Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married

by Gary Chapman

  In this stage of romantic love, the couple does not have to work on the relationship. They may expend great energy in doing things for each other, but they would not consider it work. They would tend to use the word delight. They feel elated with the opportunity to do something meaningful for the other person. They want to make each other happy and they often do. However, as I indicated in Chapter One, the average life span of this initial stage of romantic love is two years. We do not stay in the euphoric stage of love forever. Actually, this is good because it is difficult to concentrate on anything else when you are in love. If you are in college when you fall in love, your grades will likely decline. Tomorrow you have a test on the War of 1812. Who cares about the War of 1812 when you are in love? Education seems trivial; what matters is being with the person you love. All of us have known individuals who drop out of college and choose to get married because the one they love is moving to a different state and they want to go with them.

  If the obsessive nature of the in love euphoria extended for the next twenty years, few of us would accomplish our educational and vocational potential. Involvement in social issues and philanthropic endeavors would be nil. When we are in love, the rest of the world doesn’t matter. We are totally focused on being with each other and making each other happy.

  Before I got married, no one informed me that there were two stages of romantic love. I knew that I was in love with Karolyn and I anticipated having these feelings toward her for the rest of my life. I knew that she made me happy, and I wanted to do the same for her. When in fact I came down off of the emotional high, I was disillusioned. I remembered the warnings my mother had given me, and I was plagued with the recurring thought, “I have married the wrong person.” I reasoned that if I had married the right person, surely my feelings would not have subsided so quickly after marriage. These were painful thoughts that were hard to shake. Our differences seem so obvious now. Why did I not see them earlier?

  The second stage of romantic love is much more intentional than the first stage.

  The Second Stage of Love

  I wish someone had been there to tell me that what I was thinking and feeling was normal; that in fact, there are two stages to romantic love and I had to make the transition. Unfortunately, no one was there to give me this information. Had I received the information I am about to give to you, it would have saved me from years of marital struggle. What I have discovered is that the second stage of romantic love is much more intentional than the first stage. And, yes, it requires work in order to keep emotional love alive. However, for those who make the effort to transition from Stage One to Stage Two, the rewards are astounding.

  As a young marriage counselor, I began to discover that what makes one person feel loved does not necessarily make another person feel loved; and that when couples come down off the in love emotional high, they often miss each other in their efforts to express love. She says, “I feel like he doesn’t love me,” and he says, “I don’t understand that. I work hard. I keep the car clean. I mow the grass every weekend. I help her around the house. I don’t know what else she would want.” She responds, “He does all those things. He is a hardworking man.” Then with tears in her eyes she says, “But we don’t ever talk.”

  Week after week, I kept hearing similar stories. So I decided to look at the notes I had made when I was counseling couples and ask myself, “When someone said, ‘I feel like my spouse doesn’t love me,’ what were they looking for? What did they want? What were they complaining about?” Their complaints fell into five categories. I later called them the five love languages.

  The dynamics are very similar to spoken languages. Each of us grows up speaking a language with a dialect. I grew up speaking English Southern-style. But everyone has a language and a dialect and that is the one we understand best. The same is true with love. Everyone has a primary love language. One of the five speaks more deeply to us emotionally than the other four. I also discovered that seldom do a husband and wife have the same love language. By nature we tend to speak our own language. Whatever makes us feel loved is what we do for the other person. But if it is not his/her language, it will not mean to them what it means to us. In the illustration above, the husband was speaking the language of acts of service. He was washing the car, mowing the grass, helping her around the house. To him, this is the way you express love. But her love language was quality time. She said, “We don’t ever talk.” What made her feel loved was him giving her his undivided attention talking, sharing life, listening, and communicating. He was sincerely expressing love but it was not in her primary love language.

  The book that grew out of this research is entitled The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts. It has sold over six million copies in English and has been translated into thirty-eight languages around the world. It has helped literally millions of couples learn how to connect with each other and keep emotional love alive. They have made the transition from Stage One to Stage Two. They have learned how to express love effectively.

