Understanding what your partner responds to and how they express themselves romantically is key to a strong relationship. These 5 love languages explain how to communicate better with your partner.
If you haven’t heard of the 5 Love Languages before, it’s time you took the test. It may seem simplistic to break love down into five different messages, but it can really help understand how your partner shows their love. It also works with your family members and friends too.
The 5 love languages are:
1. Words of affirmation
2. Acts of service
3. Receiving gifts
4. Quality time
5. Physical touch
She Said…
Created by anthropologist Dr Gary Chapman, this simple system could totally transform your relationship. We all think we express love in an obvious way, but it might not be the case. You might say “I love you” with a hug, where as your partner might say it with a gift.
And if you’re waiting for that hug to say ‘I love you’ and all you get is a present, you might think something is missing.
We both took the test and here are our results.
My scores are:
10 Quality Time
7 Words of Affirmation
6 Physical Touch
4 Acts of Service
3 Receiving Gifts
The highest individual score you could have is 12, so Quality Time rates really highly for me. It’s important for me to make time for my partner and for my friends and those I love. I like to actually spend time with my friends and family and that’s what I appreciate most back from them as well.
I do wonder how my relationship with Jim has changed my love languages. His number one score is Quality Time as well and I think I’ve learned that time is the best gift you can give someone from Jim.
Growing up my dad would give me a lot of gifts, but it was because he didn’t have a lot of time. He was always busy with work. He replaced time with gifts, and while I appreciated the sentiment, I always appreciated any moment with him more.
I think I’ve taken that relationship into my adulthood now, and while I love finding and giving a really great gift, I appreciate more going out of my way to spend time with someone and to tell them what they mean to me.
What if your love languages don’t match?
I think our relationship has been much smoother sailing because we both speak the same love languages. Our top three are the same, though in a slightly different order, so we can both recognise the same love messages with each other.
If you are in a relationship where Acts of Service is the number one for your partner and you’re waiting for time or words, it can feel really frustrating.
Understanding that your partner shows their love through different acts can take the pressure off you waiting to hear the words. A conversation with them to remind them to say it or to hug you more often is helpful. Understanding that the small things they do for you every day say I love you is so valuable.
It can really transform your relationship when you can recognise the signs of love from each other and speak each other’s language. Maybe if your number one is Words of Affirmation, you don’t need to say it as often to your partner, but rather show them and do something for them so they’ll understand that you love them.
You can click here to find out what your love language is and we’d love to know if you match with your partner – or do you speak totally different love languages? How does that work in your relationship?
He Said…
Trying to make sense of how your partner feels on a day-to-day basis is like trying to look for a hay-shaped needle in a labyrinth of haystacks. So having a way to simplify and explain what makes our hearts tick is incredibly valuable.
But coming from a linguistics background, the idea of having a language that your heart responds to resonated even more with me.
Mrs Romance first put me onto this test when we were on a road trip in the USA. I usually don’t have the patience for this kind of personality test – though I have been guilty of doing those ones in Cosmo in the past! But she had me as a captive participant.
What came out at the end surprised us both.
As we pulled into our motel on Interstate 1, we examined my results of the Love Languages test. I’ve since done the test again and the results were the same.
Results are measured with a ceiling score of 12 and you get to see where all 5 love languages fall in your profile.
My love language scores are:
Quality Time (11)
Physical Touch (9)
Words of Affirmation (5)
Receiving Gifts (3)
Acts of Service (2)
Mrs Romance thought that because I’m a writer and love things like grammar and English so much that my love language would be Words of Affirmation. But I think Quality Time has been important to me ever since I heard my grandfather say:
the biggest compliment you can give anyone is your time.
And that’s really stuck with me. It’s interesting because Mrs R’s top love language is Quality Time too, so I wonder if this is one of the reasons how we can spend so much of our day together without killing each other!
Now it’s your turn. Try the test – it only takes about 10 minutes and it’s free. You also get your results emailed to you, which is great because I forgot to write mine down! Let us know what your alpha love language is and if it was what your were expecting!
