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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
informative
fast-paced
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
It's hetero-normative and is peppered with religious references and highly-gendered, traditional roles, but it's a useful tool for communicating with, and understanding, one's partner. I'd probably recommend it for anyone who is in a committed relationship, although with the above warnings. With new editions published regularly, I do hope that future ones included mentions of same-sex partnerships.
I enjoyed reading this book. It was nice to get some perspective about the differences between how my partner and I experience love.
Chapman is coming from a religious perspective, and sometimes that makes his perception on relationships limited (e.g. men want sex more, women in the kitchen as traditional, polyamory will fail in all cases). However, taking all of these short comings with a grain of salt let's me see that his advice has merit. It's a good place to start communicating better with my partner.
Chapman is coming from a religious perspective, and sometimes that makes his perception on relationships limited (e.g. men want sex more, women in the kitchen as traditional, polyamory will fail in all cases). However, taking all of these short comings with a grain of salt let's me see that his advice has merit. It's a good place to start communicating better with my partner.
How speaking your partner's first 'love language' overcomes misunderstandings. - Monty K.
This makes so much sense and I can see how not speaking someone's love language is so detrimental to a relationship. You think you're doing more than enough to receive someone else's love and give love to them, but if it's not in their language, they don't feel loved by you and won't be able to love you back in a supportive way. I can see that for troubled marriages, this book can help save them. But both people have to want to do the work and be invested in the relationship. And there is definitely work involved, as Dr. Chapman shows us. And without the investment, it's easy to just walk away. The Christian bent to the book is why I gave it 4 stars only, but this exact bent might be the reason why some people are more invested than others. If you're a Christian, you're less likely to actually want to divorce due to your beliefs.
I think I know some people who could benefit from knowing their own love language and their spouse's and working together to fill each other's love tanks.
"At the heart of humankind's existence is the desire to be intimate and to be loved by another. Marriage is designed to meet that need for intimacy and love." pg. 22
"Research seems to indicate that there is a third and better alternative: We can recognize the in-love experience for what it was--a temporary emotional high--and now pursue 'real love' with our spouse. That kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth. Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving." pg. 33
"The emotional need for love must be met if we are to have emotional health. Married adults long to feel affection and love from their spouses. We feel secure when we are assured that our mate accepts us, wants us, and is committed to our well-being. During the 'in-love' stage, we felt all of those emotions. It was heavenly while it lasted. Our mistake was in thinking it would last forever.
But that obsession was not meant to last forever. In the textbook of marriage, it is but the introduction. The heart of the book is rational, volitional love. That is the kind of love to which the sages have always called us. It is intentional." pg. 34
"The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love. It is a fact, however, that when we receive affirming words we are far more likely to be motivated to reciprocate and do something our spouse desires." pg. 40
"We are trained to analyze problems and create solutions. We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve. A relationship calls for sympathetic listening with a view to understanding the other person's thoughts, feelings, and desires. We must be willing to give advice but only when it is requested and never in a condescending manner. Most of us have little training in listening. We are far more efficient in thinking and speaking. Learning to listen may be as difficult as learning a foreign language, but learn we must, if we want to communicate love. That is especially true if your spouse's primary love language is quality time and his or her dialect is quality conversation." pg. 63
"Quality conversation requires not only sympathetic listening but also self-revelation. When a wife says, 'I wish my husband would talk. I never know what he's thinking or feeling,' she is pleading for intimacy. She wants to feel close to her husband, but how can she feel close to someone whom she doesn't know? In order for her to feel loved, he must learn to reveal himself. If her primary love language is quality time and her dialect is quality conversation, her emotional love tank will never be filled until he tells her his thoughts and feelings." pg. 64
"Before we leave our mill town friends, I would like to make three other observations. First, they illustrate clearly that what we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage. Before marriage, we are carried along by the force of the in-love obsession. After marriage, we revert to being the people we were before we 'fell in love.' Our actions are influenced by the model of our parents; our own personality; our perceptions of love; our emotions, needs, and desires. Only one thing is certain about our behavior: It will not be the same behavior we exhibited when we were caught up in being 'in love.'
That leads me to the second truth: Love is a choice and cannot be coerced. Dave and Mary were criticizing each other's behavior and getting nowhere. Once they decided to make requests of each other rather than demands, their marriage began to turn around.
