WHEN IT COMES TO LOVE ... DO YOU AND YOUR MATE SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE???
To make your significant other feel ... significant, you need to learn your mate's LOVE LANGUAGE.
LOVE LANGUAGE means the type of expression you and your partner value. It's not necessary that you speak the same language; but that each of you is caring and flexible enough to learn the type of language your partner prefers. According to Dr. Gary Chapman, there are five love languages: words of praise (affirmation), quality time, acts of service, gifts and touch.
1. WORDS OF PRAISE
To best figure out which language your partner speaks, consider what your partner's complaints about you are: e.g., "You never tell me what you're feeling."
If your partner has repeated this to you over the course of your relationship, then chances are it's true. More importantly, your mate is trying to tell you that in order to feel loved or significant, h/she needs words of praise and affirmation. Lucky you, because this type of love language is readily available and CHEAP! Words of love, so soft and tender could get your mate of 20+ years acting like your own personal courtier. Short, sweet love notes strategically placed around the house is the perfect way to communicate to your partner how much you love them, and exactly what it is you love about them.
KITCHEN LOVE NOTE: I love the way your booty shakes when you clean the stove!
BEDROOM LOVE NOTE: I love the way you say good morning to me.
2. QUALITY TIME
If your partner gripes ... "we never spend any time alone together ...", then chances are your partner's love language is quality time.
Again, this is relatively easy and inexpensive to accomplish, unless your mate's idea of "quality time" involves spending a quantity of money. But generally, it means time together, alone: a time spent sharing, caring and sparing any negativity. TRANSLATION: Nothing says "quality time" more than an dry martini and undivided attention.
3. ACTS OF SERVICE
Let's say your partner's lament about you runs along the lines of: "Could you just once load the dishwasher?"
Chances are you're a slug, and your mate views you as yet another intransigent child in the household. To make your partner giddy with happiness, perform acts of service.
Why? Because this is what h/she values. So, fill the deficit! TRANSLATION: load the dishwasher.
Again, acts of service are relatively inexpensive, albeit not always easy, especially if it involves a rake and a rooftop. But whatever ... break out the ladder and clean those gutters!
PREDICTION: Perform these tasks with the virility of Tarzan and your Jane will come "'a-knockin'" (and set your world "a-rockin'")!
4. GIFTS
If your mate blabs your ear off about the gorgeous present so and so bought for so and so, then you can probably discern that your partner's love language is gifts. Now this can be fraught with high anxiety for you. Needless to say, there are gifts, AND then THERE are GIFTS! There are big, bodacious baubles that are generally cheap, and there are little or hugely expensive, dare I say, diamonds that are "deficit-benders." A cheap trick is to give your gift-valuing partner many small, inexpensive gifts that are exquisitely wrapped. To this mate, unwrapping many gifts is like foreplay. Hopefully, the experience of gingerly unraveling pretty bows and ribbons will distract her from the micro-minny excuse of a ring in the TIFFANY box.
TRANSLATION: when it comes to diamonds -- SIZE DOES MATTER!
PREDICTION: If you break the bank and she still is not satisfied, then you may have to consider your partner is a tad over-entitled, at best; or a bottomless pit of demand, at worst!
5. TOUCH
The fifth love language is that of TOUCH. This means that your mate loves being hugged, kissed and caressed; (DOES NOT MEAN poked, slapped or punched)!
This language is relatively easy to accommodate, unless you, yourself, have an aversion to touch.
While decoding your partner's love language, another aspect to assess is what relationship stage you are in: FORMING (infatuation phase), STORMING (post rapture phase--feelings of betrayal; couples either break up or re-commit), NORMING (deepening connection & commitment), TRANSFORMING (kids leave, partners reconnect and re-ignite).
These stages influence how fluent you are in your partner's love language, and the best way to express that love.
EXAMPLE: You are in the "norming stage" and your relationship has "settled in." Fantasy has flown the coup; reality (banality) has taken over the domicile. While compatibility is a good thing, it often comes at the expense of CHEMISTRY. To spark up your love life you could, dare I say, install a "stripper pole" in the bedroom. But if you are in the transforming stage, probably a "defibrillator" in the bathroom is a safer bet.
Yet another dose of YAYAtherapy from ...
YOUR TRUSTY LOVE COACH