Before I discovered the concept of the 5 love languages, a bit of advice I was given was to become a student of my wife and to take time to learn what makes her feel loved. I soon learned that what makes her feel loved may not always be the thing I want to do because it may not come natural to me. But learning to love her in the way that makes her feel loved is a greater demonstration of my love for her, because I've chosen to do it with a goal of pleasing her.
Interpretation
Understanding and adapting to your partner's love language enhances your relationship.
This quote emphasizes the importance of recognizing and learning to express love in ways that resonate with your partner. It highlights that true love involves selflessness, effort, and a willingness to understand and meet your partner's emotional needs, even if it requires stepping out of your comfort zone.
In practice
During a couple's workshop on relationships.
Good marriages are built upon a combination of emotional love and a common commitment to a core of beliefs about what is important in life and what we wish to do with our lives. Speaking each other's primary love language creates the emotional climate where these beliefs can be fleshed out in daily life.
If you want to improve a relationship, it's not that you demand your spouse to change. You have to ask, 'Where did I fail in this relationship?'
People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.
Typically, we get annoyed when our spouses complain. We get defensive. But, really, when your spouse complains, he or she is giving you wonderful information about what would make him or her feel loved.
People do not get married planning to divorce. Divorce is the result of a lack of preparation for marriage and the failure to learn the skills of working together as teammates in an intimate relationship.
Our rewards in life will always be in exact proportion to the amount of consideration we show toward others.
The friendly smile, the word of greeting, are certainly something fleeting and seemingly insubstantial. You canβt take them with you. But they work for good beyond your power to measure their influence. It is the service we are not obliged to give that people value most.
I'm not an analyzer. I've got a son that analyzes everything and everybody. But I don't analyze people.
This devaluing of listening is handed down from generation to generation. There are many children who don't have the experience of being listened to by their parents.
Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution.
But I want her to grow up knowing that I was the first man ever to fall in love with her. I'd always thought the father/daughter thing was overstated. But I can tell you, sometimes, she looks at me and I just become a puddle.
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