Five Emotional Languages of Love

Once upon a time there was a man named Gary Chapman. He was a Doctor and a Pastor and a Relationship Counselor too.  And the thing he did that we remember him for was identifying the Five Emotional Love Languages. Which are actually pretty cool, so read on.

Here’s his most famous quote, or at least something he believed in strongly:

“Of the countless ways we can show love to on another, five key categories, or five love languages, proved to be universal and comprehensive. Everyone has a love language.. And we all identify primarily with just one of the five love languages: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service and Physical Touch.”

There’s actually a test you can take to determine which one you are, if you are so inclined. THIS is the version we used in Skool, or I found THIS one online. If you even just read below I’m betting you will see one of these and think to your self, Hello there, that sounds just like me!! Then go and take the test and see if you’re right. It’s kind of fun and tells you a lot more than you’d think about yourself. You can even share it with you’re partner and get a handle on just what the heck is going on with them anyway.

NOTE: I DID NOT WRITE THESE DESCRIPTIONS. I’m stealing them, because they’re perfect. As near as I can figure, they come from Gary Chapman himself, and I don’t think he’d mind in the least me sharing them with you here.

The basic idea is that everyone falls into one of these. And it will tell you a lot about yourself, and your partner, and how you or the express and give love.

Words of Affirmation:

You feel extremely loved when your partner compliments you on the way you look or on things you have done. You love his or her encouragement and verbal support and save their cards and love notes as some of your most precious items. You are always filled with such love when you receive a card he or she has written that expressed his or her heartfelt love for you in his or her own little way – little poems he or she might write, or if he or she call you spontaneously during the day to say, “I love you”.

Acts of Service:

You feel so loved when your partner does little things to help you. You always notice when he or she is thoughtful and put him or herself out to assist you, even if you could do those things yourself. There is such a sense of love and thankfulness you feel when he or she does this.

Physical Touch:

You feel especially loved when your partner touches you in loving ways. Whether it is a spontaneous kiss, playful cuddle, or gentle, loving touch on the arm, you feel that touch covey the love your partner feels. You don’t understand why people would prefer to sit far apart on different chairs or couches, when they could be touching or in each other’s arms. When walking together, you really enjoy your partner reaching out to hold your hand, and you’d never say no to them giving you a massage.

Quality Time:

There’s nothing that makes you feel more loved than spending quality one-on-one time with the person you love. Great conversation and eye contact, laughter, and just being together. While fancy gifts and kindly spoken words are nice, you’d trade them any day for uninterrupted “together” time. You love it when your partner’s mobile phone is turned off or they sacrifice other important activities to spend time with you. Whether it’s going to a fancy restaurant or just cuddling up on the couch to watch a movie and laugh about it together, you’re happiest when you can share experiences together.

Gift Giving

There’s nothing better than receiving a thoughtful gift to make you feel loved in a relationship. Whether it’s a single flower or something much more expensive, you love being fussed over, spoiled, and thought of. The fact that your partner thought to give you something is very meaningful to you.

See? Kind of cool, aren’t they. My Primary Love Language is words of affirmation. I love getting notes, or letters. I love it when someone I care about says things to me like, that helped me, or I like what you do. I enjoy getting random texts when people I love say, I was just thinking of you, or something you said really helped me today. I don’t so much care about someone saying how I look is nice, except it’s nice to hear when someone says they like my outfit, as it generally means I’ve managed to dress appropriately for an occasion, and I’ve remembered to wear, say, pants.

I also think I tend to express my love the same way. I watched one of my best friends skate the other night, and even though they lost, I still wanted to tell her she was awesome, wonderful and that cheered for her and her team all the way. I left a note, in pink lipstick actually, telling her these things, on her car for her to find when she came out. It had hearts on it, like something a 12 year old would write. I love that sort of thing, both getting and receiving.

Mind you, I don’t need to hear, oh darling I love you so 24-7. My self esteem is pretty intact, but I do like hearing little things, or when someone takes time to tell me they liked something I wrote, or said. Or just look up, smiles and says, you’re awesome, you know?

Now, I don’t have a partner, but we’re working up to it. I’m wondering this: Is it better to have a partner with the same love style? Or a different one? If I marry a Writer, we could go back and forth with poetry forever more, (possibly on notes written in pink lipstick) but maybe it would be better to be with someone who liked performing Acts of Service. Might up the chances of things getting done around the house.

