Years ago when my husband was in his MBA program I was in a book club sponored by the MBA spouses association. It was a fun group and we all had one thing in common, very busy hussbands. One of the books we read was The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. The main idea is that people give and receive love in different ways, their "love language". His other important point is that real love is a choice and takes effort. Part of that effort is making sure that you communicate you love for the other person. It is important to recognize what someone needs to feel loved and how you show love. Sometimes if you aren't listening for the "love language" of the other person you may miss their expressions of love. If you know someone's love language you can focus on showing love in those ways and not worry as much about the other things. For example, I don't worry about gifts that much for my husband. They just aren't that important to him. But I say "I love you" a LOT. While this idea is pretty simple it really helped me since my husband and I came from families with very different ways of showing how we care for each other. For my family we worked together and helped each other and show up for family events. His family does things quite differently but is still very loving.
One person wanted to discuss the book with her husband but didn't think that he would listen to anything that wasn't on a PowerPoint slide. So I summarized the book on PowerPoint for her. Here is one of the slides that lists the love languages discussed in the book. His list includes most things, but you may find that there is something in your relationships that is a little different. Ask "What do I do that says I Love You?"
Here for the full slide show.
The book focused on marriage relationships, but this idea is important to anyone we have a close relationship with, family and friends.
7 comments:
I love that book, and I agree that it's useful for all sorts of different kinds of relationships (friendship, parenting, extended family...)
I like that, the 5 languages of love. It's so true, there's not just one way to show love.
I am going to have to check that book out. A friend once said to me, "You can't choose how people love you." It was significant to me at the time, but I do believe we can choose how we love people.
Thank you for the reccomendation. That sounds like a wonderful book.
That book has been on my "to read" list for a while. I think there's also another one about figuring out your child's love language as well.
Nice job on the slide show!
This is a really good reminder...I have also read the children's love languages and it's very good. Thanks!
thanks for that tidbit. I like that idea of 5 languages of love...
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