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Creating the Utopian Environment "Longevity in Intimate Relationships - |
Hello Colleagues
Over the months since I started this newsletter I have received considerable correspondence from readers about the key to making marriages rewarding and sustainable. Here are some further thoughts. Because individuals give and receive love differently, keeping love alive in our marriages may be hard work and can be confusing. If we do not understand how our partner receives love, our marriages will fragment and we won’t understand why. The key to longevity in your intimate relationship is to be aware of your own and your partner’s love languages. Gary Chapman (1992) suggests that there are five love languages:
Understanding the five love languages and learning ‘to speak’ the love language of your spouse keeps intimacy alive and the ‘emotional love tank’ full! If we are to develop and sustain an intimate relationship we need to know each other’s desires. Words of Affirmation Solomon, author of ancient Hebrew wisdom literature, wrote, “The tongue has the power of life and death.” Couples need to learn the power of verbally affirming each other, of saying kind and encouraging comments to each other and of giving compliments. When I was exploring the love languages of one couple, the husband said “she just wants to manipulate me into loving her by wanting me to give her compliments.” You’d be surprised at the things I hear in my office! This was a man whose main love language was giving gifts to his wife, so she had everything from fine jewellery to a Mercedes sports convertible and he couldn’t understand why she was unhappy. She was unhappy because the way she needed to receive love was not through gifts but mainly through words of affirmation and physical touch. The wife was not unappreciative of her husband’s gifts, they just didn’t make her feel loved. When the husband began to include these two in his repertoire of love languages to his wife, the emotional love tank began to fill! For the husband to feel love he, like his wife, needed words of affirmation but also acts of service. The wife had learned this and keenly cared for him domestically and also by partnering him in his business. She loved to do this as she understood that he felt love by her actions. Both learned what was important to the other and were happy to provide it. This genuine giving raises the probability that these two will grow old together, gracefully and happily. Quality Time A key aspect of the quality time love language is togetherness. For some it may mean only proximity such as the wife may be marking university papers while the husband is pottering in his garage. They each have an awareness of each other’s presence. For many whose love language is quality time, it is more the need for focussed attention. The activity is incidental. It’s what happens on the emotional level that is important. One husband I met loved to play tennis with his wife and he felt intimate and connected with her by this experience of quality time with her. Another husband loved to take his wife to a special dinner about once per month. He said “it’s just me and her, no work, no kids and we can just talk to each other!” And I knew a wife who would take 15 minutes to sit down with her husband every day when he arrived home from work (she arrived home before him) to have a cup of tea on the patio in the summer and in the lounge in the winter. This had become a ritual with this couple and an almost daily point of connection which created emotional longevity in their relationship. They even continued this when children came along, a major feat I believe! Receiving Gifts In every culture, gift giving is a part of the love-marriage process. A gift to your spouse is a symbol that you are thinking of him/her. It is not the thought implanted only in the mind that counts, but the thought expressed in actually securing the gift and giving it as an expression of love. Symbols have emotional value. For some individuals receiving gifts is their major love language. This expression of love is not about monetary value but about feeling emotionally valued. I’ll always remember Alice and James who came to see me with their failing marriage. We identified that Alice had three love languages. To feel love she needed words of affirmation, physical touch and to receive gifts. Receiving gifts was the most important one for her which is not surprising given that Alice grew up in poverty. Her father became disabled in is forties and her mother had to work and care for the 6 children. Mostly they lived on welfare and wore hand-me-down clothes. So even the smallest gift that anybody happened to give Alice as child made her feel like treasure. James thought that giving gifts was a waste of money. He needed acts of service and physical touch to receive love. But when he learned of the importance of gifts to his wife he decided he would bring her a gift every week. A little extravagant I thought but who am I to make a judgement. Alice, also, was shocked at his degree of commitment to her and did think it was excessive. I saw them both some years later and he had remained true to his pledge. His gifts included: a flower picked from his own garden, massage vouchers, card in the mail, a walk in the park, an eternity ring, cooking dinner, chocolates, flowers, perfume, lingerie, teapots, stationery, books, music, tickets to the theatre etc. I asked Alice if the novelty had worn off and if the gift giving had become perfunctory. She replied by saying “never, and the sex is fantastic!” You work that one out! Acts of Service Acts of service means doing things you know your spouse would like you to do and this list is unending. Learning the love language of acts of service will require some of us to re-examine our stereotypes of the roles of husband and wives. This love language is not about becoming a doormat in the relationship, it is, again, about truly loving the other person as they need to be loved. Physical Touch Physical touch including holding hands, kissing, caressing, embracing and sexual intercourse, is a way of communicating emotional love. Clearly, our bodies are for touching not for abuse. Often in marital counselling the need for repair is important. If the spouses are willing, I will often suggest a touching exercise without words to begin a non-threatening reconnection with each before we look at the reasons for the conflict. All of us need physical touch in our love language repertoire. Now there is homework for you to do. Sit down with your spouse or partner and work out the love languages of each of you. You may be in for some surprises! If you are not demonstrating love the way your partner needs to receive it then you will need to add to your repertoire of love languages. What I really believe about our intimate relationships is that mediocrity is soul-destroying and that we should all be offering all of the love languages. Start today and remember the churned butter! Reference: Gary Chapman (1992), The Five Love Languages Kind Regards,
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Dr Cynthia Davis B.Ed,
Grad. Dip. App. Psych., M.Sc., | ||
Clinical and Corporate Psychologist Ph: 61+(0)3 9654 7757 |
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We hope you enjoyed this edition of Creating the Utopian Environment! | ||
