? I wish he would wash the car every week instead of expecting me to do it.
? I wish he would change the baby’s diaper after he gets home in the afternoon, especially if I am working on supper.
? I wish he would vacuum the house for me once a week.
? I wish he would mow the grass every week in the summer and not let it get so tall that I am ashamed of our yard.
I said, “Mary, I am understanding you to say that if Mark chooses to do those four things, you would take his actions as genuine expressions of love toward you.”
“I would,” she said. “It would be wonderful if he would do those things for me.”
“Does this list seem reasonable to you, Mark? Is it feasible for you to do these things?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Mary, do the things on Mark’s list seem reasonable and feasible to you? Could you do them if you chose to?”
“Yes,” she said, “I can do those things. In the past, I have felt overwhelmed because no matter what I did, it was never enough.”
I turned to Mark. “Mark, you understand what I am suggesting is a change from the model of marriage that your mother and father had.”
“Oh, my father mowed the grass and washed the car.”
“But he didn’t change the diapers or vacuum the floor, right?”
“Right,” he said.
“You don’t have to do these, you understand? If you do them, however, it will be an act of love to Mary.”
And to Mary I said, “You understand you don’t have to do these things, but if you want to express love for Mark, here are four ways that will be meaningful to him. I want to suggest you try these for two months and see if they help. At the end of two months, you may want to add additional requests to your lists and share them with each other. I would not add more than one request per month, however.”
“This really makes sense,” Mary said. “I think you’ve helped us,” Mark said. They took each other by the hand and walked toward their car. After years of research, I have realized what a unique situation Mark and Mary presented me. Seldom do I meet a couple who both have the same love language. For both Mark and Mary, “acts of service” was their primary love language. Hundreds of individuals can identify with either Mark or Mary and acknowledge that the primary way they feel loved is by acts of service on the part of their spouse. Putting away shoes, changing a baby’s diaper, washing dishes or a car, vacuuming, or mowing speaks volumes to the individual whose primary love language is acts of service.
You may be wondering, If Mark and Mary had the same primary love language, why were they having so much difficulty? The answer lies in the fact that they were speaking different dialects. They were doing things for each other but not the most important things. When they were forced to think concretely, they easily identified their specific dialects. For Mary it was washing the car, changing the baby’s diaper, vacuuming the floor, and mowing the grass, whereas for Mark it was making up the bed, washing the baby’s face, putting the shoes in the closet, and having supper under way when he got home from work. When they started speaking the right dialects, their love tanks began to fill. Since acts of service was their primary love language, learning each other’s specific dialect was relatively easy for them.
Before we leave Mark and Mary, 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.”