Criticism and demands tend to drive wedges. With enough criticism, you may get acquiescence from your spouse. He may do what you want, but probably it will not be an expression of love. You can give guidance to love by making requests . . .but you cannot create the will to love. Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in the way in which our spouse requests will make our love most effective emotionally.
There is a third truth, which only the mature lover will be able to hear. My spouse's criticisms about my behavior provide me with the clearest clue to her primary love language. People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need. Their criticism is an ineffective way of pleading for love. If we understand that, it may help us process their criticism in a more productive manner. A wife may say to her husband after he gives her a criticism, 'It sounds like that is extremely important to you. Could you explain why it is so crucial?' Criticism often needs clarification. Initiating such a conversation may eventually turn the criticism into a request rather than a demand." pg. 100-101
"Marcus had made the mistake common to many men: assuming that physical touch is their primary love language because they desire sexual intercouse so intensely. For the male, sexual desire is physically based. That is, the desire for sexual intercourse is stimulated by the buildup of sperm cells and seminal fluid in the seminal vesicles. When the seminal vesicles are full, there is a physical push for release. Thus, the male's desire for sexual intercourse has a physical root.
For the female, sexual desire is far more influenced by her emotions. If she feels loved and admired and appreciated by her husband, then she has a desire to be physically intimate with him. But without the emotional closeness, she may have little physical desire. Her biological sexual drive is closely tied to her emotional need for love.
Because the male is physically pushed to have sexual release on a somewhat regular basis, he may automatically assume that that is his primary love language. But if he does not enjoy physical touch at other times and in nonsexual ways, it may not be his love language at all. Sexual desire is quite different from his emotional need to feel loved. That doesn't mean that sexual intercourse is unimportant to him--it is extremely important--but sexual intercourse alone will not meet his need to feel loved. His wife must speak his primary emotional love language as well." pg. 121
"I have suggested three ways to discover your own primary love language:
1. What does your spouse do or fail to do that hurts you most deeply? The opposite of what hurts you most is probably your love language.
2. What have you most often requested of your spouse? The thing you have most often requested is likely the thing that would make you feel most loved.
3. In what way do you regularly express love to your spouse? Your method of expressing love may be an indication that that would also make you feel loved." pg. 125
"Meeting my wife's need for love is a choice I make each day. If I know her primary love language and choose to speak it, her deepest emotional needs will be met, and she will feel secure in my love. If she does the same for me, my emotional needs are met and both of us live with a full tank. In a state of emotional contentment, both of us will give our creative energies to many wholesome projects outside the marriage while we continue to keep our marriage exciting and growing." pg. 134-135
"Love is not our only emotional need. Psychologists have observed that among our basic needs are the need for security, self-worth, and significance. Love, however, interfaces with all of those.
If I feel loved by my spouse, I can relax, knowing that my lover will do me no ill. I feel secure in her presence. I may face many uncertainties in my vocation. I may have enemies in other areas of my life, but with my spouse I feel secure.
My sense of self-worth is fed by the fact that my spouse loves me. After all, if she loves me, I must be worth loving. My parents may have given me negative or mixed messages about my worth, but my spouse knows me as an adult and loves me. Her love builds my self-esteem.
The need for significance is the emotional force behind much of our behavior. Life is driven by the desire for success. We want our lives to count for something. We have our own idea of what it means to be significant, and we work hard to reach our goals. Feeling loved by a spouse enhances our sense of significance. We reason, If someone loves me, I must have significance." pg. 141-142
"I am significant. Life has meaning. There is a higher purpose. I want to believe it, but I may not feel significant until someone expresses love to me. When my spouse lovingly invests time, energy, and effort in me, I believe that I am significant. Without love, I may spend a lifetime in search of significance, self-worth, and security. When I experience love, it influences all of those needs positively. I am now freed to develop my potential. I am more secure in my self-worth and can now turn my efforts outward instead of being obsessed with my own needs. True love always liberates." pg. 142
Book: borrowed from SSF Main Library.
I think I know some people who could benefit from knowing their own love language and their spouse's and working together to fill each other's love tanks.
"At the heart of humankind's existence is the desire to be intimate and to be loved by another. Marriage is designed to meet that need for intimacy and love." pg. 22
"Research seems to indicate that there is a third and better alternative: We can recognize the in-love experience for what it was--a temporary emotional high--and now pursue 'real love' with our spouse. That kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth. Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving." pg. 33
"The emotional need for love must be met if we are to have emotional health. Married adults long to feel affection and love from their spouses. We feel secure when we are assured that our mate accepts us, wants us, and is committed to our well-being. During the 'in-love' stage, we felt all of those emotions. It was heavenly while it lasted. Our mistake was in thinking it would last forever.
