In his book, The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman explains that there are five ways or “languages” a person can use to communicate their love in a relationship.
The five “love languages” are:
- Words of affirmation
- Receiving gifts
- Quality time
- Acts of service
- Physical touch
If you’ve ever been with someone you liked or had much in common with, but that relationship led to frequent miscommunication, and you just never felt like your needs were being met, it might have been because the two of you had a different love language.
But what happens when you uncover your own love language? What happens when you discover your natural method of communicating love and affection and know how to express it and can identify the love language of others? According to Chapman, that’s part of the magic of a great, long-lasting relationship.
(You can find your own love language by taking the official quiz here.)
Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.– Elbert Hubbard
Here are five things that happen when you find your love language.
1. You understand past relationships better
There’s a lot of value in being able to look back on an old relationship and know why it failed.
Oftentimes, relationships can get so complicated and emotional that it becomes difficult to know what exactly is going wrong, just that something is happening and things aren’t working out for you.
By knowing your love language, and being able to identify the love languages in others, you’re able to look back on past relationships with a clearer eye and understand what might have gone wrong and where allowing you to improve your new or future relationship.
2. You become better at choosing a partner that matches who you are
If you know how you communicate and prefer to receive love, navigating the early phases of a relationship (or potential relationship) becomes far easier. That’s because, like the first point, you know yourself better.
If the person you’re dating, or considering asking out, appears to give or receive affection in a way that doesn’t match your love language, you know far ahead of time (far sooner than the average person ever notices these things) that you’ll probably run into issues with the person down the line.
That helps you become better at choosing a partner and more likely that your relationship will be a successful one.
3. You become better at communicating in relationships
Much of a relationship is a consistent trading of affection. It’s about showing the person you love and care for them in various ways depending on the situation and maintaining those shows of affection depending on what your partner needs at the time (or what you need).
They’re called the love languages because they’re exactly that: the way in which we are naturally inclined to communicate that showing of affection, love, and support which is so crucial for a strong relationship.
It goes to reason then that knowing what your love language is allows you to more effectively communicate your love and support to the other person as well as to communicate when you need your partner’s love and support (and how you want or need to receive it).
4. You’re happier and more satisfied in your relationship
Possibly the most important point of all is that finding your love language allows you to be happier and more satisfied in your relationship.
That’s because it helps you not only make sure your needs are being met but helps you meet your partner’s needs, allowing you to maintain a stronger and more peaceful relationship that keeps you happy.
5. You become better at giving love in return, making your relationship stronger
As mentioned earlier knowing what your love language is doesn’t just help you, it also helps your partner by making you better at giving love and affection.
The better you know yourself and how you express affection the more of yourself you can give to your partner.
That’s powerful because it means that finding what your love language is can help make your entire relationship stronger.