Being with someone who had Quality Time as their Love Style would be nice. Up to a point. You’d be together, and do things together. I think this was actually my second highest score.

Physical touch would probably not be the best fit for me. But again, who can say? That includes things like massage and we all know how I feel about that. Also, who can turn down a hug? Anyone have any feedback on being with  a same love style, or a different one?

My thoughts are simply this, and please do remember I am not very good at this relationship things yet, and have no experience. BUT, I think which ever you are it’s the showing that’s important. Giving love, rather than thinking about receiving it. And communicating, which is an entirely different post, but it bears saying.

How do people with different love styles communicate? I think a person could go all Shelden Cooper on their partner and say things like “Ah, you touched my arm, that is your way of showing love. Your Love Style is Physical Touch. I see. Mine is Acts of Service, I shall now clean the bathroom” but, that’s a little black and white.

You’d have to know tho, and be aware. And it might be a good idea to get that right early on. Or a person could spend a whole lot of time wondering.

You know, if they were loved.

Grandma, Loretta and Maude

I've been wanting to blog about Maude. For anyone stumbling across this, Maude is a book we read for this class, by Doona Mabry. The thing with the book is, well, it's badly written. Self published for one thing, which generally tells me all I need to know about a book, i.e. that no one would buy it. It's the memoir of Donna Mabry's grandmother; based on stories her grandma told her growing up. I think if you're going to write a story, write a story. If you want to make a book out of it for friends and family heave-ho and get to it, but if you're going to write a story, write one. There are also typos in the preface. Editors exist for a reason. Had I been given this book for a look-see, I would have said, excellent, you wrote that, now bury it and write the story you want to tell.

This, however, is not an English class; it's Human Development and Family Studies. So having said my piece let me tell you about how I got into Maude. In spite of myself.

That's my Grandmother up there on the left. Mom on the right. I think that’s me getting out of the pool there, possibly 7 years old, so that would make Mom 28 and Grandma 47-ish. They look pretty awesome, I have to say. The photo tho is so old that I couldn’t get it out of the photo book to scan it. This was taken a long time ago. 1969, I’m thinking. Mom was born in 1940, and Grandma in 1921, she was just 19, and hadn’t been married very long.

Maude, in the book, was born in 1892, which makes her pretty much the same age as my Grandmothers parents. I saw a lot of parallels, or at any rate, thought a lot about my Grandmother while I was reading it. Also about Loretta Lynn, but we’ll get to her. Grandma’s first husband was a drunk, and she left him and took her baby girl (my mom) and went home to her parents. She said, Daddy, he drinks all the time and beats me. Her father said: Go back to your husband, if you were a better wife, he wouldn’t have to do that. Grandma wasn’t having it, and went off to support herself, which she did working in a nice Jewish temple, though she was Catholic through and through. You did what you had to, back in those days, to survive. She didn’t care if it wasn’t done, no one was going to treat her that way.

Now Loretta Lynn, she’s about 10 years older than my grandmother was, though you’d better not ever say it to her face. She can still muster up some Fist City when she gets riled, I hear. She got married at 14 to a man who drank, and ran around with other women. She was luckier than my Grandma in that her parents took her back, married and pregnant, but they told her: You made this bed, you lie in it. Loretta, if you’ve ever read her books, surely did, she was married to an alcoholic her entire life, to the day he died from it. You stayed. She didn’t stay quietly, though. And let it be known in no uncertain terms she wasn’t happy with all the drinking that went on. She was from the same part of the country as Maude, and many times her story parallels Maude’s. Both married young, both dirt poor, both having babies, both husbands drank, both moved away around the depression. And both made do with what they had. They survived, kind of like my Grandma, come to think on it. We had kin in those hills too.

Mostly reading Maude I kept thinking: Maude, you gots to grow some balls. I wonder exactly what the actual Maude would have had to say? Sure, she told the stories, but we’re reading them as written from memory, by a granddaughter. We know what color memories are, for the most part.

I wonder if my perspective is wrong. There’s Maude, just little and she comes home to find her parents dead and the house burned down. She moves in with her sister and pretty much takes care of her sister, the baby and house, until she’s 14 and kin decides she needs to marry the boy down the street. That’s all fine, and Maude finds the one thing I think people are always searching for: someone to love and feel safe with. Sadly for her, he dies, and enter the second husband.

Maude knew what she was doing when she went riding with him. She even says “I don’t know what I was thinking”. She wasn’t all surprised when the town told her she needed to get married. She knew that town, and the town figured young widows needed to be married.

