How to Communicate LOVE to your Mate …
It’s Valentine’s Day, the day for lovers and romance.
Red roses, cards, marriage proposals, romantic dinners, outings, gifts … are all ways of celebrating this special day. How do you impress that special someone?
Men, how do you feel when you give your mate an expensive piece of jewellery, but she hardly looks at it and says she’d rather spend time with you?
Ladies, how do you feel when you spend most evenings by yourself while he’s working because he wants to give you the best of everything … though you’d much rather sit across the table from him and hold his hand?
One thing’s for sure – you’re both disappointed, hurt and feel unloved. You show your love and you know it hasn’t meant to your mate what you thought it would. Or you receive something which is nice but just doesn’t cut it for you.
In his bestseller The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, Gary Chapman reveals how different people express love in different ways. As you read through these 5 ways of expressing love, I’m sure you’ll quickly recognise your primary love language, and probably your mate’s as well.
Generally, you express love the way you like love to be shown to you. How you like love shown to you is often not what shows your mate they are loved.
So here are the 5 ways of communicating love:
- Words of affirmation. Be encouraging, kind, and complimentary. If words of affirmation are your mate’s love language, tell them daily what you like about them. Write them a love letter or give them a card!
- Quality time. Togetherness is the key. Focus on quality conversation with your mate to hear what they want you to know, so you can better understand their thoughts, feelings and desires. Just hang out by sitting together or going for a drive to town.
- Gifts. Receiving a gift means someone thought about you. It’s not so much the expense or size of the gift that’s relevant, but the knowledge the gift is specially chosen for that person because of how well you know them. Your presence is also a wonderful gift!
- Acts of service. An act of service is an act of love. What can you do for your mate to show you love them? A cup of coffee each morning in bed? A home-cooked meal? A favourite cake? Make a book of vouchers listing “services” your mate can claim.
- Physical touch. Holding hands, kissing, hugging and massage are all ways of expressing love. If this is your mate’s primary love language and you don’t touch them, they’ll feel unloved and start to die inside.
Have you determined your primary love language? Your mate’s primary love language? Knowing these will put you and your mate on the road to a great relationship!
Bottom-line if you don’t master this, your relationship will sooner or later end (you may stay together but inside one or both of you will want out). If you do master this, it doesn’t mean happily-ever-after, but it does mean you know how to make your mate feel special if you choose.
In my 20 years of counselling I have never seen a relationship end or become life draining where the couple actively practised the love languages.
What would your relationship be like if you both were communicating in the right love language to the other?
If you’d like to delve deeper to strengthen your relationship even more, I offer a 90 minute session where you do the 5 Love Languages Questionnaire and I then go through the results with you … to start you on the path to communicating your love in THE way your mate will like. Normally $320, if you mention this article you get it for $160.
Call me today on 0407 585 497 or email me on info@findingthelight.com.au
