Whether you’ve been married for 20 years of just met the love of your life, relationships need nurturing in order to bloom.
The way we express our love plays an important role in maintaining a healthy relationship. However, not everyone is able to do it in words.
Unknowing to many, there is an unspoken universal language that couples can communicate with – love language.
Lee Wilson, who has been a relationship coach for 20 years, tells us all about the art of love language and why it’s important.
What does "love language" mean?
It's essential that couples love each other in ways that transfer and convey the love they feel and that is what a "love language" does. People leave marriages and serious relationships when they don't feel loved and/or they don't feel liked.
Often times, I've worked with couples where one of them thought they were communicating love but because the other person didn't feel loved, they wanted to leave the relationship.
If the other person doesn't feel fulfilled, desired, and loved, the road to keeping the relationship will be a difficult one.
What are the different types of love language?
Acts of Service: actions speak louder than words.
Quality Time: giving their partner their undivided attention.
Words of Affirmation: This language uses words to affirm other people.
Physical Touch: The person responds to physical touch.
Receiving Gifts: Receiving gifts is what makes the person feel loved.
What's your love language? How does one identify that?
A love language can be determined over time by responses to gifts that are given to a particular person, but you can learn your partner's love language faster by asking questions about their history of gifts.
For example, ask them what their favourite gift was as a child. Then ask them what their favourite gift was as an adult. Listen to how they describe the gift, what they say they did with it, how they valued it, and how it made them feel. What they describe to you can reveal their love language.
How do you express this to your partner?
One way is, when thanking them for a gift, is to explain why you appreciate the gift and that it means a lot because you feel loved that they gave you this gift or did a certain act of service for you.
Continuing to show appreciation for the gift they gave you days or even weeks later (or more) can make it clear for them. People like to feel appreciated. Your partner should be able to determine why you appreciate what they did and will learn to help you feel their love in similar ways in the future.
What is the importance of it?
When someone doesn't feel loved, it impacts many other aspects of a relationship, among them commitment, physical intimacy, emotional connection and attraction. It can make someone vulnerable to another whom they feel love them more than their partner does.
For example, if a spouse is not feeling sexually fulfilled by their spouse, it doesn't just mean that they aren't sexually satisfied. It usually leads to feeling undesired, unattractive, unwanted, unloved, or even ugly. The other spouse might have a list of things that they feel demonstrate love, but if that message is not getting through to the other person, it doesn't matter.
*** Wilson is a Marriage.com verified expert, received Family Dynamics certifications along with His Needs/Her Needs Certifications in addition to assisting with multiple Ph.D research projects on relationships and the science of human attraction.
In 2011, he co-founded a non-profit organisation that works to save marriages from divorce but moved on to more effectively help such couples – married and not married.
As a relationship coach, he helps women and men get their ex back. Lee has a heart for people who are hurting because of lost love and was mentored by one of the world’s leading Ph.D. scholars on human sexuality, attraction and relationship dynamics from 2000 to 2019.
His website is www.myexbackcoach.com