‘Ol George wasn’t evil but there wasn’t much character going on with him, and hard work wasn’t something he cozied up to often. Once he started drinking Maude was pretty much on her own. With all those babies. Babies back then came when they did, and there wasn’t much a poor woman could do about them. Maude didn’t even know just what the heck caused those babies in the first place. After her first, she thought she was dying, and needed to have her womb put back in. Loretta too, I remember asked the doctor for something to stop her from having babies, she had four, before she was 18. My Grandma just had one, and I always wondered if she knew something she wasn’t letting onto. Maude did what she had to, to survive. She even started her own boarding house, and worked until she died. Loretta sang. My Grandma worked in the temple.

Maybe Maude had more balls than I give her credit for.

She worked hard to improve wherever it was she was living. I remember the part where she decides she wants to re-do the bedroom, and doesn’t get my help or validation from George, but stands up and does it anyway. She’s also the one, for a whole lot of the time that is supporting the family. A family where the men all drank. Like Loretta.

I’m thinking about Maude, and Loretta, who both married young and stayed with men who drank, and I’m thinking about my Grandma, who didn’t. I’m thinking about my own Mom who married at 21, had three babies, and then when the fairy tale wasn’t what she expected, started drinking herself. I’m not being entirely fair to my Mom here, because no one sets out to become alcoholic, and it’s harder than you might think to stop. I was surprised as hell when it happened to me.

Maude, Loretta and my Grandma had something in common besides the fact that their men all drank. They lived in a time when society had certain expectations about what women could and could not do. Also about what love was, sure, you could marry for love, but this was that transitional period. It was transitional in that women were marrying for love, but there were women who also had to go out and work. The depression and the wars had a lot to do with that. They were the first women who kind of straddled the line. More than chattel, but less than men, and with far fewer options. They survived, however they could.

Nowadays marriage is a choice. Being part of a couple is a choice. Women make up their own minds about marrying, or not, having babies, or not. Pretty much everyone works and the idea of the stay at home mom is that it’s a choice and a couple is lucky if they have the option of one staying home. Relationships are worked on, and women don’t generally stay in abusive ones. Or the alcoholic ones.

Mostly. I see some that do, at work. And I wonder why. I talked to one today about her options, now that her husband was drinking again, and what she could do. Not something available to Maude. Or Loretta. Or my Grandma.

Maude had balls. She survived.

Intimacy Poisons

This week we talked about Intimacy Poisons, specifically: Alcohol. It could be any drug, though. Remember the PSA from some years ago? About the Elephant in the Room? The whole family was trying to go about their lives and there was this elephant walking around and no one wanted to mention it. But it was there, and creating huge chaos, destroying everything, trumpeting about and killing people in the process.

Ok, so maybe all that didn’t happen in the PSA. It just sort of walked around, but I’m right on the reality of what alcohol or drugs do to a family.

It’s hard for family members to talk about. When you’re a child, you don’t get it. When your a partner of someone going through this it’s uncomfortable, and painful. You can’t much maintain emotional distance. You want to say things like: Why are you doing this to me? Or Can’t you just stop? 

Our lecture talked about 2/3 of adults drinking alcohol, and 1/3 reported drinking causing family problems, and also that 10% of adults meet the criteria for alcohol dependence. It didn’t mention that those 10% buy 90% of all alcohol sold in the US. But it’s true.

I think one of the biggest problems for families dealing with this is that really seriously weird things become normal. The fact that your partner is drinking all the time, or that you need to manage them when you go out because they’ll be too drunk to function, or you have to start deciding when as a couple you’re going to drink. It becomes kind of an Addiction Dance, with one person generally becoming over functioning.

For kids I think it’s that the parent leaves. I don’t mean physically, but emotionally, they aren’t there anymore. And they react in ways that you don’t understand. You get in trouble for things that are either minor, or you don’t understand. Kids pull back emotionally after a while. 

Alcohol dependence, or alcoholism as it used to be called is the only disease people get mad at a person for having. Think about that. I’m looking a lot at myself in this class, and my own fear of intimacy with people. All things that started in childhood. BUT, I am also a big proponent of I’m an adult now, and responsible for my own feelings and emotions and can change. 

