Learning Another’s Love Language
At this point we are well clued-up about love languages and the emotional love tank. To appreciate this next piece, lets approximate love languages to the languages we speak. Most of us learn a primary language, our mother tongue. It is what we are most comfortable speaking. We are best conversant in our mother tongue; we speak it with incredible ease and we understand it effortlessly.
Similarly, most of us have a natural, primary love language. This language is the one we are best conversant in; we speak it fluently and understand it easily. Speaking a love language means that we use it to express our love to others. Understanding a love language would mean we feel love through that love language.
Furthermore, just as languages have multiple dialects, so too do love languages. Think South African English, British English, Australian English. Then Nigerian English, Jamaican English etc. All are the same language, but differ, some more than others, in the way they are spoken. Sometimes, there exists such a stark contrast between dialects, that even an English-speaking person is unable to understand the other dialect! Love languages work in the same way. The exact same love language (Acts of Service for example) possesses innumerable different dialects (cooking a favourite meal, sorting out home and vehicle maintenance, taking care of the kids, assisting with chores within the home etc.)
It is imperative that we speak the love language of our spouse so that they feel loved. We should also attempt to pin-point their exact dialect to maximise our expressions of love towards them.
Personally, I learnt this lesson many years ago from my young nephew and a packet of chips. As we were getting ready to leave, his mom told him to bring a packet of chips for our padkos. He enthusiastically ran and fetched a specific flavour; the flavour which was his favourite. For him, he was expressing how much we meant to him by giving us what was most beloved to him.
In relationships, this is a hurdle for many of us. We speak our love language to our spouse, assuming that they feel love the same as we do. But they don’t, and we still feel distant. We begin increasing our effort and going all out in speaking our love language to them. Eventually we get burnt out. And this is totally natural. Imagine giving everything you have and it isn’t enough for the next person. Exhausting. What we fail to realise is that perhaps our spouse doesn’t feel loved by us expressing love to them using that love language. Perhaps they don’t speak the same love language as us. In fact, it is quite rare that two spouses speak the exact same love language and speak in the exact same dialect. Have we ever considered just shifting the goal post a little? Have we tried speaking in the love language of our spouse?
So just as a slightly more mature adult might reason that, “Yes, this is my favourite flavour of chips. But is it the flavour that my guest loves as well?” This is what is meant by speaking in the love language of your spouse. Loving them in the way they need to be loved!
Now, for us to be able to speak the correct love language to our spouses, it is imperative that we first study our spouses to understand them. How would the child know what is his uncle’s preferred flavour of chips? He probably wouldn’t, because a child does not possess the capacity to study behaviour and preferences. As adults, more so as husbands and wives who have the huge responsibility of guiding an entire family, it is imperative for us that we analyse things maturely. If effort is required from us in studying our spouses and learning their love language, then this effort should be our primary task in life.
This is the first step in bettering our marriages.
Now let’s try to answer the burning question; What if, after discovering my spouses love language, I am unable to speak it fluently.
The answer is rather simple. Love is an active decision that each of us make. If we love our spouses, we will be willing to give whatever it takes to learn their love language and become fluent in it. Yes, perhaps not all of us pick up a new language easily. It may take lots of effort from our side. But if we choose to love our spouse, we will be ready, willing and able to make sacrifice. These sacrifices will become enjoyable and rewarding once we start seeing the results.
“For the love of the rose, the gardener becomes the slave of a thousand thorns”