Monday, May 19, 2008
discovering my love language
As part of our pre-marital counseling, Sara started reading the book, The Five Love Languages. The book is all about how each one of us interprets certain actions as a sign of love. These actions are referred to in the book as "love languages." There's physical affection, words of affirmation, quality times, giving gifts, and acts of service.
I read the book several years ago but need to do so again because I'm having trouble deciding what my language is. The book helps you narrow down the languages and figure out which one is yours. Obviously everybody loves affection, affirmation, spending time together, gifts, and being served - but everybody also has a language that resonates with them more than the others according to the book's author, Gary Chapman.
Chapman suggests that sometimes the easiest way to figure out what your love language is, is to watch how you try and show others that you love them. A lot of times people (unknowingly) try and show love by doing the things that they would like to have done to them.
Of course every guy thinks his love language is physical affection because they like sex.
Today I was on the phone with Sara telling her how physically exhausted I feel. We both have been on a non-stop runaway train of busy-ness for the last year. We've been planning a wedding, fixing up a house, selling a house, looking for a house, going to school, graduating from school, working multiple jobs, volunteering at church, traveling, and so on. For me, it all culminated this weekend with a three day trip to Virginia for a wedding, barely sleeping, and spending the whole weekend on my feet.
Lord knows Sara is tired herself and the last thing she needed was to listen to me whine about how tired I am. Her immediate reaction, though, was to go into hyper-protective mode. She informed me that for the next few nights I wouldn't be doing anything other than relaxing, that I wasn't showing up for my volunteer time at church until the absolute last minute, and I wasn't allowed to cook for a while. She also went on to tell me how much she loved me and how worried she was that burning my candle at both ends was going to catch up with me eventually.
I don't know what love language that is but once I got off the phone with her I was beaming. Just that little bit of protectiveness and a simple acknowledgment that I've been working hard was all it took for me to feel completely validated and taken care of.
I don't mind working. I don't mind things moving at a break-neck speed and I don't mind having a lot of stuff on my plate most of the time - especially if someone I love occasionally tells me that she notices, loves me, and wants me to take care of myself. I'm sure that's pretty mundane and universal as far as revelations go, but just now as it crystallized in my head, it felt huge.
Dude, I go to your blog hoping to be able to rate Angelina Jolie, pregnant on the red carpet and I get this sleep-deprived girly talk. Go pee in someone's yard or something...
That may have been the funniest comment ever seen on this blog.
Well done.
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I read the book several years ago but need to do so again because I'm having trouble deciding what my language is. The book helps you narrow down the languages and figure out which one is yours. Obviously everybody loves affection, affirmation, spending time together, gifts, and being served - but everybody also has a language that resonates with them more than the others according to the book's author, Gary Chapman.
Chapman suggests that sometimes the easiest way to figure out what your love language is, is to watch how you try and show others that you love them. A lot of times people (unknowingly) try and show love by doing the things that they would like to have done to them.
Of course every guy thinks his love language is physical affection because they like sex.
Today I was on the phone with Sara telling her how physically exhausted I feel. We both have been on a non-stop runaway train of busy-ness for the last year. We've been planning a wedding, fixing up a house, selling a house, looking for a house, going to school, graduating from school, working multiple jobs, volunteering at church, traveling, and so on. For me, it all culminated this weekend with a three day trip to Virginia for a wedding, barely sleeping, and spending the whole weekend on my feet.
Lord knows Sara is tired herself and the last thing she needed was to listen to me whine about how tired I am. Her immediate reaction, though, was to go into hyper-protective mode. She informed me that for the next few nights I wouldn't be doing anything other than relaxing, that I wasn't showing up for my volunteer time at church until the absolute last minute, and I wasn't allowed to cook for a while. She also went on to tell me how much she loved me and how worried she was that burning my candle at both ends was going to catch up with me eventually.
I don't know what love language that is but once I got off the phone with her I was beaming. Just that little bit of protectiveness and a simple acknowledgment that I've been working hard was all it took for me to feel completely validated and taken care of.
I don't mind working. I don't mind things moving at a break-neck speed and I don't mind having a lot of stuff on my plate most of the time - especially if someone I love occasionally tells me that she notices, loves me, and wants me to take care of myself. I'm sure that's pretty mundane and universal as far as revelations go, but just now as it crystallized in my head, it felt huge.
Labels: dear diary
Dude, I go to your blog hoping to be able to rate Angelina Jolie, pregnant on the red carpet and I get this sleep-deprived girly talk. Go pee in someone's yard or something...
That may have been the funniest comment ever seen on this blog.
Well done.
Post a Comment
