217 - The 5 love languages

Gary Chapman is a marriage counselor who wrote the book the 5 love languages. He boils successful marriages down the couple’s ability to recobnisez and then speak in the other person’s love language. The 5 love languages are

1 - words of affirmation

2 - quality time

3- receiving gifts

4- acts of service

5 - physical touch

And if you’re my husband or brother-in-law,  the 6th love language is ‘Food’.

Chapman discusses how each of us have a primary way we feel most loved. Your love language may be physical touch, and you may have a partner whose language is ‘words of affirmation’. You could hug, kiss, snuggle them and hold their hand until you’re bursting, but if you don’t know that a compliment makes them feel loved, their emotional tank will be drained quickly. That’s the most helpful concept I took away while I read that book (which happened to be on our honeymoon).

How’s your tank? Began to be the phrase I could ask Nick to make sure he was feeling loved by me. His love language is quality time. That’s tough to get when your wife coaches 2 sports and runs a business. So, we make sure that the time we do get together is high quality time. No phones, no distractions. Just us. And there are ALWAYS points during the season where his tank is low, so we make sure we carve out a date night or 2 and have dinner together or take a walk with the dog.

Hows your tank became a phrase within our marriage that might sound funny to an outsider, but to us makes total sense.

As a side note, I ask my kids how they feel most appreciated, and use these 5 languages as my example. That way I know how to best fuel them and let them know I do appreciate them.