On the Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organization site there’s a handy Laundry List of 14 traits Adult Children have in common, generally. It’s pretty interesting, but there’s also a Flip Side of the Laundry List, which as a person in recovery from both family alcohol use AND my own, I really liked. In fact, I wanted to stand up and cheer.

The Flip Side goes like this:

We move out of isolation, and are not unrealistically afraid of people, even authority figures.

We do not depend of others to tell us who we are.

We are not automatically frightened by angry people, and no longer regard personal criticism as a threat.

We do not have a compulsive need to recreate abandonment.

We stop living life as victims.

We do not use enabling as a way to avoid looking at our own shortcomings.

We do not feel guilty when we stand up for ourselves.

We avoid emotional intoxication and choose workable relationships instead of constant upset.

We are able to distinguish love form pity.

We come out of denial about our traumatic childhoods, and regain the ability to feel and express emotions.

We stop judging ourselves and discover a sense of self worth.

We grow independent and are not terrified of abandonment.

We are dealing with out own alcoholic (or para-alcoholic) selves.

We are actors, not reactors.

As I said, this was a flip side Laundry List for ACOA’s, but I think that we can apply this to anyone who is in a relationship with an addicted person. I see it so many times, perhaps especially in women involved with alcoholic men. Men, with alcoholic wives too though, thinking on it. That walking on eggshells, trying to manage the drinking, the wet and dry periods. Also the anger. Also the helplessness.

What do you think? What’s it like being in a relationship with someone on drugs, or who is drinking? Did you grow up that way? Are you now? And remember, you can comment anonymously, please. I know it’s hard. I want to know your experience, sharing mine helps me, and hearing yours helps me more.

Tell me your story.

What Happens When We Fight?

We had a lecture this week on Conflict Resolution within couple relationships. Or anyone, really. And I started thinking about myself (we call it “reflecting” and here in Family Studies Skool we do this ALL THE TIME) and how I handle conflict. It reminded me of something the wise and wonderful Betsy Stemple once said, when we were roommates. She said:

When we fight, you and I, or Adam and I, we’re having a fight about did you take out the trash, or what are you doing, and it it means THAT is what we’re arguing over. It doesn’t mean: Do I love you, do you love me. Growing up in an alcoholic household fights were always about something else, and you never knew exactly what. It’s not like that with normal people. We disagree, we argue. But we still love each other and it’s never going to be about that.

Changed everything for me, I can tell you that. 

I think when one grows up with an alcoholic, conflict is deadly. You never do know exactly what you did wrong, or what the reason people were suddenly angry with you was. There’s a few different ways adult children of alcoholics handle conflict when grown, and if one is lucky, or learns, it’s healthily. We need to learn to think, chill, and laugh. Or to stop, pause, and ask for help.

ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) have a special set of characteristics you can read them all HERE and it’s a pretty interesting list, but for the moment, we’re talking about conflict. ACOA’s avoid conflict like the plague and have a fear of people in authority. Or people who are angry and we really truly, madly and deeply do NOT take criticism well. Sometimes ACOA’s will constantly seek approval of others, and lose themselves in the process. Often, they end up very isolated in a world where no one understands.

Ok, so that was a little dramatic, but you get my point. Go read the other characteristics, bundle of joys I tell you, but the list does go a long way towards explaining a lot of things.

People can end up not very good with conflict for a whole lot of reasons, you know? Being an ACOA doesn’t mean you get to blame your parents for the rest of your life. You can change. It starts with looking at yourself very closely.

There seem to be four basic types of Couples In Conflict (I feel like we need dramatic music here)

The first: Volatiles: They argue, they’re passionate, they seem to have fights all the time and they have totally AMAZING make-up sex. The pour the gasoline on the fire and then put it out.

Then we have the Vailidators: Calm and polite. They use phrases like “I know you’re trying..” and they work at being the others point of view, they work it out.

Moving on, here’s the Avoiders. They seldom argue, they accept differences, or let time work the heck out of the problems.

None of these are bad, just different styles of handling conflict because, hello? It’s going to happen when people get together.

The fourth type of conflict are the Hostiles. They, as my lecture mentioned “Illuminate the Four Horsemen of the Arguing Apocalypse” These would be: Criticism, Illegitimate Demands, Rebuffs and Cumulative Annoyances.

Depending on whom I am arguing (yes, I am going to spend the rest of the day pondering the use of the Who vs Whom) I am all of the first three. Different methods for different situations. I’d like to think I’m no longer Hostile, and that I’m recovered enough to be aware of it when I am. (and to make amends which is another topic entirely)

I can’t comment on how it works in relationships (Cue your job here, folks) but as I am surely PLANNING on being in one, here’s how it would look in Quiche’s perfect work, conflict-wise.

