Language of Love

Growing up in a large family, we all had different views of our childhood. It wasn't until I read the 5 Love Languages that I began to understand how our personality affected our perception of circumstances.

The basic love languages are:

Physical Touch
Acts of Service
Quality Time
Words of Affirmation
Gifts

When Duncan and I got serious about dating each other, we read the book together and wrote down our highest scoring love languages. Not surprising to me, mine were Acts of Service and Quality Time, with Words of Affirmation right up there. Duncan's was Physical Touch and Quality Time, with Words of Affirmation a close follower. We learned early on in our relationship to express love to each other in the chosen language - he would do dishes without being asked (Acts of Service), I would sit beside him on the couch while watching TV or a movie (Physical Touch). We did great on Quality Time - since it was so high-ranking for both of us - but we've had to fine-tune what it looks like as our circumstances have changed.

We were both doing a pretty good job, but sometimes felt like the other top ranking love languages were taking a back-seat. We began to wonder if they were evolving through the years. While I still loved that he did dishes or took care of the kids, that no longer spoke the volumes that it had in the past.

After helping some of our mentor couples evaluate their love languages, we decided to re-take the 'test'. It turns out that my Acts of Service and Words of Affirmation have flip-flopped places. So, we discussed this and tried to put some other aspects into place to express love to each other in a practical way.

Duncan is an amazing man. He loves God whole-heartedly, is teachable and wants to be the best husband and father he can be. He continually proves this by his expression of love towards me. While I was preparing to go to Germany for 2 weeks, he bought a journal (and a plethora of cards) to write personalized notes to me. He took either a poem or a portion of Scripture and wrote something he admired/loved about me. This blessed me beyond belief and my love tank was so full of all those words of affirmation! (I felt like my little offering of notes throughout the house and tags on his pop-cans were pittance comparatively, but I was encouraged to be more verbally demonstrative in my love for my husband.)


Since I do most of the posting on here, over the next few days I will post some of his journal entries to share his thoughts with you.

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What are your love languages?
How are you doing at expressing love to other people when you know their 'language'?