Love Languages

I have always been a huge reader.  This stems from years curled up next to my father on the couch as he would read aloud Newberry Award Winners, The Chronicles of Narnia, Little House on the Prairie and other noteworthy books to my siblings and I.  In third grade I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time and fell in love with Jane Austin and ravished through many of the classics through elementary and middle school.  As I got older, I became so busy that reading for pleasure happened seldom and it wasn't until I married my Alan Burke that I felt I could pick the hobby up again.  However, I no longer wanted to do it alone and longed to share my love for literature with Burke.  While I had been a voracious reader as a child, he remembered only reading one book for pleasure from cover to cover in his entire life; The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn.  It took a little bit of coaxing, but since August, we have read and enjoyed several books together.  Would you believe the he is now the one begging for me to put down my homework and come read?!

Though we've enjoyed reading science fiction and fiction, it took another series of coaxing to get Burke to read Dr. Gary Chapman's book, "The Five Love Languages."  We were halfway through when we left for our trip and I was so happy when Burke pulled it out of his luggage for us to finish upon our arrival - I had no idea he had even packed it!  I would highly suggest this book to every couple.  It gets a bit repetitive at times as well as a little self praising by the author, but it is well worth the read for the concepts of love that are taught.

Basically, Chapman's philosophy is that there are 5 main love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch.  He teaches you how to recognize your love language and the language of your spouse.  Sometimes marriages get rocky simply because the way one partner says "I love you" is not heard/understood by their spouse because it is not spoken in the spouse's primary love language.  Going into this book, I thought for certain that my love language was Words of Affirmation.  I love it when Burke verbally affirms that he loves me and the things he love about me.  I also thought for sure that Burke's (and most men's) language was Physical Touch.  But as it turns out, when we got to the chapter about Quality Time, it was as if he were describing word for word the things that matter the most to me: taking time to have an in depth conversation every day, doing things together, going places together, not just sitting in front of the TV and calling that time well spent.  In this chapter it also talked about people Chapman refers to as "Babbling Brooks."  Here's what he says about them...

"For this personality, whatever enters into the eye gate or the ear gate comes out the mouth gate and there are seldom sixty seconds between the two.  Whatever they see, whatever they hear, they tell.  In fact if no one is at home to talk to, they will call someone else.  " Do you know what I saw?  Do you know what I heard?"

We both about died laughing when we read this because it is SO me!  In between work and classes I am always calling Burke on the phone and telling him what's on my mind.  As soon as we are reunited at the end of the day I want to hear everything he did or felt or learned and tell him the things I observed too.  It was very eye opening to nail our personalities and to find out that Burke actually appreciates Words of Affirmation and Quality Time too!  

We learned a lot by reading this book and feel great about the pattern we have set in our marriage of trying to show love and appreciation to each other every day.  Again, I would recommend this book, but make sure you read it together so you can discover the best way to show your spouse you love them!