week or that day.

That's what I want.

And then he said,

Well,

He doesn't care what I wear.

So that's fair enough.

But he couldn't understand that until I explained to him that this is what I mean with spending time with you.

And then he told me,

On the other hand,

That he prefers acts of service.

And for him,

Even when I do the washing,

He sees that as an act of service that I must love him because I'm doing this,

Which is nice.

But these are the differences.

So just to give you an example,

And I've written down a couple of more.

So one could be you buy gifts to show love,

But your partner just wants quality time with you.

And I had a friend once and she loved to give gifts.

And for many people,

It was like,

Oh,

My God,

This is too much.

They want to buy our love.

So what do we think about this person now?

So it can be misinterpreted because we might not know that.

Oh,

That's your preferred love language.

So you would love to receive gifts if you give it,

Because that's what the interpretation is.

We believe that if I like it,

You must like it too.

So I give it to you.

This is my this is how I feel love.

So I want to give you all of this.

So you feel loved.

Forgetting,

Not knowing,

Not being aware that the other person has a different view on this.

Like I said,

I was quality time.

My partner was acts of service.

Didn't know until we found out,

Until we talked about.

Another example could be that your partner gives you compliments,

But you wish they'd help more with household tasks so that they say,

I take over the.

The bin,

So I take over the dishwasher,

Whatever,

And just do it.

Another example could be your way of showing love through touch makes your partner uncomfortable because they value words of affirmation.

And as you can imagine,

If you give and give and give what you feel like,

This is love that I'm giving and your partner doesn't receive it because for them it's like,

What are you doing here?

Why are you doing this?

Why don't you love me the way I need to be loved?

It can lead to disconnect.

It can lead to resentment.

And of course it can lead to the end of the relationship because of these misunderstandings,

The mismatching of the love languages,

But it doesn't have to be that way because I wrote down,

If you change fewer misunderstandings and deeper connection.

So misunderstandings might still happen.

That's why it's important that when you talk about it,

That this is my love language and this is my love language that you clarify what does it mean?

Because I told this many times,

Different words mean different things to different people.

So when I say,

I want to spend time with you and my partner says,

But we're spending every evening together.

It's like,

I know,

But that's not what I mean.

So be specific.

What do you mean when you say that?

How does it look like?

Maybe you can give an example and be gentle,

Be compassionate,

Be patient because for your partner might be the first time that they hear about this.

And it might be the first time that they've been told like the way you give love,

That's not how I receive it.

And they might not like it.

They might feel insecure.

So be patient with them.

And of course,

Whatever,

What you can do,

The practical step,

So to say,

Is take a love language test.

There are many out there.

I haven't put anything in here,

But there are so many quizzes and tests out there.

Easy.

It will take maybe a minute or two and then you're done.

And then you know,

This is mine.

This is yours.

And some even have it that they rank it like this is your preferred and then second,

Third,

Fourth,

Fifth place.

The next step is you share three practical ways to meet each other's love language weekly.

Like when you know your partner loves words of affirmation,

Make an effort and give them love in this way.

Tell them how beautiful they are,

How happy you are to have them,

How good it feels to lie close to them,

How amazing it is to wake up next to them,

Whatever it is.

But try to make that effort.

And they,

Of course,

For you as well,

Depending on your love language.

And the last one is to remember that when you've done the quiz,

When you know your love language,

When you talk to your partner and when you're starting to do it,

When they do it,

Try to avoid to say things like,

Well,

Finally,

Couldn't you have done that before?

Wasn't this so hard?

You the way we then belittle and put them down.

That's not nice.

We don't want to do that.

We want to be appreciative.

We want to show that I'm happy that we're doing this now.

What's in the past is in the past.

Now we're going forward.

Now we're going somewhere together.

So let's do this.

So try not to mock and set expectations.

And that brings me to the end of my lecture today.