But what of the person who says, “I’m not a gift giver. I didn’t receive many gifts growing up. I never learned how to select gifts. It doesn’t come naturally for me.” Congratulations, you have just made the first discovery in becoming a great lover. You and your spouse speak different love languages. Now that you have made that discovery, get on with the business of learning your second language. If your spouse’s primary love language is receiving gifts, you can become a proficient gift giver. In fact, it’s one of the easiest love languages to learn.
Where do you begin? Make a list of all the gifts your spouse has expressed excitement about receiving through the years. They may be gifts you have given or gifts given by other family members or friends. The list will give you an idea of the kind of gifts your spouse would enjoy receiving. If you have little or no knowledge about selecting the kinds of gifts on your list, recruit the help of family members who know your spouse. In the meantime, select gifts you feel comfortable purchasing, making, or finding, and give them to your spouse. Don’t wait for a special occasion. If receiving gifts is his/her primary love language, almost anything you give will be received as an expression of love. (If she has been critical of your gifts in the past and almost nothing you have given has been acceptable, then receiving gifts is almost certainly not her primary love language.)
THE BEST INVESTMENT
If you are to become an effective gift giver, you may have to change your attitude about money. Each of us has an individualized perception of the purposes of money, and we have various emotions associated with spending it. Some of us have a spending orientation. We feel good about ourselves when we are spending money. Others have a saving and investing perspective. We feel good about ourselves when we are saving money and investing it wisely.
If you are a spender, you will have little difficulty purchasing gifts for your spouse; but if you are a saver, you will experience emotional resistance to the idea of spending money as an expression of love. You don’t purchase things for yourself. Why should you purchase things for your spouse? But that attitude fails to recognize that you are purchasing things for yourself. By saving and investing money, you are purchasing self-worth and emotional security. You are caring for your own emotional needs in the way you handle money. What you are not doing is meeting the emotional needs of your spouse.
Rachel was raised in a dysfunctional home. Instead of the hoped-for son, she was the second daughter. As such, she was often overlooked and neglected. Though she didn’t know it at the time, her love language was receiving gifts, which explains why it hurt so much when her parents gave her a combination birthday/Christmas gift (her birthday is December 28), and it ended up being the same gift her sister received for Christmas. When she graduated from high school, the only child of three to do so, her parents gave her a necklace. “They bragged that they bought the pearls at a garage sale for only one dollar and it turned out they were real,” said Rachel. “They weren’t. The cheap veneer wore off eventually to reveal the plastic beads beneath. Nothing was too cheap for me.”
When Rachel married her Air Force pilot, Trent, they read The 5 Love Languages in a base chapel Sunday school class, and it explained why gifts were so important to her. Trent, whose love language was words of affirmation, didn’t understand. “I felt that speaking a kind word was a lot easier than going out to buy a gift,” he said. So he didn’t speak Rachel’s language on a regular basis for years.
Finally, Rachel asked him, “What if I only said ‘thank you’ to you once every other month? Even after you’ve done a lot of work around the house, or ran an errand for me, I rarely said ‘thank you.’ How would that make you feel?” It seemed to really penetrate his fighter pilot brain as she continued, “Well, that’s how I feel when you don’t give me a simple card, or other small gift, except on holidays and my birthday. You only speak my love language about four times a year.”
A couple of days later, Trent went on a TDY to Red Flag at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, and came back with a large pair of bright pink dice for hanging on a rearview car mirror. Across the front of the dice, it said, “I’m lucky to have you. I love you.”
It was a start. And though it didn’t come naturally for Trent, his simple efforts helped Rachel feel loved.
If you discover your spouse’s primary love language is receiving gifts, then perhaps you will understand that purchasing gifts for him or her is the best investment you can make. You are investing in your relationship and filling your spouse’s emotional love tank, and with a full love tank, he or she will likely reciprocate emotional love to you in a language you will understand. When both persons’ emotional needs are met, your marriage will take on a whole new dimension. Don’t worry about your savings. You will always be a saver, but to invest in loving your spouse is to invest in blue-chip stocks.
THE GIFT OF SELF
There is an intangible gift that sometimes speaks more loudly than a gift that can be held in one’s hand. I call it the gift of self or the gift of presence. Being there when your spouse needs you speaks loudly to the one whose primary love language is receiving gifts. Jan once said to me, “My husband, Don, loves softball more than he loves me.”