Welcome to the first week’s discussion of our 2012 Marriage Chat book club! Every month, we’ll be choosing a different book to read together, and we’ll meet on the site every week to discuss the chapters we’ve read. Our first book is Dr. Gary Chapman’s 5 Love Languages. Your assignment was to read the first 2 chapters. There will be questions that we’d love for you to answer in the comments. Let’s dive right in.
Chapter 1: What Happens to Love After the Wedding?
Dr. Gary opens up the book with a discussion he had with a man who had been married 3 times, explaining each relationship, how they were all great in the beginning (except the 2nd marriage which was a disaster immediately after “I do”). The man explains something that I think many of us can relate to: the love evaporated. Things come up that sometimes takes the attention off our spouse, like a baby, or puts negative attention on our spouse, such as a finding out a quirk you didn’t know about before.
What’s something you found out about your spouse after the wedding that you didn’t know about him or her before? Do you think it would have been a deal breaker if you knew about it before your wedding?
The answer to this question was the inspiration of this book: People speak different love languages. This is where we dive right in. Love languages are just like other languages. If you speak English and you try to talk to someone who speaks English, it’s hard to understand each other. So if you speak one love language, and your spouse speaks another, it’ll be difficult to understand the love you’re expressing or receiving. The book says that there’s only 5 love languages, but there are different dialects, meaning there’s not just one way to express the language.
Dr. Chapman says in the book, “Being sincere is not enough. We must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love.” (pg. 15)
Are you willing to learn your spouse’s primary love language, even if it’s different from yours?
The 5 love languages are:
- Words of Affirmation
- Quality Time
- Receiving Gifts
- Acts of Service
- Physical Touch
Chapter 2: Keeping the Love Tank Full
“Psychologists have concluded that the need to feel loved is a primary human emotional need.” (pg. 19) Wouldn’t you agree? I think we all have a need to feel loved, whether it’s from a significant other, your family, or your friends. However, love gets thrown around a lot, and we have different loves for different people and things. You love your sister different than you love your job. You love your spouse different than you love your child.
Dr. Ross Campbell, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, came up with the following metaphor: “Inside every child is an “˜emotional tank’ waiting to be filled with love. When a child really feels loved, he will develop normally, but when the love tank is empty, the child will misbehave. Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty “˜love tank.'” (pg. 20) I’m sure many of you can relate to having either an empty or full love tank growing up, which also may have affected your romantic relationships down the line.
Then we discuss being “in love” vs. being loved. Being “in love” is a temporary feeling, which many newly married couples don’t realize until they fall out of love. Then they wonder what happened. We need genuine love to sustain us when the “in love” feeling is gone, and lots of couples find out they never had that foundation, which leads to unsatisfied person or couple.
Was your “love tank” consistently empty growing up or full? Where do you think your love tank is in your marriage?
We’d love to hear what you think and what you got from the reading. This coming week, I ask that you read chapter 3, Falling in Love, and chapter 4, Love Language #1: Words of Affirmation. Remember our special end of book Marriage Chat will be on Wednesday, February 29, and we’ll be discussing the book in its entirety. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know!
I am having a hard time accepting love. I know because I have never truly experienced it before even though I was married twice. I met someone who is God-fearing and truly loves me and I don’t know how to receive it. Any suggestions?
It miht help you to recieve love from another person if you can allow yourself to try=uly accept love from God. I myself have issue swith accepting love also and I ahve found that it is rooted in not having experienced love as a young shid in a consistent way that left me feeling safe with those that I loved or expected love from. Also, something to consider my husband and I both are words of affirmation people however he is not a talker so while he works on that I try very hard to not judge his gifts of love and to recognize them for what they are even if its not what I want
This is a great book, probably the best book i’ve ever read. It’s a must read for all couples no matter how good or bad things are going in your relationship.
Comments on chapter 1- Somethings I didn’t know about my husband before we got married were: he is dishonest, he is neglient , he is not trustworthy and he plays a lot of video games. If I knew those things before marriage it would have been a deal breaker.
Comments on chapter 2 -. Growing up I would say my love tank was full. I grew up feeling happy with my siblings and love from my parents. When I misbehaved it wasn’t because I wasn’t feeling any love from my parents or siblings; I just wanted to do things my way. In terms of my marriage life my love tank is three quarters full . As a marriage couple the love tank is about one tenths full. My perception of my husbands love tank is one hundredths full. Since I knew my husband for 16 years before I married him, there was no honeymoon stage of being “in love”. We were 26 and 30 when we got married I thought we were mature enough at that age.
Maybe you’re right about the learning your spouses primary language. Mine is quality time. I have expressed that to my spouse the last couple of years. I didn’t know quality time was my primary language of love. For me being married means spending time together and being best friends. From what I’ve seen during my marriage I think my husbands primary language is words of affirmation. I say that because in the past he says that words say to him are negative, critical, demeaning, rough and disrepectful.
I have started trying to used some words of affirmation towards my husband. Out of 100, probably 20% of the time. I do have a long way to go. My question is how do I get him to use my primary language for love, even though I have told him in the past several different ways my priority? Listening with an open heart.
What is meant by “acts of service”? Is it acts of service towards the spouse and children or towards everybody else but the spouse and children. please elaborate.