Let’s Discuss: “Does Your Love Language Really Matter?”
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When readers have discussed love languages in the comments over the years, we've definitely seen a split. Most who have mentioned them recommend using the concept within a relationship to help understand each other better. Others say the concept of five love languages has dubious origins or that it can be weaponized within relationships.
A Washington Post story [gift link] in this week's Brain Matters column has an attention-grabbing headline: “Does your ‘love language’ really matter? Scientists are skeptical.” It was written by a neuroscientist turned science journalist, so it definitely has more of a factual focus than most articles about the topic.
So, let's discuss! (We've talked about askers vs. guessers in the context of gift-giving before, as well as relationships in general, dating, marriage, and divorce, but never love languages.)
First off, though, in case not everyone is familiar with the love languages philosophy, here's a rundown. Gary Chapman, a Baptist pastor who had counseled couples for years (though not as a therapist), published The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts in 1992. It has sold more than 20 million copies.
Chapman wrote that each of us has a primary and secondary love language and that partners need to learn each other's languages and act accordingly. (If you're interested, here's the quiz to discover yours.)
Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post story:
This month, a paper published in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science reviewed the scientific literature and concluded that core assumptions about love languages stand upon shaky ground unsupported by empirical evidence.
The article shares the researchers' findings: (1) “People don’t really have a primary love language.” (2) “There are more than five love languages.” (3) “Sharing the same love language may not improve your relationship.” (Note: The book emphasizes identifying each other's love language and learning to “speak” it, not that partners need to share one.)
A few more excerpts are below:
One key concern about love language advice is that it could be interpreted as suggesting the unhappy partner change or compromise their own needs rather than finding common ground.
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John Gottman, one of the pioneers of scientific relationship research, is also skeptical that learning your partner’s love language is a key to relationship happiness. “My general conclusion is that these dimensions are not very distinct conceptually, nor are they very important in terms of accounting for variation in marital happiness and sexual satisfaction,”
* * *
[Psychologist Emily] Impett said she hopes the research challenging love languages can start “conversations between partners about the importance of all kinds of needs, maybe opens up conversation of there being other idiosyncratic needs that people have in relationships.”
Readers, do tell! Do you think the love languages concept can be helpful in relationships? Has it improved your own? Have you read the book?
Stock photo via Stencil.
It’s a way for men to demand sex whole wanting credit for loving women for meeting basic common decency requirements.
wow. this post has a lot of other stuff behind it.
Cynical and probably accurate.
The original book definitely uses “physical touch” as a euphemism and ONLY gives examples of it being a man’s love language.
Yeah it’s a gross religious fundie thing so men can be sh*tty to their partners.
IME, the issue isn’t love languages; the issue is respecting what is important to your partner. When you put yourself in the position of requiring your partner to justify their wants and needs, you are putting them in the position of a child and yourself as a parent. “Okay little Avery, tell me why you think you really need a designer purse instead of the one from TJ Maxx” is remarkably similar to “Wife, why do you need foreplay/me to buy you a gift on your birthday/whatever else it is?”.
The problem with the Love Languages book is that it provides a justification for something that should just *be.* If your spouse melts when being touched, touch your spouse! Don’t make your spouse point to ch. 7, pg. 153, to justify why she likes being touched. If you know your spouse feels hurt when you don’t buy him a birthday present, why do you need a book to tell you that it’s his special little quirk? Maybe just swing by Total Wine for a bottle of nice scotch and know that a simple action brought happiness to someone you love, instead of becoming a source of contention in your marriage
Which is to say, Love Languages isn’t really challenging the rotten foundation upon which a lot of bad marriage attitudes rest. I flinch every time I hear someone say “It hurts that DH doesn’t get me anything on my birthday, because gifts are my love language.” That entire second clause is unnecessary.
(Anyone want to guess the #1 reason my marriage is imploding? That’s right, I feel like I need primary sources, a bibliography, and footnotes to explain why I want things that I want.)
I feel like this is one of these things where in hindsight, you go like, duh, obviously different people respond to different ways of showing appreciation!
But I think it was someone here who mentioned the concept some years back, and I hadn’t heard about it, and it made me see this dynamic more clearly when before it was something going on more subconsciously. It helped me put words to it, which then makes it easier to discuss with people in your life who are not mind readers. It’s not about justifying something for me, but just naming it in the first place.
Agreed. It’s an idea, a concept, a framework for understanding. No, it’s not perfect. But what is?
Your phrase about needing primary sources and a bibliography to explain why you want things hits home.
My father used to do this. I could never dislike something without undergoing a small inquisition: “Why don’t you like it?” “Why does it bother you?” “Can’t you just ignore it instead of letting it bother you?” “You should just make yourself like it.” “It’s just for a few hours, go up to your room until it’s over.” No justification was ever sufficient because it call came from within me and that meant it wasn’t important.
It’s exhausting, isn’t it?
Other posters are more succinct: it’s good to treat someone the way they want to be treated. If something makes your spouse happy, then just do it (provided it isn’t onerous, demeaning, a strain on the family budget, etc.). I get squeamish about someone needing to put their wants into a pre-approved bucket before it’s legitimate.
My father was like this too. He needed to gatekeep and control the feelings and likes/dislikes of everyone.
It was exhausting.
No one should have to justify or label their preferences. They should just be allowed to have them.
Any time I take a quiz for this it says I am evenly spread across all of these love languages. My husband decided long ago that Acts of Service is my main love language. This is fine, but it backfires because he thinks that doing something he considers to be an act of service should be a huge turn-on for me, and it just is not. This has been the source of many conflicts in our relationship, and I really wish he had never encountered this idea of love languages.