But that obsession was not meant to last forever. In the textbook of marriage, it is but the introduction. The heart of the book is rational, volitional love. That is the kind of love to which the sages have always called us. It is intentional." pg. 34
"The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love. It is a fact, however, that when we receive affirming words we are far more likely to be motivated to reciprocate and do something our spouse desires." pg. 40
"We are trained to analyze problems and create solutions. We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve. A relationship calls for sympathetic listening with a view to understanding the other person's thoughts, feelings, and desires. We must be willing to give advice but only when it is requested and never in a condescending manner. Most of us have little training in listening. We are far more efficient in thinking and speaking. Learning to listen may be as difficult as learning a foreign language, but learn we must, if we want to communicate love. That is especially true if your spouse's primary love language is quality time and his or her dialect is quality conversation." pg. 63
"Quality conversation requires not only sympathetic listening but also self-revelation. When a wife says, 'I wish my husband would talk. I never know what he's thinking or feeling,' she is pleading for intimacy. She wants to feel close to her husband, but how can she feel close to someone whom she doesn't know? In order for her to feel loved, he must learn to reveal himself. If her primary love language is quality time and her dialect is quality conversation, her emotional love tank will never be filled until he tells her his thoughts and feelings." pg. 64
"Before we leave our mill town friends, I would like to make three other observations. First, they illustrate clearly that what we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage. Before marriage, we are carried along by the force of the in-love obsession. After marriage, we revert to being the people we were before we 'fell in love.' Our actions are influenced by the model of our parents; our own personality; our perceptions of love; our emotions, needs, and desires. Only one thing is certain about our behavior: It will not be the same behavior we exhibited when we were caught up in being 'in love.'
That leads me to the second truth: Love is a choice and cannot be coerced. Dave and Mary were criticizing each other's behavior and getting nowhere. Once they decided to make requests of each other rather than demands, their marriage began to turn around.
Criticism and demands tend to drive wedges. With enough criticism, you may get acquiescence from your spouse. He may do what you want, but probably it will not be an expression of love. You can give guidance to love by making requests . . .but you cannot create the will to love. Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in the way in which our spouse requests will make our love most effective emotionally.
There is a third truth, which only the mature lover will be able to hear. My spouse's criticisms about my behavior provide me with the clearest clue to her primary love language. People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need. Their criticism is an ineffective way of pleading for love. If we understand that, it may help us process their criticism in a more productive manner. A wife may say to her husband after he gives her a criticism, 'It sounds like that is extremely important to you. Could you explain why it is so crucial?' Criticism often needs clarification. Initiating such a conversation may eventually turn the criticism into a request rather than a demand." pg. 100-101
"Marcus had made the mistake common to many men: assuming that physical touch is their primary love language because they desire sexual intercouse so intensely. For the male, sexual desire is physically based. That is, the desire for sexual intercourse is stimulated by the buildup of sperm cells and seminal fluid in the seminal vesicles. When the seminal vesicles are full, there is a physical push for release. Thus, the male's desire for sexual intercourse has a physical root.
For the female, sexual desire is far more influenced by her emotions. If she feels loved and admired and appreciated by her husband, then she has a desire to be physically intimate with him. But without the emotional closeness, she may have little physical desire. Her biological sexual drive is closely tied to her emotional need for love.
Because the male is physically pushed to have sexual release on a somewhat regular basis, he may automatically assume that that is his primary love language. But if he does not enjoy physical touch at other times and in nonsexual ways, it may not be his love language at all. Sexual desire is quite different from his emotional need to feel loved. That doesn't mean that sexual intercourse is unimportant to him--it is extremely important--but sexual intercourse alone will not meet his need to feel loved. His wife must speak his primary emotional love language as well." pg. 121
"I have suggested three ways to discover your own primary love language:
1. What does your spouse do or fail to do that hurts you most deeply? The opposite of what hurts you most is probably your love language.
2. What have you most often requested of your spouse? The thing you have most often requested is likely the thing that would make you feel most loved.
