Tag: five love languages

Love Thyself

Welcome to the Love Month

We are into the second month of this new year. February is officially the month to express your love. After all the New Years’ stuff for sale in stores, you see Valentines’ Day stuff. While everyone will be focusing on expressing love for their spouses, significant others and friends, that is not what I have been thinking about. 

Self-Care is Important

Self-care is a big movement. People want to know how to become more productive, how to grow as a person and plenty of other topics. Self-care is a very true thing. It’s something that we have to be aware of. 

 

Our self-care is comprised of our mentality, emotions, and spirits. We have to care for ourselves in all of these areas. There has been a big push about mental awareness lately. That’s fine and we should push to know more about ourselves and those around. While doing that we need to know more about ourselves and love.

 

Before my wife and I got married, it was recommended that we read The 5 Love Languages book. A lot of people have read it and know about the five languages that are discussed, quality time, acts of service, physical touch, gifts, and words of affirmation. We learned about each other and more importantly, we learned about ourselves. But, it’s not enough to just know your love language.

 

Learning about the way in which you receive love is a huge step in self-development. 

So while February is a month where we want to show love to those that are around us, we also should not forget about ourselves. Learning the way that you receive love is necessary. You have to continue to grow as a person. 

 

How Do You Receive Love?

How do you receive love? Are you trying to develop yourself? Start this, today. We spend so. much of our time giving to others and investing in them that we often forget that we should pour into ourselves. You have to make sure that your own tank is full before you can give it to others. 

 

Discussion Questions:

How do you take care of yourself?

Consider that Quality Time in your marriage is more important than the Quantity of Time

We all would like to be able to get more time for the things that matter. What I’ve learned is that we all have the same 24 hours in a day. How to spend them is up to us. So everything can’t be about the quantity of time. We don’t have the ability to get more hours into our day. The difference is the quality of the time we do have. 

Your Most Valuable Asset


What is your most valuable thing that you have? Is it  money or the resources that you have at your disposal? Most of us know that time is the most valuable asset we have. How does this play into our relationships with our spouse?

I’m learning more and more that I have to be intentional with my time. I’ve had those moments where I sat down to do some work or read and ended up watching videos on YouTube or Netflix for  2 hours! 

I’ve also done this same thing when I wanted to spend time with my wife. The funny or ironic part is that my primary love language is Quality Time.  I’ve had moments when I wanted to spend time with my wife and we end up being in the same room together but not really connected. 

With my passion to  become a successful writer, balancing  my time can be challenging. I have a tendency to allow my time to be consumed by other things.

We all have the same 24hrs. How we spend them shows what we value Click To Tweet

Can We Get More Time?


We all would like to be able to get more time for the things that matter. What I’ve learned is that we all have the same 24 hours in a day. How to spend them is up to us. So everything can’t be about the quantity of time. We don’t have the ability to get more hours into our day. The difference is the quality of the time we do have. 

For a person like me whose love language is Quality Time, I can’t add more hours into my 24 hour day to spend with my wife. What I can do is make sure that we’re getting the most out of the time that we spend together. So it truly is Quality over Quantity. Especially when it comes to our spouses. We can think that that more time together will fix everything. How do we make sure we’re getting the most out of time together?

 

  1. Get Rid of Distractions

 

You don’t realize how much of your time is being wasted until you actually start to track your time. We waste time doing the things that we know we’re not supposed to do. Checking emails is one area where we can waste time. We check emails at work, we check them at home and pretty much everywhere in between. The key to quality time is to get rid of the distractions. 

 

  1. Be present

 

This goes right along with getting rid of the distractions. There are a lot of moments in my life where I’m in the room but not present. This can be true for a lot of men and that may be a stereotype. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or a stereotype, we have to do better at being in the moment. 

Our spouses need us to be present, as well as our children. Each relationship that we value needs us to be present. 

 

Doing just these two things will get us started with improving the quality of the time we have. 

Discussion Question:

In what areas can you make quality time more of a priority?

Love Language

Love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself. – Gary Chapman

 

I’m a huge fan of The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Gaining just a little understanding about these love languages can help you connect with your spouse on a deeper level. A lot of people have at least heard about The 5 Love Languages. But there are some things that people get wrong about The 5 Love Languages.

    My wife and I went to a couples event recently. At this event all of the couples took a quiz based off of The 5 Love Languages. After the quiz and some games, we were encouraged to look at our results to see if they were the same as when we took the quiz when we first got married. Each couples results surprised them. It lead to great conversations, and also possible misconceptions about The 5 Love Languages.

 

  1. Your Love Language can change

 

It shouldn’t be expected that you will stay the same as when you first took the test. Yet, sometimes we think that our spouse’s love language will stay the same as when first met them. The longer that you are married, you will encounter many changes. You have to be able to adapt to the changes.

 

  1. Your Love Language is the Foundation basis

 

    Understanding your spouse’s love language is a starting point. The pitfall is that once we know our spouse’s love language we can go all in on that. So, if our spouse’s love language is gifts, then we for every birthday, holiday, every date that we go on, any time that we think about it we’ll give them a gift. While that may be great the first year or so, after five, ten, twenty years together, we should be able to expand beyond giving them gifts.

    Think of knowing your spouse’s love language as the foundation to a house. This is the foundation to the love that you share in your marriage. Like a normal house, the foundation has to be strong. You also build rooms upon the foundation. You should be able to build on the foundation of a love language.

 

  1. Your Love Language is selfless

   

    Knowing your  own personal love language should be a part of knowing yourself. Many times marriage issues result from one person projecting something onto the other person. In knowing yourself, you should know what triggers you to make you angry, and know how you receive love. With that being said, knowing your love language is key for your spouse. Don’t have them guessing and trying different things. Know yourself, that way you can share that with your spouse.

 

Discussion Question:

How has your love language changed over time?

Leave you answer in the comments