How We Express Love To Others And How We Accept It

How we express love to others and how we accept it, differs from person to person. In this extract from her latest book, Renovate Your Relationship, Joanne Wilson takes a look at the five love languages and how they apply to you…

- Joanne Wilson

Have you ever gone to great lengths to display your affection and it falls flat? Ever tried to pay someone a compliment or do something kind and they either barely noticed or seemed unappreciative? Has someone even rejected your gesture? What was that about? Have you done something wrong? Don’t take this too harshly but, yes, you probably did. But not in the way you are thinking. Everyone expresses and understands love differently. How we express it to others and how we accept it, differs from person to person. This is called your love language and is certainly one of the many essential concepts in a marriage therapist’s tool kit. It’s simple and effective. I can’t tell you how many clients have told me they wished they knew about this for their ‘first marriage’.

Whilst you’d think displays of affection would be universal, or at least generally consistent within a culture, you’d be wrong. Every single person communicates love differently. Every. Single. One. Sure, there will be overlap. ‘I love you’ is rather straight forward and understood by most people, however, we all have our little quirks and desires. These aren’t just based on the culture and society in which we were raised, but influenced by our upbringing and experiences as well. I’m here to shine the light bulb on yours, to check you don’t spend the rest of your next or current relationship either flying at a different altitude or in a completely different direction to your partner!

Your love language isn’t just verbal. In his book, The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman suggests there are five types of love languages and we use different combinations. The five types are:

1. Words of Affirmation

2. Receiving Gifts

3. Acts of Service

4. Quality Time

5. Physical Touch