Connecting with your partner might feel like a complicated puzzle at times. As humans, we give and receive love in varying ways and sometimes what you need to feel loved and how you show love simply doesn’t match up with your partner.
There are 5 different love languages, as articulated by Gary Chapman.
- Physical Touch
- Words of Affirmation
- Gifting
- Acts of Service
- Quality Time
Here is a brief overview of each love language.
Physical Touch
Connection through holding hands, kissing, touching, cuddling, being physically connected to their partner is how they best express and receive love.
This physical touch can pour over into sexual connection, but having sex isn’t enough - the physical touch is needed before and after sex to express love and gratitude.
Words of Affirmation
These people feel most connected by communicating their love and appreciation, thank you, you’re attractive to me, I’m proud of you etc. These people feel seen, loved and supported when they receive this verbal feedback.
Gifting
The act of giving gifts to their loved ones is how they express their love, be it flowers, a thoughtful trinket. They put a lot of thought into buying gifts and take the responsibility very seriously. When they receive gifts, no matter how big or small, they feel appreciated and loved.
Acts of Service
Doing things without being asked. Cooking dinner, hanging the laundry, helping with the housework, giving a massage without expectation, fixing something. These acts of service will help the receiver feel so relaxed.
Quality time
For these people, spending time together is so important and they can feel really disconnected and unloved when the other person doesn’t prioritise this time enough, perhaps they work long hours or spend time doing things on the weekends that aren’t “together”. Lunch and dinner dates, walks, watching a movie together and conversations are of high priority here for them to feel a connection.
Which love language do you resonate most with?
It’s very normal for you to fall into more than one of these categories. Learning to communicate these needs with your partner will amplify your relationship and sex life because you’re both getting what you need to feel loved. Let’s discuss how this can impact your sex life.
If your primary love language is Words of Affirmation, you will need your partner to tell you nice things in order for you to feel connected to them and loved by them. Things like “Thanks for dinner babe, that was delicious” or “You look beautiful”.
But if your partner's primary love language is physical touch, they will express their love for you through cuddles, kissing, touching. And while this is nice, it won’t fill your cup in the way it would to be told how they feel.
So just with this one example you can likely see how this can lead to a disruption in your sex life, you may feel like your partner is always trying to come on to you when they touch you but the reality is they are just trying to show you love and affection because thats the way they communicate and express their love.
Just like your partner might feel like you’re always telling them nice things because you want something - when in reality, that’s just how you communicate and express your love.
Understanding each other’s love language is an important part of growing together as a couple as messages no longer get misconstrued and you both know what you need from each other to feel connected and worshipped. This naturally leads to a better sex life because you’re both giving and receiving love in the ways that feel amazing for you.
- Y
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