I’d use my I-Statements. Give feedback and seek information from my partner. Focus only on the situation at hand, specifically. And I already know better than thinking I have to “win”. I would think the purpose, in a relationship is to enhance and build up each other, bring you closer to the other person. I mean, you ARE each others person. You’re going to disagree, and how that gets handled is going to determine how things go between you.

I think the biggest thing a person can do, ACOA or otherwise, is to look at themselves first. Not how they’ve been wronged, or what the other’s fault is. No slipping into I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG. I mean, this other person has chosen YOU over all the other people in the world, to be with. That’s huge. And effectively communicating with that person is the greatest gift you can give them in return.

You know, reading this again, I’d date me. Who wouldn’t?

Now, how do you handle conflict in relationships? If you're not in one, want to date me?

Why I want to marry an Alcoholic

In Skool today we had to write a discussion post on "What are YOUR non-negotiables? What are you not willing to budge on when looking for a mate?" And I wrote a post but it was too long and so I thought, hells, let's blog and put it out there. Expand the thing. So, here you go:

I’m pretty flexible. There are quite a few things I’d be willing to compromise on and aren’t deal-breakers. Like race, income level, profession, religion, what the heck you look like, even man vs woman. There are things I’d like in a person, being Spanish speaking would be a bonus, or a writer. I think being with me would require an open mind and a really good sense of humor and a lot of patience. Probably mostly patience, I'm really not good at this, yet, and have no experience. I actually made a list about 6 months ago, which is dangerous, because if you do that, it’s likely your person will show up. It was a long list.

But there is one thing I’m pretty sure is non-negotiable.

I want an alcoholic.

I know. Not something many people consider an asset when looking for a mate. More specifically, I want an alcoholic in recovery. Because that’s what I am and it’s such a huge part of who I am, and it’s not a part that’s going to go away. 

I don’t want to come off sounding like the poster child for AA, but the program works for me. It’s shaped who I am, how I react to the world, and how I try to get along in the world. Mind you there's AA and there's AA and there are meetings and oh dear god there are meetings and not in a good way. If anyone reading this hasn't had a good experience with AA, I'm sorry for that, all I can suggest is try another meeting, find your people. I can promise you: They're there. Also, if you have another way, more power to you, go for it, and fly free. Recovery is unique to every person. This is about me.

We had a part of our lecture where our  Professor talked Projection Dances. Let me give you the short version: Three ways people fuck up relationships. Pursuer/Distancer, Over-functioning/Under-functioning, Submissive/Dominant (don't EVEN go there, or do if you must but keep it to a giggle) I think most people at various times can mess up their relationships, but if I might brag a little: We alcoholics are AWESOME at it.

But she also talked about Transforming Dances. Meaning you can change how you go about things with others. Self focus rather than other focus, naming the pattern, survey the emotional field, what is the fear. I thought listening that, hey, this is right out of AA. It’s what we do every day. Clean up our side of the street and don’t worry about if the other person is right or wrong (Step 9) and going thru naming all the resentments and look for patterns (Step 4) identify ways you control fear by controlling people around you (Step 5) Naming your fears, practicing the opposite (Step 6 and 7 right there) Then the section wound up suggesting with the Serenity Prayer, which AA’s say ALL THE FREAKING TIME. 

There’s a lot more to it, but you get the idea. Being with someone who understands that spirituality (not religion) is the basis of who we are is the most important thing. Someone in the program, in recovery, would get that. My primary purpose is indeed spiritual growth, and I can’t have all the other things I love and value in life if I don’t have that first. I want that in another person.

I think too that having another person in recovery around would be handy as well, for those times I get seriously wrong and off the rails. They wouldn't have to ask, "What the heck is wrong with her?" It's likely they'd know. It's also likely they wouldn't take it personally, but gently (or not so gently) suggest I call my Sponsor or get myself to a meeting.

It’s hard much of the time, and it sucks much of the time, this being alcoholic. And I can tell you for a fact that a person who has had to quit drinking has been through a battle. A person in recovery knows about that battle. And is willing to look at themselves, be honest about themselves, and to be honest with another person. Or at least they are willing (key word there) to wake up every morning and try.

That’s why I want an alcoholic. The kind in recovery.