The 5 Love Languages Military Edition: The Secret to Love That Lasts (21 page)

“I’ve taken the Love Language Profile and my scores come out almost even except for Receiving Gifts. I know that’s not my love language.”

In the book, I discuss three approaches to discovering your love language on pages
153-54
.

If, after reviewing those, you’re still unsure, consider the example of one husband who told me he discovered his love language by simply following the process of elimination. He knew Receiving Gifts was not his language so he asked himself, “If I had to give up one of the remaining four, which one would I give up?” He concluded that apart from sexual intercourse, he could give up Physical Touch and Quality Time. This left Acts of Service and Words of Affirmation. While he appreciated the things his wife did for him, he knew her affirming words were really what gave him life. Thus, Words of Affirmation was his primary love language and Acts of Service his secondary love language.

“My husband hasn’t read the book, but we have discussed the love languages. He says he doesn’t know what his love language is.”

My first suggestion is to give him a copy of
The 5 Love Languages Men’s Edition.
Since it is geared specifically to husbands, he is more likely to read it. If he reads it, he will be eager to share his love language with you. However, if he is unwilling to read the book, I would suggest you answer the three questions below:

1. How does he most often express love to others?

2. What does he complain about most often?

3. What does he request most often?

Though our spouse’s complaints normally irritate us, they are actually giving us valuable information. If a spouse says, “We don’t ever spend any time together,” you may be tempted to say, “What do you mean? We went out to dinner Thursday night.” Such a defensive statement will end the conversation. However, if you respond, “What would you like for us to do?” you will likely get an answer. The complaints of your spouse are the most powerful indicators of the primary love language.

You also might want to try a five-week experiment. The first week, you focus on one of the five love languages and seek to speak it every day and observe the response of your spouse. On Saturday and Sunday, you relax. The second week—Monday through Friday—you focus on another of the love languages and continue with a different language each of the five weeks. On the week you are speaking your spouse’s primary love language, you are likely to see a difference in their countenance and the way they respond to you. It will be obvious that this is their primary love language.

“Due to how the Army environment ‘trains’ its soldiers, my husband’s tone and words are often harsh, exasperated, negative, or sarcastic. He says his comments are not aimed at me, but it is hard not to take them that way when I listen so closely for words of affirmation.”

I am deeply sympathetic with your question. Because your love language is Words of Affirmation, harsh, critical words will hurt you more deeply than they would hurt someone who has a different love language. My first suggestion is to learn your husband’s primary love language and speak it regularly for two months while making no comments about his harsh words to you. After two months, ask the question, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how full is your love tank?” or “How much love do you feel coming from me?” When he gives you an 8, 9, or 10, then you are in a position to have a positive influence on his behavior.

Now that he feels your love, you are ready to help him understand how deeply his harsh words hurt you. If his primary love language is Quality Time, you say to him, “I hope you know how much I love you. I want to ask you a personal question. If I withdrew from you and ignored you, and stopped spending time with you, and refused to take walks with you, how would you feel?” He may well say, “I would feel extremely unloved by you.” Then you say, “That’s exactly how I feel when you speak harsh, critical words to me. My love language is Words of Affirmation, and when you use words in a negative way, they cut me very deeply and make me feel you don’t love me. I know you use harsh words every day at work, but I’m asking that you please make an effort to speak to me as a wife and not one of your men.”

If his love language is Physical Touch, you would take the same approach and after he assures you he feels loved by you, you would say to him, “I hope you know how much I love you. I want to ask you a personal question. If I stopped reaching out and touching you, if I refused to hold hands with you and drew back when you tried to kiss me and withdrew when you wanted to have sexual intercourse, how would that make you feel?” Once he responds, then you tell him that’s how deeply you hurt when he uses harsh, loud words when speaking to you. You would take the same approach whatever his primary love language is. This approach helps him understand how deeply you feel hurt by his negative, sarcastic, harsh words, and he is very likely to change his behavior.

“I am burned out from years of intense deployment cycles. It’s hard to desire to speak my spouse’s love language, when mine is not being spoken. I want to desire to do that again, but I’m just so tired. How do we regain the passion in fulfilling the love language of our husbands?”

I am certain that wives who have gone through numerous deployments can identify with your question. Physically and emotionally, we become drained with all the responsibilities upon us while they are deployed and when we are receiving very little love from our spouses. That is why I have recommended throughout this book that you learn how to speak each other’s love language while you are apart, so you can keep emotional love alive in the relationship. That is the ideal.

However, I know your husband may not even be familiar with the love language concept. My first suggestion is to put a copy of this book in his hands and ask him to read the first chapter and let you know what he thinks of it. Most men who read the first chapter will end up reading the entire book and will find themselves motivated to reach out and communicate love to their wives.

