What's Your Love Language?

Scott and I lean in close while learning each other's love language

Do you know your love language? Have you even heard of a love language? If not, stick with me on this one because you’ll want to know by the end. It's made a huge difference for us!

Knowing our love languages is the reason I can look at Scott and say, “ooohhhhh even though I swear I’m listening and really good at doing two things at once, you neeeeeeddd me to put the dishes down and come sit with you to actually feel loved” because his love language is Quality Time. And he knows when we’re hustling and going a hundred miles an hour and he stops me for just a moment to say “Hey Steph, I really love you” that my heart melts in to a billion pieces because mine is Words of Affirmation.

See Scott and I love each other. We’re committed and in it for the long run. But understanding our love language is even deeper than that. It affects the way we communicate, our moods, and mostly how we give and feel love.

Making changes because of our love languages isn’t some big ordeal that we couldn’t make it without. It’s just an actual way to recognize that we both need and give love differently. And when we do makes those changes or realize it’s a love language, we fill up both of our cups and recharge our batteries because we're being intentional about our love.

We all have a love language. It’s the way we feel loved and give our love. There are 5 love languages. You can take a quick, free, online test (I linked it at the bottom) that puts your love languages in order from most important to least.

Here's the love languages.

Words of Affirmation: Words have the most impact. They can send a person's spirit skyward or bring it down just as quick.

Acts of Service: These people like doing things for others. Cleaning, fixing things, and being the first to help out is the way they see love.

Receiving Gifts: Don’t mistake this for materialism. It’s based on the thoughtfulness, effort, and love associated with gift giving .

Quality Time: Uninterrupted, intentional time speaks the loudest to this person. Put the phone down, get rid of the distractions, and just be.

Physical Touch: Hugs, holding hands, a sincere touch on the arm, any of these fill this person up. They show their love and feel loved from a simple touch.

You show love and feel loved based on one of these as your primary followed by the other 4. Knowing how you love and need to be loved and knowing how your partner loves and needs to be loved can make a HUGE difference in your relationship. It did for us!

Learning to Speak Each Other's Language

Early on, when we moved in together, one of our biggest frustrations always happened right away in the morning when we woke up. Always.

I would roll over, and say “GOOD MORNING! OH WHAT A GREAT DAY IT IS! SCOTT I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! Ok let’s go get ready!” And be up and at em. (Did you catch my words of affirmation in there? The 'what a great day and I love you so much'?) I was ready to go. Scott wanted to cuddle. I mean we had things to do. Of course I love cuddling with Scott but we usually cuddled the night before while we were falling asleep and we spend most of our days together sooooooo let’s get going right?

Wrong. It was about the time. The uninterrupted, nothing else on our minds, haven’t even looked at our phones yet, time. It was about being present and not rushing.

I’m not going to lie, and this is easy to see now, but for about 3 weeks it drove us both crazy. Like actually a really frustrating time for us. We fought about it. I think I even cried I was so upset. When he said he wanted... actually needed, me to just be still with him in the mornings, he felt like he sounded needy, and I felt trapped because we spent all day together and I didn’t see why this was so important.

Until it clicked. His love language is quality time. Me spending an extra 10 minutes snuggled up next to him showed him how much I loved him and it was a chance for him to love me with his love language. It wasn’t him being needy, it was him needing love. It's how he gets filled up.

Now I do NOTHING in the morning until I’ve given Scott my full attention. Seriously. After our alarm goes off I spend some intentional time asking him about his dreams and the day and thoughts and cuddling him and Gibson and giving him all my attention before we start the crazy of the day. It’s been one of the easiest and best changes for us.

The cool thing about being in a relationship is the other person makes you better. And knowing each other's love languages and focusing on them has made me a better person. Of course, I love any moment I can get to cuddle with Scott, my second love language is physical touch. But now I look forward to that time we get together every morning as well.

Because of Scott and his Quality Time love language I've become a more patient person, a person more focused on where I am and who I'm with in that moment, and I'm much more aware of being intentional and present.

Scott's love language is quality time so Gib and I loving on him with just that! — Scott's cup getting filled WAAAYYY up with some morning quality time.

I love by Words of Affirmation. HANDS. DOWN. Oh those words speak to me louder than anything else. It’s also the way I show my love. In the beginning, I would tell Scott how much I loved him. How talented he is and how handsome and how strong and how he can figure anything out and how he’s good with people and I would go on and on and on.

It usually made him uncomfortable. Once, we were talking and he was down and I was telling him all the things I love about him and that he’s good at and I remember him telling me pretty frustrated, “Ok, I get it. I don’t need you to say these things just to be nice. Please, just stop.” He wasn't being mean, I was just being a lot.

I was hurt. I was confused too. I wasn’t just telling him these things. I believe them! I actually think them! I was just telling him the truth. But see, my reaction when he was down, because of my love language was to show him how much I loved him with words. But since that’s not his love language, it wasn’t having as much of an impact on him. They were just words.

But oh my friend we have learned. We have come a long way and now he knows that my words mean so much more. He’s open to what I have to say and doesn’t just brush them off. He gets lifted up with my words because he knows it’s me loving him and I love to love him by telling him so.

Scott also learned the right way to fill up my Words of Affirmation cup. He doesn't just throw around "I love you's" or "that's really cool" because I need to hear it, he is intentional. He actually builds me up with his words. He is encouraging and positive and sincere because he knows my love language.

Love language is all about knowing how a person gives AND needs their love.

Scott has gotten used to my constant words of affirmation love language. — Oh man, I could go on and on and on and on about how great Scott is. He takes it like a champ now :)

Oh love languages. We talk about them in our house often because they are real.

Get to know yours. Whether you’re in a relationship or not, it’s important to understand how you love. Then, get to know your partner’s love language. Heck, get to know your mom’s and dad’s and sister’s and kid’s and boss’s and teammate’s. It’ll make life easier. It’ll make you understand the words that they speak or the things that they do.

It’s a free, super simple test. Take it and share it with those around you!

There's an entire series and workbooks and classes and everything but we've gotten a lot out just by taking the test. Here's a link to the book and a link to the website to take the test!