The 5 Love Languages

Warning:  This post may get a little deep.  I in no way am meaning for it to!  I just honestly discovered a great lens to look at relationships and feelings!  Learning about this, I believe, could really save ya some time and frustration!  Here goes..

In my second life I think I'd be a great therapist.  Well, not really a therapist, an analyst.  I want to analyze why people are happy, how different personalities do well with this situation but other personalities don't.  I want to dig deep and put a label on everyone (OMG did I just say type that out loud) and figure out what makes them tick and what frustrates them.  I'm not talking about scientificly, just the fun stuff...which leads me to my newest discovery of the concept of:

The 5 Love Languages
Before you go on thinking this is just a made up concept to get people to buy a book, believe me, I am the biggest skeptic and I actually went LOOKING for this concept in writing. 

This secret will rock your relationship - in a good way.

The thing is, I realized a while ago that my boyfriend and I, although we care immensely for each other, we show each other love in different ways.  I started noticing that I always thought about how I could help him in his day-to-day activities, how to make his life easier.  When I went to the store: is there anything I can get for him?  Or, on a busy week: make him lunch or drive to his house instead of him coming to mine.  Wait a minute.  Just wait one second.  [enter bad feelings]  Well, why doesn't he do these things for me?  That's not fair!  I go "above and beyond" allllll of the time and when he is just so dang practical and takes care of himself.  We have an incredibly open relationship so of course I confronted him and I quickly realized I was so in the wrong for accusing him of not loving me as much as I loved him (I mean, come on, this isn't 10th grade anymore you just can't throw accusations around like that anyways)  I quickly remembered all those sweet emails, texts, phone calls, times he wanted to do nothing else but be in my presence.  Oh yeah.  That's right.  You do love me and you do show it.  Just in different ways!  GENIUS. All of my frustration went out the window.  See, just because my brain and my emotions want to give by doing favors and helping, doesn't mean that he gives love all the time that way.  

So, after this conversation, I started thinking, found this online  "love language profile" test and did it.  Sure enough, my love language is "acts of service":

which means...

The book suggests that you use your profile to understand not only how you give your love but how you want to receive your love, and to tell your significant other so they can be aware of this as well-not necessarily change but just to be aware.  It's all about understanding how each person communicates!  

This "discovery" may not help you as much, but man it really made me have a great perception on how my brain and feelings work.  See, I have an enormous need to be needed and loved and, even moreso, I have a need to GIVE love to the people who mean so much to me.  However, I've recently started to see that everyone wants to be loved and most people actually want to give love, BUT how each individual receives and shows their feelings are completely different.

Moral of the story, different individuals function in the way they prefer to give and receive love and identifying your "style" of love language can really help you understand how to become closer!

"The payoff of speaking each other’s love language is more of a feeling of “this person understands me and cares for me.” This translates into better communication, increased understanding, and, ultimately, improved relationship."