It is always easier to love someone who is loving you. However, someone must start the process. Since you have read this book, and perhaps already know your husband’s love language, my suggestion is that you make a conscious choice to speak his love language at least twice a week for the next three months and see what happens. My prediction is that at the end of the three months, his love tank is getting full and you can make a legitimate request of him. “Do you know what would make me happy?” or “Do you know what I would really like?” and you share with him some expression of your love language that would be meaningful to you. Because he feels loved by you, he is far more likely to respond to your request. I know to take this approach will require you to rise above your emotional, physical, sense of fatigue. But I can assure you it is worth the effort.

“My wife’s love language is Quality Time, and I know she hates it when I take work phone calls during our dates. But I have no choice—I took an oath to the military and have to be on call all the time as part of my current assignment.”

You are reading your wife well. It is true that for those who have Quality Time as their love language, they are hurt and annoyed when you divert your attention from your time together to answer a phone call. I understand your commitment to the military. My suggestion would be to look at the phone when it rings, determine if it is a military call or a call from one of your friends unrelated to the military. You answer only the calls related to your military duty, and you do not answer other calls. These will be recorded in your voicemail and you can answer them after the date is over. Many of us are much too glued to our phones. There was a day, you may remember, when we did not have cell phones and our times together at a restaurant were never interrupted by a phone. We seem to have survived rather well in those days. I applaud the convenience of cell phones, but we must make our own rules as to how they will be used so as to enhance our marital relationship, rather than detracting from it.

When you first met and started dating, likely neither of you knew each other very well. How did you get to know each other and come to the place where you decided to marry? My guess is that you had many long conversations asking each other questions about their past and present. Essentially, communication is talking and listening. But questions are a key tool to open the heart and mind of the other person. Here are some suggested questions:

1. When you were a child, what kind of relationship did you have with your mother? Father? Brothers or sisters? (Don’t ask all of these in the same conversation.)

2. What could I do to make your life easier?

3. What one thing could I change that would make me a better wife? or, husband?

4. Did you meet any new people at work today?

5. What was the biggest challenge you faced while on duty today?

6. Of all the people you interact with on a regular basis, whom do you like the most and why?

Such questions tend to make it easier for your spouse to respond. Some time ago I wrote a larger collection of such questions in a little booklet entitled
101 Conversation Starters for Couples
. You can find it on Amazon or at a local retailer.

The second suggestion is for the two of you to establish a weekly date night in which the two of you go out for dinner, and agree beforehand that each of you will tell one event that was humorous while the two of you were apart, and one event that was very painful while the two of you were apart. Often, those who have been deployed are reluctant to talk about their experiences. But when you limit the conversation to one positive and one negative experience, they are less likely to be overwhelmed. Once your spouse shares the negative event, you may say, “That must have been extremely hard for you.” If they respond, listen carefully and affirm their feelings. “I can see how you would have felt that way. I’m sure that was far more painful than I can imagine.”

My third suggestion is that when you are together you have a daily sharing time in which each of you shares with the other—two things that happened in my life today and how I feel about them. These may be positive experiences or negative experiences. You are sharing events that happen in your life, and you are sharing your emotional response. You are building both intellectual and emotional intimacy.

Building intimacy after long deployments is a slow process. It cannot be rushed. But when you become adept at asking questions, and adept at revealing past experiences with each other, you are building a platform on which you can continue to build intimacy: intellectually, socially, physically, and spiritually.

“I have PTSD and am completely overwhelmed by the idea of speaking love languages. I have enough to deal with on my own. Can’t I get a break until I feel more up to it?”

Those who have never experienced PTSD find it hard to imagine the emotional, mental effect of traumatic stress. If your spouse has not attended classes to help them understand, or read books or explored websites to gain understanding about PTSD, I would suggest you encourage her to do so. This will make them more empathetic to what you are going through.

However, we cannot postpone love while we are going through the effects of PTSD. Actually, speaking each other’s love language will help you in the process of recovering from traumatic stress. Our deepest emotional need is to feel loved. When we feel loved by our spouse, we are far more likely to handle the stresses of life than if we feel our spouse has rejected us. Giving and receiving love is the heart of life; all the rest is just background music. Therefore, I am suggesting that with whatever energy you have, you invest it in the best possible way in loving your spouse. If they reciprocate your love, you are indeed a fortunate man. When each of you feels secure in the love of the other, you can walk together through the difficulties created by PTSD.

Yes. These five fundamental ways of expressing love are universal. However, the dialects in which these languages are spoken will differ from culture to culture. For example, the kind of touches appropriate in one culture may not be appropriate in another. The Acts of Service spoken in one culture may not be spoken in another. But when these cultural adaptations are made, the concept of the five love languages will have a profound impact upon the couples in that culture.