The infamous 5 Love Languages - His & Her points of view

 

Lane: I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!  So, I wanted to touch on this book because it means so much to me.  It's the whole basis of our "team" aspect to relationships.... Or another good one I've recently heard is a "2 person gang that noone else is allowed to join."    In the beginning when Chuck and I were just getting to know each other through emailing... I had mentioned how much I appreciated the things I had learned from "The Five Love Languages" written by Gary Chapman.  A couple emails later, Chuck mentioned that he went and researched the book and found the Men's addition!!  This is one of the first moments of our relationship that I remembered feeling so loved.  I don't know why the gesture of sharing this book with me was so comforting but it was.  He mentioned that he had marked certain pages and information that meant a lot to him.  He said in an email:

"...you have to want to share feelings with someone you care about so they know you care which helps build a healthy relationship"

MY man said this!!  How lucky am I.   To have found someone handsome, kind, and who isn't SCARED to talk about feeling...unbelievable.

Anyways.

So as I was doing some research and pulling up some emails to help me write this post... I came across two different times that I had taken the 5 love languages quiz!  In 2011 when I was single, my numbers went like: 10 Words of Affirmation, 10 Physical Touch, 4 Quality time, 3 Receiving Gifts, 3 Acts of service.

Now that I've been in a relationship I re-took my quiz and see my results:

Interesting how things change right??  I was talking to Chuck about it last night, and he mentioned remembering something in the book saying that the ranking of languages might change throughout life depending on what stage you are in.  I think I am now in a comfortable, fully fulfilling relationship, therefore my languages changed a little bit.  I want to make sure that my man's love bucket is full at all times.  I may struggle sometimes, because my languages are not exactly the same as Chuck's.  I also am very careful at hitting all the languages... because I honestly believe all five need to be fulfilled!  One might have more affect then the other, but you can't feel fully loved without all five.

Chuck:  Before Lane and I met I battled many issues with myself in relationships.  I would be what you would call a womanizer.  I didn't know how to let people in or how to care for someone else.  It took almost 30yrs to finally have my heart broken and see it within myself my flaws.  I did a lot of self soul searching and changed myself.  I have always been an open minded person so when Lane mentioned the book it sparked interest to me in many reasons.

I wanted that "love" feeling again, not to just receive it but to give it to someone else.  I took it as a sign when Lane mentioned the book to me.  I was on another mission to Afghanistan when I picked it up.  I was surprised on how easy of a read it was.  I did pick up the guys version so maybe that has something to do with it.  Within 3 days of getting it I had already read the whole book and was telling all my teammates about it.  At that time Lane and I were not officially a couple and I got many comments about how I was already crazy about her, which I was.  But all jokes aside I got some kudos from people who have been married awhile and said that they had went through counseling that if they had read that book would have helped out a lot.  So I figured I was above the power curve.

There are so many quotes I can take from the book to post on here, but I can't decide on which one is the best without giving the book away.  It is must read for everyone whether if you are single, dating, or married.  It isn't designed to help relationships already in trouble, which it could do.  It focuses on how two people can understand each other to come together as one.

Lane and I go on about Team Halfie not just because we are both half Korean, but because we both bring something to the relationship and make each other better.  This book helped me understand that.  I have so many pages and phrases highlighted and book marked it is crazy.

A relationship is not suppose to be easy and I enjoy working through it all with Lane.  I am glad that after almost 6 months we still need to find the time to check in with each other to make sure our love buckets are full.

I will close with this, sometimes I wish I would have read this book after we fell in love so it would have been a bigger shock to me that we do things, like read this book, not just because we want to.  We do it because we love that person enough to go through and do whatever it takes to love them better and to be loved better.