First aid for the relationship > The language of love > 5 tips for the relationship
- When do you feel loved and appreciated?
- What is your and your partner’s love language?
- What are the five languages of love?
- Read about couples therapy and the 5 languages of love
- Get a free test and guide to the 5 languages of love
- See how you can fall in love again with 36 grief goals
Free toolbox for the relationship in couples therapy
Below you will find the 5 languages of love that can save, secure and develop the relationship as well as strengthen love, appreciation and intimacy.
The five tools can be used both preventively and therapeutically in relation to your couples therapy at Parterapi-parterapeut.dk as well as your own process at home.
This toolbox is also the third chapter in the eBook, which you get for free on the journey at Parterapi-parterapeut.dk’s Concept in couple therapy or by purchasing a Couple check.
The five languages of love
You probably know it well. Somewhere you feel sure that your lover, partner or spouse still loves you, but you need to hear it. Or rather, you don’t just need to hear it. You deeply miss the experienced feeling of being loved and valued as well as unique and exclusive that hearing it your way and receiving the actual confirmation in the message gives you. It is one of the biggest and most frequent complaints that I, as a couples therapist, hear in couple therapy.
It is rarely a problem for those newly in love, because they send the message constantly and on all frequencies. All kinds of attention and all kinds of ways of saying it. With words, gifts, deeds, caresses and prioritized quality time. But as soon as the infatuation fades and the friendship in the relationship starts to play a bigger role, we fall for it. Not just in frequency and intensity, but also in the way we send our message of love.
Many people tell me in couples therapy that they don’t feel loved, that they miss the spark and that it is now only their commitment or the children that keep them together. This means that the battery of love is drained, that there is less to give and that bills are drawn on the account of emotions. Love is about giving and receiving. So when it doesn’t happen, suddenly there are two who have less to give and two who want to give less. In this way, a negative spiral quickly develops. It also goes beyond the desire to listen to each other and thus typically openness and trust.
The good thing about the spiral is that it is extremely easy and quick to turn. It simply requires that the parties once again start sending the message of love on the right frequency. But you first need to know your own and your partner’s love frequency.
Gary D. Champman’s research and the language of love
According to Gary D. Chapman’s research, there are five primary love languages. It corresponds exactly to the frequencies we both send and receive on when we want to send or receive the message of being loved and appreciated. We tend to transmit on the same frequency as we want to receive. The problem is, if it is not the same frequency as your partner, then you will not be able to send and receive the messages of love effectively enough. With time, there is therefore a risk that you talk past each other and do not feel loved. It doesn’t matter how loud you shout or how often you transmit on the frequency. In practice, this corresponds to you speaking two different languages. In line with one speaking Afrikaans and the other Russian.
Through couple therapy, I have experience as a couples therapist that we typically have a primary and a secondary love language. Some also have a tertiary or more and lower priority love languages. But both the understanding and the strength of the message decrease the further down the hierarchy of love languages you go when you send your love message. You or your partner can of course also have your own version or a mix of the five different love languages. The concept of the five love languages must therefore first and foremost be used to increase awareness and then as inspiration to find the love language in your relationship.
How do I find the 5 languages of love?
If you want to find out your (or your partner’s) love language, you can ask:
When do you (your partner) feel really loved and appreciated?
Search for concrete memories and examples of what it is that creates this inner experience of being unique, special, exclusive, loved, valued and appreciated.
What have you (your partner) most often asked your partner (you) for?
It’s probably what will make you feel most loved.
What hurts you (your partner) the most about what your partner (you) does or fails to do?
The opposite of what hurts you the most is probably your love language.
How do you (your partner) yourself express your (his) love for your partner (you)?
It probably shows how you yourself want to feel most loved.
If it is not already clear, you can be inspired by the descriptions below of Gary D. Chapman’s five love languages or call and book a consultation in couples therapy. There is also a free test at the bottom.
The 5 languages of love
According to Gary D Chapman, the five most common love languages are:
- Praise and affirming, loving and appreciative words
- Loving deeds, services and favors
- Large and small gifts and acknowledgments
- Quality time and prioritization
- Touch, physical contact and sex
Based on experience from my own practice in couples therapy, the five love languages are reviewed below. When you read the sections, you can at the same time notice how much it is your or your partner’s love language and be inspired by how you can use and develop the love language. Feel free to read this article with your partner and supplement it with a good dialogue about your love language in couples therapy as well as at home.
