5-minute quiz: What are your 5 love languages? An artifact that helps reduce conflict in love
Most people express their love for their partner and others by doing what they want.
For example, you like gifts. When someone sends you a gift, you will feel loved. You will then usually express your love for him/her by giving gifts because you think that the other person will also feel loved. But can he/she really feel your love? Not necessarily, because maybe in his/her heart, he/she doesn’t care about gifts at all.
The way people feel and express love is similar, but different people are very different. Gary Chapman, a long-term relationship consultant, has discovered in more than 30 years of research on relationships between men and women that there are about 5 ways people feel and express love, collectively referred to as the 5 languages of love:
1) Words of Affirmation: Express feelings through verbal feelings, praise, or appreciation.
2) Acts of Service: It is usually some small things you can do to ease the burden of other people’s responsibilities. For example, when he/she is working on a chore, help him/her with swiping the floor or taking out the trash.
3) Receiving Gifts: Gifts are a symbol of love and beloved.
4) Quality Time (Quality Time): expresses the concern regardless of right and carelessness.
5) Physical Touch: It can be sexual intercourse or holding hands. Through this love language, the speaker feels emotions through physical touch.
Chapman suggested that to discover another person’s love language, people must observe how they express love to others and analyze their most frequent complaints and their other most common requests. He believes that people tend to give love naturally in a way that they like to accept love. When people express concern to another person in the love language understood by the recipient, better communication between partners can be achieved.
An example is if the husband’s love language is an act of service: when he washes his wife’s clothes, he may be confused as, why she does not think it is an act of love and why she would treat it as simply fulfilling housework responsibilities. The language she understands is affirmative (his verbal affirmation to her). She might try to express her love with words that she valued, and he would not cherish it as much as she does. If she understands his love language and cooks for him, he will receive her love language that she loves him. Similarly, if he frequently tells her that he loves her, she thinks it is an act of love.
I learned from the video of the well-known YouTube blogger cody&lexy; their affection lasts over ten years because they know each other’s love languages. So I also tested it and found that the result was utterly consistent with me.
Indeed, when I receive an act of service, I felt deeply loved. For example, when my partner takes me to the hospital in the middle of the night, or revise the paper for me, or accompanies me to the grocery store on the weekends.
I am also very obsessed with gifts. It is my way of feeling loved and expressing love, so I often buy many gifts for my ex. But he couldn’t understand why I am so obsessed with gifts.
Out of curiosity, I asked my ex, with who we kept in touch as friends, who was thousands of miles away, to do a quick five love language quiz. His result turns out unsurprisingly surprised me.
Receiving gifts was his least on the list of feeling loved. I finally understood why we had such a significant conflict over gifts on our 1st anniversary. The very first gifting conflict led me to run away from home in London in the middle of the night, which hurt my feelings very much and was the root of the final breakup sometime later. Foreshadowing.
I value gifts so much. Receiving gifts makes me feel loved, so I also express my love by giving him gifts. I bought 6 gifts for him on the anniversary. However, he received gifts without any feeling of being loved and hated to receive gifts for him. He hated giving gifts and did not think that giving gifts was a way of expressing love. He believes that staying with me is his way of loving me. Why should I bother with gifts? And I feel that if he doesn’t give me gifts, he doesn’t love or care about me. (I’m not entangled with the gift itself; it is knowing that someone studies my preferences, goes through the process of thinking about how to surprise me that makes me feel loved).
If we can know the other’s love language earlier and express our love for him in the way that he likes, maybe we will not have so many misunderstandings, and may not lead to a breakup.
Unfortunately, there is no if! I hope that next time in love, I will do this test earlier, get to know the other person more before, and express my love for him in the way he well receives, instead of expressing my love in a way that I like.
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