3. In what way do you regularly express love to your spouse? Your method of expressing love may be an indication that that would also make you feel loved." pg. 125
"Meeting my wife's need for love is a choice I make each day. If I know her primary love language and choose to speak it, her deepest emotional needs will be met, and she will feel secure in my love. If she does the same for me, my emotional needs are met and both of us live with a full tank. In a state of emotional contentment, both of us will give our creative energies to many wholesome projects outside the marriage while we continue to keep our marriage exciting and growing." pg. 134-135
"Love is not our only emotional need. Psychologists have observed that among our basic needs are the need for security, self-worth, and significance. Love, however, interfaces with all of those.
If I feel loved by my spouse, I can relax, knowing that my lover will do me no ill. I feel secure in her presence. I may face many uncertainties in my vocation. I may have enemies in other areas of my life, but with my spouse I feel secure.
My sense of self-worth is fed by the fact that my spouse loves me. After all, if she loves me, I must be worth loving. My parents may have given me negative or mixed messages about my worth, but my spouse knows me as an adult and loves me. Her love builds my self-esteem.
The need for significance is the emotional force behind much of our behavior. Life is driven by the desire for success. We want our lives to count for something. We have our own idea of what it means to be significant, and we work hard to reach our goals. Feeling loved by a spouse enhances our sense of significance. We reason, If someone loves me, I must have significance." pg. 141-142
"I am significant. Life has meaning. There is a higher purpose. I want to believe it, but I may not feel significant until someone expresses love to me. When my spouse lovingly invests time, energy, and effort in me, I believe that I am significant. Without love, I may spend a lifetime in search of significance, self-worth, and security. When I experience love, it influences all of those needs positively. I am now freed to develop my potential. I am more secure in my self-worth and can now turn my efforts outward instead of being obsessed with my own needs. True love always liberates." pg. 142
Book: borrowed from SSF Main Library.
Fatuous, hetero-normative, misogynistic.
I actually think the 5 Love Languages themselves might be accurate: Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Quality Time, and Words of Affirmation, especially because determining them was done in a semi-scientific way (i.e. going through decades of marital counseling notes to see what people asked for from their marriages-- qualitative data, but still data).
The application is what I take issue with. The narration is good-old-boy joviality with no acknowledgement of issues that might require someone--usually a woman-- to leave a marriage or relationship that is damaging. One of the examples had a woman in a plainly abusive situation "loving her husband with God's help" using the 5 Love Languages, even though the man demeans and emotionally abuses her. The subjugation of this situation isn't the correct application of the data used to determine the love languages-- like most bible beating bullshit, it's a twisted interpretation of facts used to keep people in their place (in this case, in service to a man). I found this book abhorrent so often that it took me a long time to see what the merits are. You'd do better to read about the Love languages themselves and do one of the basic online tests to determine yours. Don't bother with the printed versions, which wrap what is good information in a misogynistic narrative that reinforces just about every noxious social stereotype of servitude and control in marriage.
I actually think the 5 Love Languages themselves might be accurate: Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, Quality Time, and Words of Affirmation, especially because determining them was done in a semi-scientific way (i.e. going through decades of marital counseling notes to see what people asked for from their marriages-- qualitative data, but still data).
The application is what I take issue with. The narration is good-old-boy joviality with no acknowledgement of issues that might require someone--usually a woman-- to leave a marriage or relationship that is damaging. One of the examples had a woman in a plainly abusive situation "loving her husband with God's help" using the 5 Love Languages, even though the man demeans and emotionally abuses her. The subjugation of this situation isn't the correct application of the data used to determine the love languages-- like most bible beating bullshit, it's a twisted interpretation of facts used to keep people in their place (in this case, in service to a man). I found this book abhorrent so often that it took me a long time to see what the merits are. You'd do better to read about the Love languages themselves and do one of the basic online tests to determine yours. Don't bother with the printed versions, which wrap what is good information in a misogynistic narrative that reinforces just about every noxious social stereotype of servitude and control in marriage.
3.6/5 stars, full review to come!
Organization : 3/5
Writing:4/5
Enjoyment of subject/ideas: 4/5
Organization : 3/5
Writing:4/5
Enjoyment of subject/ideas: 4/5
Meh. I wish I could give the book 2.5 stars. I love the idea of this concept, but I think taking the test online is really all you need. I didn’t realize how religious this book would be, if I had I wouldn’t have read it. One interesting thing he talks about is the love languages of children, and I did find that to be helpful. But all in all, I wouldn’t recommend this book if you’ve already taken the test online.