Different Ways To Show Your Love

Yesterday I wrote about the five love languages that Gary Chapman explains in his book, the Five Love Languages. I encouraged all of you to go and find out what your primary love languages are (and find out what the love languages of your spouse, friends, family, etc. are). Here is a quiz that will help you determine what your love language is.

When you have taken the time to find out what your loved ones love language is, now it's time to put that knowledge to good use. And here are some practical applications to show love in each of the primary love languages.

Sidenote: for most of these, I will be writing from the perspective of how to communicate love to your spouse, since that's what I've personally been working on. But these principals can be utilized in different ways to other loved ones as well.

Quality Time

• Set aside at least one night a week that is "date night" for you and your spouse. This is something that Jonathan and I have done, and it has really helped. No matter how busy we may get with school, work, church, etc. we know that we at least have that one night a week where nothing else is allowed to distract us from our time together. This is something we want to continue to do. Now, the date night may or may not be on the same night every week, for us it changes depending on what's going on.
  
• When you're sitting down for supper with your spouse or family, turn off the TV. Time together during dinner is a time to talk with each other, not veg in front of the television. Make the most out of time together by eliminating distractions.
• Plan fun and new activities to experience together. Quality time is one of my primary love languages, so I absolutely love it when Jonathan plans new activities to do together. Going hiking, going to the bookstore, reading together, playing racquetball, picnics, going to the theatre, etc. Whatever the activity is, the most important things is that you get to experience it together.
  

Words of Affirmation

• If you don't do this already, then you should make it a habit of telling your sweetie every day that you love him/her. Three simple words can mean so much, and it only takes a second to tell them how you feel.
• Write notes to your husby or wifey throughout the day. Jonathan and I text each other, and often email each other while we're apart. This is always encouraging to me, and brings a smile to my face.
• Compliment one another. Now, I'm not talking about coming up with random compliments that you don't really mean. What I'm saying is, when you appreciate something about your spouse...tell him or her. Tell them they look nice. Rant and rave over the yummy supper that was prepared. I'm sure you can think of plenty of nice things to say about your love.
  

Gifts

• When you have the love language of Gifts, that doesn't mean that you need to have expensive gifts. What it means that you feel so loved when people take the time to prepare something special for you.
• Make homemade gifts! Some of the best gifts that I have ever received have been the homemade ones (they are often the ones that don't cost much money at all, which is a plus!) Put together a scrapbook of memories, bake your hunny's favorite cookies, knit a scarf, etc.
  
• Surprise your spouse with gifts on days that are unexpected. Giving and receiving gifts on Christmas and Birthdays are always fun...but it's so great to surprise someone with a gift on a day that they are not expecting it.
  

Acts of Service

• When your spouse has this as their primary love language, there are so many things that you can do for them. The possibilities are endless! This (as you read in yesterday's post) is my husby's primary love language...so, whenever I wash the dishes, make the bed, straighten up the house, etc., I see that my husband is feeling so loved. So that makes keeping the house clean a joy for me, because I can see how much it means to my husband.
• Do things that you normally don't enjoy doing, and it will make your spouse stop and say "Wow, he (or she) really does love me if he (or she) is doing that!"
  

Physical Touch

• I don't think that this one needs much explaining...hugs, kisses, holding hands, massages, back scratches, etc. are always appreciated.

Now...you all have figured out what the love languages of the special people in your life are, and I have given you some ideas of how to speak love in those different love languages...so, now what are you waiting for? Go show those you love how much they mean to you!

Also, if you have any suggestions as to different ways to express love in the different languages, please feel free to leave your ideas in the comments!

How To Better Communicate Your Love

Today is Valentines Day, also known as the day created by the greeting card industry, and I think it's only appropriate to write a post about the very core of this day: love.

One of our favorite books that husby and I read during our time of preparing for marriage was the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I'm sure that many of you have heard of this book, but if you haven't read it, I greatly encourage you to do so. Even if you're not currently in a relationship, The Five Love Languages will help you better know how to love in future relationships, and even learn how to show love to your family and friends.

In this book, Gary Chapman talks about the different ways in which we give and receive love, and how many of us vary in that way. He also talks about ways in which we can learn how to speak all of these love languages, in order to better communicate our love more effectively.

