The 6th & 7th Love Languages
Why the biggest lesson in Gary Chapman's book isn't actually about love
Here’s a challenge: Go tell your spouse, or kid, or friend, or parent, or whoever you want that you love them. But say it in Chinese (wor-eye-nee). If this person speaks Chinese, pick a different language. Pick one they don’t speak. Russian or Italian or something. No hand gestures, either. Tell them you love them just like you do when you say goodbye for the day. Notice their reaction.
They’re confused. They don’t get it. They might even raise an eyebrow, like they’re trying to figure out if you’re on drugs or not. Maybe they sort of understand what you’re trying to communicate, but they don’t fully get it. Message sent won’t equal message received.
Every now and then a book or an idea will come along and fundamentally change my understanding of something I previously believed I knew completely. Usually these things strike me as so obvious at the time, I feel foolish for not having thought about it that way my whole life. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman did that for me. I finished the book in two days, and it gave me a completely different way to think about how people say I love you.
I’m adding 2 languages
Dr. Chapman certainly doesn’t get everything right. I suspect the entire country of Italy, from the southern heel of the boot to the mountains in the north takes umbrage with the exclusion of the most obvious sixth love language. And the Italians would be in good company. Grandmothers everywhere, and anyone with a chef’s knife tattooed down their inner forearm would lock arms with them. Because food is obviously the sixth love language. Dr. Chapman left that one out. He also left out punching your brother in the crotch, which my seven-year-old (a second born!) seems convinced should be on the list. I suppose Dr. Chapman would classify it under physical touch, but I don’t recall any passages addressing nut punching. I don’t think that’s what he had in mind.
Regardless, I won’t give him too much grief because he gets enough right. He gave me a framework, and perhaps more importantly, language to understand my relationships better. I understand why my wife, who treasures acts of service, appreciates the coffee I make for her every morning so much. It’s not just coffee, either.
Early in our courtship, I changed her oil. No big deal for me, but she reacted like I found the holy grail and put it in the glove box of her early 90s Toyota Corolla. In fact, I’m fairly convinced we made it to the altar because I 1) Changed her oil, 2) Drove her home like twice per week, and 3) Had a Jeep (not an act of service, but it really amplified point #2). The lens I see these little things through has gotten clearer because of The Five Love Languages, and that’s helpful.
Name it to tame it
The language, though. I have to come back to it because it’s so important. Over and over again, I’ve heard therapists say, “Name it to tame it,” as a way to transform amorphous and abstract feelings into something tangible. If something has a name, it means we can communicate it to others, and it tells us we’re not alone.
Early in my sobriety, I believe my third AA meeting ever, I sat in a plastic folding chair and listened to a man much older than me explain how he felt so foolish for the inability to stop a drinking session after one or two beers. I had never met this man before in my life nor heard anyone use the words he used. The only place I had heard those words before was in my head, and in the span of three minutes I felt more seen by him than I had felt from people I’d known for years.
When I went through my cancer treatment, I listened to a guy tell a story about injuring his arm in a ski accident. It healed, but years later he developed bone cancer in the same arm. Nearly the same thing happened to me. This type of cancer only affects about 1,200 people per year. It makes up 0.05% of cancer diagnoses every year. It rarely happens, and this guy’s story made me feel like it was normal.
Before my son (not my nut-puncher, the punchie) received his neurodivergent diagnosis, we felt lost. We knew something was up, but we didn’t know what. The school didn’t know what, and they weren’t able to act until we had a diagnosis. A name. Naming the behaviors he struggled with didn’t change them at all. He was the same kid the day after as he was the day before (and as he is today, really). But the name gave us a game plan, and simply knowing we could act gave me relief. It opened conversations with other parents dealing with similar issues. We weren’t alone anymore.
I used to feel crazy and a little selfish for constantly searching for opportunities to steal a moment here and there where my wife and I could share a quiet moment with each other. The Five Love Languages gave me the term “quality time,” and it suddenly made sense. It allowed me to embrace it, accept it, and ask for it without guilt. Language has an incredible power to bring people together, and not just in romantic, familial, parental, or friendly relationships.
A double gate
In order to realize its full power, though, it has to pass through two gates. First, I have a core belief that most conflict stems from miscommunication, not malice. Often miscommunication occurs because we haven’t sorted out our own feelings or thoughts. We have to understand ourselves if we ever hope someone else will understand us. That’s a conversation for another time, and one I’ve written about before. Now, though, I’m focusing more and more on delivering my messages in a way other people will understand. Even if you know exactly how you feel, what you want, and why you want it, you’re unlikely to get it if you cannot deliver your message in a style (or language) the other person understands. This makes effective communication tricky.
If we flipped things around, and my wife made coffee for me, I’d appreciate it. But not as much as she appreciates it. We’d lose something in the translation. She’d be saying “wor-eye-nee” and I’d be saying, “huh?” It’s why the biggest lesson in The Five Love Languages has nothing to do with Acts of Service, Gifts, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, or Quality Time (or food and crotch punching if you buy into the sixth and seventh languages). None of it matters unless you consider your audience.
If I showered my wife with gifts, she wouldn’t feel love. She might leave me for spending all of our money. My friends want me to say nice things to them and hang out, not change their oil. I’m not going to tell my Mom I love her by complimenting her skills with dogs. It’ll come because I call her and talk to her every week (or just about). My kids need it all. I think most kids need every love language (except nut-punching. Don’t punch your kids in the crotch).
Sometimes you just say stuff
I fumble this all the time when I move too fast. And I move too fast a lot. I look for shorthand, try to drive towards a point I think I understand completely, and forget the people I’m conversing with or writing for may need me to slow down. They may need a little more context, an example, or a story that illustrates my point.
It’s the most common feedback I get from my editor: Slow down. Explain this more. Give the reader more building blocks.
No matter which role a communicator’s filling in any moment, father, friend, son, husband, co-worker, and even stranger, it’s a big and often exhausting responsibility. More and more, though, I’m finding it worth the effort because otherwise I’m just saying stuff to say stuff. That’s not so bad, depending on the setting.
I write about my wife a lot because she’s really smart. She shared a scene from something she read online. This is terribly sourced, I understand. This guy shared a story about a time he realized his dad was full of shit about something completely innocuous. Like, as a kid, he asked why clouds are white. Parents get these kinds of questions all the time. The dad has no idea why the clouds are white, so he makes it up. The made-up fact becomes actual fact to the kid. When the kid finds out he’s believed a lie for decades, he’s pissed. Why would dad lie to me? He confronts his dad about it. “Why would you make stuff like that up?”
The dad replies with something so tender, “I just wanted to keep the conversation going. Sometimes as a parent you just say stuff.” And I find that beautiful (and true!). Sometimes we say stuff just to keep conversations going, and I’m cool with that because we do have times where the content of the conversation matters much less than the fact there’s a conversation at all.
Those times aside, if I’m saying stuff just to say stuff, I have a place for that. I can put it down in my journal to work through it. When I want others to understand me, I must take the responsibility upon myself to not just understand my thought, but to consider how my audience needs to hear the message. Sometimes it’s with a cup of coffee, other times it’s by telling my boy he’s going to crush it at work, and it requires a wrestling match every now and then with my kids.
When I’m ghostwriting for a client, I have to put myself in two minds: my client’s and their audience’s. It’s a strange place to be. But it also reinforces that it’s not enough to get an idea right. You also have to think about how it’s going to get heard.
P.S. My audiobook, No Silver Bullets, is now live on audible. Get it here.
OR You could read it the good, old fashioned way. Order here.
Enjoyed this Troy.
Sounds like your boys would enjoy a spirited game of Nerf Crotch Bat.