Praise and affirming, loving and appreciative words
Recognition can go to both the physical and the appearance, the personal (personality, character traits, mind, soul, spirit, temperament, energy, values, attitudes, norms etc.), the social, competences, intentions, demeanor, expression, voice, behavior , actions and deeds, effort and results. It is good to be specific and some of the sentences that typically go straight in are: “I acknowledge you for…” and “I am proud of…”. And when we are in short supply for recognition, we can even ask for it ourselves: “Will you recognize me for…?”. Don’t cheat yourself and don’t make yourself a victim – go for what you want and what makes you happy. It also helps your partner to understand you and what your partner can do for you. Here as at the other points, couple therapy is not only about unraveling the language of love, but also the entanglements we may have with us from earlier in life. Some may not be used to receiving and giving loving words at all. Others, again, may be used to a completely different use of language. In couple therapy, I thus help many couples to find the right language and to put the right words to what they feel, feel, think and want.
Loving deeds, services and favors
It can be small or big things that show that you think about and care about your partner. From taking down the rubbish to larger projects, which the partner may never have had the time and money for themselves. It can also be practical things, like patching a bike. Or more romantic things, like giving a massage. It can also be giving the partner a night off or looking after the children for a whole weekend. Loving deeds can also be small services in everyday life, such as making a cup of coffee or a bath for the partner. Surprise each other! As above, don’t cheat yourself and don’t make yourself a victim – ask for what you want and what makes you happy. The joy and the loving deeds are contagious!
Large and small gifts and acknowledgments
Gifts are not about size or price, but about thoughtfulness and signal value. It can be anything from a flower you found in the forest that reminds you of your partner; something you yourself have made and made trouble for; a very special gift you have traveled far to get; something expensive and dear you have long saved up for or worked overtime to afford. However, it is rarely about the gift itself, but about the fact that the gift is tangible proof that you think of, value and hold your partner in your heart. Partly in the form of what you yourself have put into the gift, partly in the form of the joy and meaning you imagine the gift will have for your partner and partly in the form of the debt you yourself expect to experience by giving a gift. Again, love is about giving. And, like the other five love languages, remember to say thank you! Thank you is a simple and free word that is closely related to gratitude and joy. The little word is thus one of the main roads to happiness, while it often prompts a ‘thank you’ and a mutual smile. That both heals, builds and strengthens love and the relationship.
Quality time and prioritization
Time for the partner is rarely about quantity and more often about quality. It is therefore not about you having to sit on your partner’s thighs. In reality, time is more often about showing that you prioritize your partner and that you prioritize spending your precious time on your partner – time is an important resource that never comes back. In this way, you show that the partner is worth your time and that the partner is worth more than anything else that you can spend your time on. In the end, you also show that time with your partner, at least occasionally, is worth more than your personal priorities. For some, quality is about eye contact and deep conversations. For others, quality is about undivided attention and listening. For others, quality is about doing something fun, active or developing together.
Touch, physical contact and sex
Touch is not just nice, soothing, connecting and healing, it is also affirming. An affirmation of the body, love, relationship and attachment. It is not just anyone we touch and there is a big difference in how we touch others. So you send a big and appreciative message of love when you touch your partner. In practice, it can be anything from a hand on the shoulder, sitting together on the sofa, holding hands in the street, kissing and caressing, giving a hug, lying in a spoon, kissing, dancing closely or having sex together. Touch triggers a lot of happy hormones (oxytocin), which creates well-being and connectedness for both partners. So touch is not only a love language, it is generally auspicious. Physical contact is also largely about preferences and boundaries. Many things can happen (e.g. grounding, transference, countertransference or resistance) when we touch each other. Touching each other is also very intimate and vulnerable at the same time as it involves both approaches and rejections. That and sexuality are therefore often areas that can easily get into trouble. Other times, one of the parties may not be used to touch at all. Therefore, in this area, I help many couples through couple therapy and sexological conversation therapy, not only to find their love language, but also to find out how they want to touch and be touched, including. approximations, limitation and rejection.
Couples therapy and the 5 languages of love
You can read more about the language of love below, where you will also find a free test. You are also welcome to book a consultation in couples therapy with a view to clarifying the five languages of love. There may also be other reasons why you talk past each other, such as your personal profile. And if it is more about communication, you can read more about language tips, language model and clarity.
Test your love language
On the link below you will find a small test with which you can get a hint about your love language. As a couple’s therapist, it is not my impression that the test, this article or the couple’s therapy can stand alone, but that the results are reaped through a collaboration around all three points.
The 36 questions that can make you fall in love
In continuation of the 5 questions of love, there are also the 36 questions that can make you fall in love again, restore the spark, strengthen the closeness and strengthen the love. It might sound crazy, but the 36 questions can really make you fall in love. And it’s not pure fabrication. The 36 questions are based on Arthur Aron’s research and the exercise consists of two tasks. On Parterapi-parterapeut.dk’s website under Couple relationship test, the 36 questions can be found together with a number of other tools for the couple relationship and couple therapy, such as personality tests, personality profiles, couple relationship tests, etc.
By Parterapi-parterapeut.dk
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Tips for the relationship and love
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