I also really wish people would understand that the concept of learning what your partner finds meaningful is great, but forcing labels on them and confining them to one or two of these boxes forever is detrimental.
I agree that you have to give yourself and your partner room to grow. When we were in the middle of raising young kids, acts of service counted a LOT for me and tended to push out some of the others. Quality time has been a throughline for me. DH has always been a physical touch person and no, that doesn’t mean s3x all the time. He wants physical affection and cuddles and holding hands. Gifts rank low on the list for both of us.
I think it can be a useful tool for understanding yourself and your partner, but I don’t think it should be used to box people in.
I put love languages in the same box that I put horoscopes and crystal healing.
I feel like what it comes down to is that the golden rule is easy to misapply. Don’t do for others what you would have them do for you; people are different.
Sometimes people really need to be whacked over the head with the idea that not everyone wants what they want though!
In my experience the people who “really need to be whacked over the head” are making a choice to treat people the way they do and aren’t going to suddenly change because someone shows them a 30 year old book written by a Baptist preacher.
That’s not my observation. I’ve seen people change.
Protestantism is a hell of a drug in my opinion and the expectation for conformity is intense. If there’s church sanctioned tolerance towards a little difference, people can and do act on it.
It’s like when a supervisor learns about “introverts” and all of a sudden stops viewing their extraverted staff as inherently superior employees or their introverted staff as deviant and suspect. It’s ridiculous, but it does happen and has real consequences even when their understanding is at a pop psychology level.
People who want to change absolutely can.
I grew up in a protestant sect and that is where my experience comes from. In mine the people who most needed that whack on head were the ones who were the least receptive to it.
I’m glad your experience was different.
Same. I keep all personality tests in this box too.
Yes, those too.
I don’t know if it’s science but I think there is a lot that’s valid about the idea of love languages and certainly don’t all relationships improve if you are actively thinking about meeting someone’s needs? I don’t put a lot of stock in gifts but it means a lot to me when someone spends time and energy on me (“act of service” in love language speak). I don’t think the book or its followers suggest that these 5 are the only “boxes” or that they are the only thing necessary for a happy relationship…. and regard to the comment about what should just “be” congratulations if your romantic relationship is so symbiotic that nothing needs to be said….
Actively thinking about someone’s needs doesn’t require a book, though.
of course. and you can exercise without a trainer and diet without following a set plan but that doesn’t mean these plans are useless and a fraud.
And yet, some of the plans *are* useless and a fraud.
i agree with your take. i also think the general framework is useful for other relationships as well – my kids, etc. and goes along with the idea of that you should treat people the way that they want to be treated.
I think it matters that you’re reasonably compatible. I would deeply resent being with someone who wanted me to frequently give gifts (which I think are mostly dumb and wasteful- if you’re an adult, you can buy the things you want yourself and do a better job than I will) and I actually broke up with the guy I dated for a long time before my husband in large part because he wanted more touch than I was comfortable giving. On the flip side, two of the biggest reasons that I’m happy in my marriage is that we spend almost all of our free time happily together and constantly do things to make life easier for one another, so quality time and acts of service are obviously important to both of us.
We’ve had discussions on here about people who insist on giving unwanted gifts because it’s their “love language.” That’s some special form of tyranny and not an excuse to treat other people in any way you please because it’s your own preference to do so.
Yes, I should add that I don’t especially enjoy receiving gifts either, so I also wouldn’t do well with someone who wanted to spend our joint budget on a lot of gifts I don’t want!
Yeah, it’s about the other person, not what you want all the time! I’m going to be honest the gifts people kind of annoy me more than any of the others.
I don’t think that the book (or even the author) meant for the Five Love Languages to be the only component of one’s personal/marital relations. I think it was just meant to be one tool in a toolbox to effectively communicate things that were common problems in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I do think that times and people have changed. So, ir is easy for people to point out the flaws of this book. However, I think this book was a helpful stepping stone for relationships to evolve into spaces of open communication and equality.
Although I understand why the actual book is problematic (even with the recent revisions), I think the idea of love languages is helpful, if nothing else, as a self-exercise to understand the ways in which you feel love and demonstrate love (which are not always the same!) I think it can also help resolve some misunderstandings/miscommunications between couples where you are trying to show them love in a way that is not meaningful to them/vice versa. To me, it is just another tool in the secure relationship arsenal. I will also say that compatibility is crucial. My number one love language is touch (which is NOT just sex) – I deeply believe that I am hardwired this way. I was with someone for a long time who was not only not physically affectionate, but also did not really like being touched, and it was an absolute mismatch where we both were extremely unhappy. Now being with someone who understands and more naturally meets that need is so much better in all ways.
It’s accurate and important for us as a couple. My husband is an acts of service guy, and I’m a blend of acts of service and quality time. It helped me understand why I had a full-on blubbering meltdown while we were dating over the fact that he wouldn’t stay at my place past noon on a Sunday to hang a bamboo blind in my kitchen. (Not proud of the blubbering, but it turns out that, in that awkward “I’ve already fallen in love with you, what’s taking you so long to get there??” stage of a relationship, I needed the affirmation provided by him giving up some of his laundry-and-groceries Sunday afternoon time to do something for me. The light bulb that went on for both of us after understanding that I was both service and time…!) We frequently speak in terms of our buckets being empty or full and we joke now about whether or not something is a “bamboo blind need” – meaning that deep-seated, I NEED this kind of need. We both really appreciate knowing how to show the other we care. For us, the Love Languages have been really useful.