2. When you receive positive feedback, you know there is progress. Each month make one nonthreatening but specific request that is easy for your spouse. Make sure it relates to your primary love language and will help replenish your empty tank.
3. When your spouse responds and meets your need, you will be able to react with not only your will but your emotions as well. Without overreacting, continue positive feedback and affirmation of your spouse at these times.
4. As your marriage begins to truly heal and grow deeper, make sure you don’t “rest on your laurels” and forget your spouse’s love language and daily needs. You’re on the road to your dreams, so stay there! Put appointments into your schedule to assess together how you’re doing.
THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES?
A Personal Word
Well, what do you think? Having read these pages, walked in and out of the lives of several couples, visited small villages and large cities, sat with me in the counseling office, and talked with people in restaurants, what do you think? Could these concepts radically alter the emotional climate of your marriage? What would happen if you discovered the primary love language of your spouse and chose to speak it consistently?
Neither you nor I can answer that question until you have tried it. I know many military couples who have heard this concept at my marriage seminars say that choosing to love and expressing it in the primary love language of their spouse has made a drastic difference in their marriage. When the emotional need for love is met, it creates a climate where the couple can deal with the rest of life in a much more productive manner. Consider Mark and Robin. Robin figured out that Mark’s primary love language was affirming words, usually involving something specific (“I like how you’re protective of me; it makes me feel loved”). “Knowing his love language greatly helps me understand him,” she said. “Now, that’s not to imply I always say the right thing! But simply knowing how he’s wired has drawn us closer.” Robin says her love language is acts of service. “Mark would compliment me about something, because that’s his love language, and somehow it never made me feel all that great. But when we figured out that what I really valued were acts of service, even something small like bringing me coffee in bed in the morning, our marriage took a giant step.”
We each come to marriage with a different personality and history. We bring emotional baggage into our marriage relationship. We come with different expectations, different ways of approaching things, and different opinions about what matters in life. In a healthy marriage, that variety of perspectives must be processed. We need not agree on everything, but we must find a way to handle our differences so they do not become divisive. With empty love tanks, couples tend to argue and withdraw, and some may tend to be violent verbally or physically in their arguments. But when the love tank is full, we create a climate of friendliness, a climate that seeks to understand, that is willing to allow differences and to negotiate problems. No single area of marriage affects the rest of marriage as much as meeting the emotional need for love.
The ability to love, especially when your spouse is not loving you, may seem impossible for some. Such love may require us to draw on our spiritual resources. A number of years ago, as I faced my own marital struggles, I rediscovered my spiritual roots. Having been raised in the Christian tradition, I reexamined the life of Christ. When I heard Him praying for those who were killing Him, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” I knew that I wanted that kind of love. I committed my life to Him and have found that He provides the inner spiritual energy to love, even when love is not reciprocated.
The high divorce rate in military marriages bears witness that thousands of couples have been living with an empty emotional love tank. I believe the concepts in this book could make a significant impact upon the marriages and families of military couples.
For those of you who have children, let me encourage you to discover your child’s love language and speak it regularly. You can learn their language by the time they are three or four years old by observing their behavior. If they are regularly jumping into your lap and hugging you, their language is physical touch. If they say, “Come into my room, I want to show you something,” they are asking for quality time.