In the course of the book, he talks about five distinct "love languages":

1. Quality Time: spending time and having good conversation with those you love is most important to you.
2. Words of Affirmation: hearing someone say "I love you" melts your heart, and compliments always make you feel appreciated.
3. Gifts: you love showing others you love them through giving them a special gift, and when someone takes the time to do the same for you, it means the world to you.
4. Acts of Service: you feel loved when others help you do things around the house or yard, or go out of their way to do something for you that they know you'll appreciate.
5. Physical Touch: a hug, kiss, holding hands, etc. is what speaks love to you. You really feel connected to those you love when you are physically close to them.

I think I can speak for most of us when I say that we all feel loved when any of these love languages are expressed. But there are certain ones that may be more important to us than others. And this is where learning what your love language, and the love language of your spouse (or family members, or friends) comes in handy.

When you know the ways your spouse (or other loved one) feels the most love, then you are better able to express love to them in that way. And vice versa.

After reading the list of love languages, you may have known right away what your number one is. Or, if you're more like me, it's a little more difficult to decide which ones are more important to you. In the back of the book, there is a little questionnaire that helps couples discover what their love language is. This helped me and Jonathan. I also found a short quiz online that seemed to be as efficient as the one in the book (when I took the quiz online it came up with the same answers as when I took the questionnaire in the book.)

Now, I know you're just dying to hear what our love languages are...so I will tell you.

For me:

1. Quality Time and Words of Affirmation tied for first.
   
2. Gifts
3. Physical Touch
4. Acts of Service

For husby:

1. Acts of Service
2. Physical Touch
3. Quality Time and Words of Affirmation (tied)
4. Gifts

You may notice that husby and I are a little different in our love languages. This is where knowing each others love languages really helps, because it is natural to show love the most in your primary love language...but when you realize that those you love may have a different primary love language than you, it is important to make extra efforts to display love to them in those ways.

Tomorrow I will continue this discussion on love languages, and will list some practical ways to show love for each different love language. I will also share some ways in which husband and I have personally worked towards speaking each other's love languages.

In the meantime, why don't you go and take the love languages quiz, pick up a version of The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, and go love your spouse, children, siblings, parents, friends, etc. in ways that you know are meaningful to them.

If you have also read and learned a lot from this book, please share what you've learned in the comments of this post. Also, once you've discovered your love languages for yourself, I would love to hear what they are! (In other words, feel free to comment!)

Oh Fred and Barney...

Husby just came home with a surprise for me...

Flintstones vitamins!

"So you won't get sick anymore" he said, with a huge grin on his face.

You know that scene in How The Grinch Stole Christmas, where the Grinch's heart grows 3x its size? That's how I feel right now.

In Sickness and in Health

This week I have been battling a lot of sickness (once again), which may be due to all of the vaccines that I had this week for our upcoming Guatemala trip (the shots had the possibility of giving flu-like side effects...and that's what I've got). So, needless to say, I've been a little under the weather lately.

On Friday night, being oh-so-thankful that I didn't have to go to any classes or work for a couple of days, my dear husband told me to lay down and rest while he made me supper. That melted my heart, I thanked him profusely (with the little voice that I had left, due to my sore throat) and I went to lay down on the couch.

After getting to rest for a while, I woke up and dinner was ready. And there, my friends, on the table were some of my favorite foods. Husby had made Red Hot chicken (mmmm...this is AMAZING, and I am going to blog about it soon in a "Favorite Things" post, don't you worry), macaroni and cheese (anything with lots of cheese in it is a favorite of mine), and broccoli (yummy and good for you!). I was pretty satisfied after that delicious meal. Thank you, husby!

We were supposed to go out on a date Friday night (we always try to have at least one date night a week...where we don't let anything distract us from each other), but since I was sick Jonathan suggested having a stay-at-home date night. I wholeheartedly agreed!

We decided it would be fun to finally order pictures for a couple of frames we had yet to fill. (Yes, we have been married for 6 months, but it has been a busy 6 months, and we have yet to finish all of the apartment-settling-in that we want to do.) So, we grabbed our big collage style picture frame, and sat around the computer to begin looking at wedding pictures to put into it (with the playlist from our wedding reception playing in the background).

That, my friends, was a wonderful night of walking down memory lane (even though it was only 6 months ago, we can still walk down it.) And it was a productive date night too, because we now have wedding pictures up in our living room (and it makes me oh-so-happy.)

Even though I have spent this weekend battling sickness, it has been a wonderful time, because I've been able to spend it with my husband. And I couldn't be more thankful.