💜 How to Speak Your Partner's Love Language
Plus some exciting news from me...
I’m leading this week with some big news - in 2024 I’ll be launching my brand new video course for couples, “MY BEST RELATIONSHIP TOOLS”.
The course brings together my most powerful interventions for couples working on their relationship, and it aims to help you:
Understand why you’re struggling to communicate
Stop using failing strategies
Learn to listen, build rapport and make certain both of you feel heard
Find new ways of approaching conflict
Heal your relationship
There will be 3.5 hours of video content over 4 modules, as well as practice worksheets.
The course will be priced at £130, but I’m looking for two couples who’d like to test it out for me at at a 50% discount (so £65) . Just reply to this email or contact madelaine@andrewgmarshall.com if you’re interested.
How to Speak Your Partner’s Love Language
The concept of “love languages” has in recent years become hugely popular, and for good reason. It’s a great way to talk to your partner about communication.
So, in this newsletter, I’ll take you through the concept and then suggest a fun way to explore it together.
How many times have you felt taken for granted and not properly appreciated? Probably too often to count. You know your partner cares - they just never seem to show it. If you tackle them, you either get the brush off: ‘of course I love you’ -or they get defensive; listing everything they’ve ever done for you, and then there’s a blazing row.
If you can start a conversation about love languages and how you prefer to give and receive love, you may well find that you draw closer together.
A good example is a couple who sought my professional help. Beneath the terrible arguments, it was clear they had a very special bond, but also that neither felt loved. So I asked them to share how they showed they cared.
First, the wife explained about the months before a birthday or Christmas spent scouring the shops for just the right gift; hiding it in a secret place and finally decorating the parcel with fancy ribbons.
On the other hand, her husband demonstrated HIS caring side with compliments about her looks and by every day saying ‘I love you.’
Both are equally good ways of expressing love. EXCEPT this couple wanted each other to speak their love language. She was devastated when he gave her just a card and money to buy her own present. He was upset because she never whispered sweet nothings. No wonder they were in trouble!
The Languages of Love
1. Creating Quality Time Together
Examples: This can range from lying in each other’s arms while watching TV through to exotic foreign holidays. These people can become fed up if their partner spends too much time on friends, hobbies or at work.
Most likely to say: “We never have any fun together” or “You’ve got time for everybody but me.”
Worst thing their partner can do: Put off a ‘date’ or ‘family day out’ to catch up on chores or cancel because a friend needs them.
2. Caring Actions
Examples: Sometimes the basics, being principal bread winner or keeping a nice house, but normally more intimate. Knitting a fashionable new jumper and cooking a three course meal are good examples. Alternatively these people will put themselves out by picking up you and your friends outside a night club at 3am.
Most likely to say: “Actions speaks louder than words.”
Worst thing their partner can do: Not finishing that little job they promised they’d do.
3. Affectionate Physical Contact
Examples: Sex immediately springs to mind, but often the hugs and spontaneous kisses are more important. These people adore back-rubs and massages.
Most likely to say: “Come here and give us a kiss.”
Worst thing their partner can do: Push them off because they’re too busy doing something else.
4. Appreciative Words
Examples: If anybody is likely to write romantic poetry, it is these people. They want the whole world to know their partner is special by dedicating ‘Angels’ to ‘the love of my life’ at the local Karaoke bar or producing lengthy tribute posts on Instagram for Valentine’s Day.
Most likely to say: “I love you.”
Worst thing their partner can do: Brush them off with ‘you’re just saying that....’
5. Giving Presents
Examples: From an expensive piece of jewellery through to a Mars bar bought on the way home, Present Givers love to surprise their partner and will go to great lengths to pull off a stunt.
Most likely to say: “I saw this and thought of you.”
Worst thing their partner can do: Not appreciate the gift or dismiss it: ‘I don’t need one of those.’
Learn Each Other’s Love Language Effectively
If your partner is the type of person who’s not into long conversations about your relationship, love languages can be a great starting point in getting them to open up.
A few years back, I created special love cards to help my clients understand their own love priorities and those of their partner. It is easy to make your own.
Get a packet of index cards, or blank post cards, and onto five cards write out one of each of the languages of love: Appreciative Words; Giving Presents; Affectionate Physical Contact; Caring Actions; Creating Quality Time Together.
If you have another way of expressing love, which doesn’t fit under these categories, make up another card. Next create an identical set for your partner. Use a different coloured pen in case they get mixed up.
Find a good time
Best not to introduce this exercise after you’ve had a row, as it requires a certain amount of good faith.
Make it sound fun
Many partners dread the phrase: ‘we need to talk.’ They hear it as: ‘you need to listen while I complain.’ Introduce the cards as a game or a puzzle ‘to help us understand each other better.’ You can also explain that it shouldn’t take long.
I’ve had couples who’ve completed the love cards in minutes, others have taken the whole session to talk through the implications. It’s up to you.3
Give your partner the cards
Ask your partner to spread the cards out on a table and then put them in order from the MOST important way of showing love to the LEAST.
While they’re doing this, you can be ordering your love cards too. It can be off-putting if someone is watching you.
Ask your partner for examples
It is tempting to comment on their choices, but first make certain you understand. For example: if their number one is ‘creating quality time together’ ask which times they have particularly enjoyed. You could also share one of your favourite ‘quality’ times and double check you both mean the same things.
Go through each card and ask for more examples. They might have problems thinking of an example for the bottom few, it can be hard for something they considers less important.
Share your examples
Now it is your turn to give examples for your love cards. However keep it positive. Remember it’s about what you like doing, not what you don’t want!
Your partner will respond enthusiastically when you can identify examples where they’ve “spoken your language” - less so if you’re voicing long-held grudges about forgotten anniversaries.
Compare
Discuss the order you have each placed the love languages. What are the differences and what are the similarities? If you have any ideas why one is particularly important to you, share them. For example: ‘I came from a family where nobody ever hugged so......’
Don’t worry if your priorities are very different, the next step will help tackle this.
Learn to speak each other’s language
The way we show love is also the way we like to receive it. So try and increase the times you speak your partner’s favourite love language. Ask them: ‘what one change could I make which you would appreciate?’
These tasks should be small and easily checked off. For example if their top priority is ‘quality time together,’ set a contract for one meal out together a month. Don’t leave any loose ends: decide who books the table and the babysitter.
For any changes to stick, there has to be benefits for both of you. So ask for something small in your language too.
Are both of your first choices the same? In that case, you will have a head start on improving your love communication skills.
If your relationship has been going through a rough patch, a helpful twist on this exercise is to re-arrange the love cards into the order you’d like in future.
One couple I worked with started with ‘Giving Presents’ as their first choice. They explained that this was the only love language that felt safe. When we looked at their ambitions for the future, ‘Giving Presents’ dropped to the bottom and ‘Affectionate Physical Contact’ came up the pack.
Many of my clients report the love cards as a turning point. They stopped hyper-focusing on all the negatives, and remembered the positives about their relationship.
Good luck making it work for you too.
In other news, don’t miss my podcast conversation with therapist Terry Gaspard on Making Your Second Marriage Work . Terry’s tips are highly applicable to first marriages, too, and we focused heavily on lifting your communication skills.
As always, if it feels like the right time to start marital therapy, send an email to Tricia (tricia@andrewgmarshall.com) for a virtual or in-person appointment with one of my team of therapists in London, or with me here in Berlin.
With love,
Andrew