Many of you have likely read The Five Love Languages. A co-worker gifted it to me during our concurrent divorces– hers was a marriage 50 years in the making and mine was only two. She found it incredibly enlightening, and it helped her to make sense of her husband’s desire to leave their life together. For me, it was less so. I found it to be rather obvious that we all appreciate different expressions of love. Early in my relationship with DB, I noticed that I made a big deal out of his birthdays, but he never reciprocated. At first it disappointed me that he didn’t appreciate my efforts and it saddened me that he didn’t want to return the gesture. I decided to withdraw my big displays of celebration, mirroring his take on things. I adopted his perspective out of respect for him and it felt completely natural. In fact, it felt pretty liberating to not be responsible for outdoing myself year after year.
But I was still a bit sad when he was absent for so many of my birthdays. Or when my gift was generic or last minute. I tried to remind myself that these things didn’t matter. “We” didn’t celebrate in that way.
In reading the Five Love Languages, however, I understood these situations in a new way. I realized that I was learning to speak DB’s language out of love for him. And that out of continued love and respect, I was trying to unlearn my language and adopt his language as my own. Yet I didn’t get that in return. At that time, my love language was very clearly and overwhelmingly Quality Time… and I wasn’t getting much of it. Even the smallest sliver would satisfy me.
The greatest lesson I learned from this reflection is that you have to know your own language, make your partner aware of it, and be willing to speak their language in return. Otherwise, you can “talk” until you’re blue in the face in an effort to express your love, but your partner will never understand it.
So a few weeks after getting engaged, I asked ND to take a love language quiz. I wanted to affirm that I knew his language and I wanted to put this concept on his radar. He asked me to take it in return. This sparked a full conversation about what we expected in our relationship, and how to “talk” to one another when we wanted to express love…express love in a way that the other person was sure to hear it.
And here’s the big surprise: I thought I had an advantage in this situation because I knew my language was undoubtedly Quality Time. What I learned, however, is that your love language can change. Maybe it changed because I was with a new partner. I think, however, it changed because I was a parent. A single parent at that. To my surprise, my love language was actually a very close tie: Quality Time and… Acts of Service?! When I first read the book, I scoffed at Acts of Service. How could taking out the trash be an expression of love? Only a neanderthal would go for that. I was so wrong. When I realized how hard it was to run a household and parent by myself, I shifted my perspective on expressing love. And let me tell you, ND has this Acts of Service thing in the bag. He is chivalrous without being condescending, and he is thoughtful without being saccharine. He is simply highly aware of what needs to be done so that we can function as a happy family, and he is totally willing to do it. No questions asked.
The thing is, ND knows that it is the Acts of Service that enable the Quality Time. When all the chores are done by the time D goes down, it’s time to really start talking, if that’s what you want to call it. 🙂
Deep Fried Balls 