17 Things From 17 Years: Post 6

#6: Learning each other's love language is interesting and helpful.

In case you hadn't noticed, I'm a fan of love languages, personality tests, the four countries and the like. It's so interesting to see the differences in how people do life and I like tidy little lists that show how it works. If you're not like that, that's fine. I know it can get a little over done sometimes.

When we got married, The Five Love Languages must have been the new, hot book on the market. We were gifted at least two, if not three, copies. I enjoyed the book, so that was a good thing.

Recently, I came across an online test for not only spouses, but also children. I promptly put my whole family through the questioning process. Poor people. But it was so intriguing!

In case this is all Greek to you....

In short, the book outlines five different ways people feel loved: 1) Through Acts Of Service, 2) Through Quality Time Spent Together, 3) Through Words Of Affirmation, 4) By Receiving Gifts, 5) Through Physical Touch. It's possible that several of them make a person feel loved but most of us have one that is our main "love language".

Again, this is just another way to learn what makes the other person tick and helps me know how to live my life accordingly.

For example, gifts are at the bottom of, or next to the bottom of, both Chris and my list of love languages. That might explain why we can count on one hand the gifts we gave each other while dating. And, guess what? It also eliminates any pressure to spend lots of time and money on gifts for each other, because that's not what makes either of us feel the most loved anyway!

Also, I scored a big fat 1 on Physical Touch and Chris scored a 7 as his next to the top love language. Let's just say that might explain... many things.

Also number three. It was extremely interesting to find that Chris scores high on all but one of the love languages. I guess I can either take that to feel overwhelming -- I need to fill so many languages. Or I can take that as a bonus -- it gives me so many ways to choose from.

Also number four. It was even more interesting to note that our whole family scores very low on Receiving Gifts and high on Acts Of Service and Quality Time. Does that mean your love language is affected by how you are brought up? Because we definitely are a family who has always focused on those things. Or are gifts actually really low on all of our radar? I would have leaned toward thinking the parent's focus might affect their children but then, I have one child who's highest score is Physical Touch and that pretty much comes out of nowhere so I'm not so sure that holds true.

Ok. This is getting off subject now and getting over done. I'll stop.

Except, one more thing. The Four Countries idea is a new one for me and was extremely helpful in understanding some of the differences in our marriage. I encourage you to check out the link and then go ahead and listen to the rest of Mark Gungor's stuff on marriage. Good, good stuff!

Now I'm done.