The 5 Love Languages
by Gary Chapman
Gary Chapman, a successful marriage counselor by profession, concludes by his experience of five years that the language of love isn’t black or white but rather a canvas of colors painted by he who feels it and how he chooses to express it. To make it simpler for the common man, he deduced and explained in his book, the 5 basic ways by which people speak and understand emotional love. Chapman’s strong belief is once you understand your partner’s primary language of love; you will be successful in keeping a peaceful and harmonious everlasting marriage.
The effect of time on love:
Every relationship, as passionate as it might be, peaks to a high until it reaches a plateau. At that point most couples feel like someone put down those beginner fireworks with a cold water hose and killed all the butterflies that once used to get them all giddy and excited. Couples often complain that they’ve lost their spark.
Chapman in his book concludes that the euphoria of being in love lasts for only two years of the relationship. It is this fading of love after said time that makes partners question their relationship as they begin to lose the warmth and excitement.
Every human is supposed to comprise a tank for love just like a car would have for gas. The fuller the tank the better the performance of the car for longer distances. Hence, every individual operates ideally in a relationship with a full love tank.
In the initial stages of falling in love, the strong feeling on infatuation fills your heart with the fuel it needs to drive you to making your partner happy and satisfied. You want to be the “one” for them to always count on so you’re always ready to sacrifice and do what it takes to keep them in your life. You go out of your way to do things for them and support them.
However, maintaining a loving relationship is vastly different than falling in love. Once, the initial feeling fades, both partners revert to their original personalities before the relationship. It is at this point they try to establish their own individuality within a long term relationship. They start thinking about what they expect and want from their respective partner and start focusing on their individual happiness. Often times, the reality of un-met expectations, slowly drains their respective love tanks and end up making them feel unloved.
Chapman Big idea
Couples often believe that the end of the “in-love” experience means they have only two options: a life of misery marriage or to cut the thread and find a new path. However, there is a third and better alternative: To recognize and accept the in-love experience for what it was—a temporary emotional high—and then pursue “real love” with their spouse.
Chapman identifies that the main problem lies in the way love is understood by each individual within the relationship and listed the 5 basic languages of love every person. Each language corresponds to the types of actions or behaviors that make someone feel the most loved.
It is likely that one speaks a different language of love from their partner. This is the root of how conflicts stem within a relationship as there is miscommunication. It’s like trying to explain someone in English your home address but he only speaks Mandarin. Only once when both parties have learned to understand each other’s language for love, can they act in a way that can be fruitful for the relationship and fill each other’s love tanks.