  Here is a brief summary of the five love languages:

  WORDS OF AFFIRMATION. This language uses words to affirm the other person. “I really appreciate your washing the car. It looks great.” “Thanks for taking out the garbage. You are the greatest.” “You look nice in that outfit.” “I love the fact that you are so optimistic.” “I admire the way you helped your mother.” “Your smile is contagious. Did you see the way everyone seemed to brighten up when you came into the room?” All of these are words of affirmation. Your words may focus on the other person’s personality or the way they look or something they have done for you or for others. To speak this language, you look for things you admire or appreciate about the person and you verbally express your admiration. If a person’s primary love language is words of affirmation, your words will be like rain falling on dry soil. Nothing will speak more deeply of your love than words of affirmation.

  ACTS OF SERVICE. For these people, actions speak louder than words. If you speak words of affirmation to this person such as “I admire you, I appreciate you, I love you,” they will likely think and perhaps say, “If you love me, why don’t you do something to help me around the house?” If acts of service is their primary love language, then washing the car, mowing the grass, helping around the house, and changing the baby’s diaper is precisely what makes them feel loved. The key to loving this person is to find out what things they would like for you to do. Then do them consistently.

  RECEIVING GIFTS. For some people, what makes them feel most loved is to receive a gift. The gift communicates, “He was thinking about me. Look what he got for me.” The best gifts are those that you know will be appreciated. To give her a fishing rod when she does not enjoy fishing will probably not communicate your love very well. How do you find out what the other person would like to receive? You ask questions and you make observations. You observe the comments they make when they receive gifts from other family members. Listen carefully and you will discover the kind of gifts they appreciate most. Also listen to the comments they make when they are looking through a shopping catalog or watching QVC. If they say, “I’d like to have one of those,” make a note of it. You can also overtly ask, “If I wanted to give you a gift, give me a list of things you would like to have.” Better to give a gift that they have requested than to surprise them with a gift they do not desire. Not all gifts need to be expensive. A rose, a candy bar, a card, a book—any of these can communicate love deeply to the person whose love language is receiving gifts.

  QUALITY TIME. Quality time is giving the other person your undivided attention. It is not sitting in the same room watching television. Someone else has your attention. It is being in the same room with the TV off, the magazine on the table, looking at each other, talking and listening. It may also be taking a walk together so long as your purpose is to be with each other, not simply to get exercise. Couples who go to a restaurant and never talk to each other have not spoken the languag
e of quality time. They have simply met their physical need for food. Quality time says, “I’m doing this because I want to be with you.” Whether you are planting a garden together or going on a camping trip, the ultimate purpose is to spend time with each other. For some people, nothing makes them feel more loved than quality time.

  PHYSICAL TOUCH. We have long known the emotional power of physical touch. Research indicates that babies who are touched and cuddled fare better emotionally than babies who spend long periods of time without physical touch. Every culture has appropriate and inappropriate touches between members of the opposite of sex. Appropriate touch is loving. Inappropriate touch is demeaning. To the person whose primary love language is physical touch, nothing speaks more deeply than appropriate touch.

  How to Find Your Love Language

  Here are three approaches to help you discover your own primary love language. First, observe your own behavior. How do you typically express love and appreciation to other people? If you are always patting people on the back or giving them hugs, then your primary language may be physical touch. If you freely give encouraging words to others, then words of affirmation is likely your love language. If you are a gift giver, then perhaps what you desire is receiving gifts. If you enjoy having lunch or taking a walk with a friend, then quality time is probably your love language. If you are always looking for ways to help people, then acts of service may well be your love language. The language you speak is most likely the language you wish to receive.

  Second, what do you complain about? In any human relationship, what is your most common complaint? If you often complain that people don’t help you, then acts of service is likely your language. If you say to a friend, “We don’t ever spend time together,” then you are requesting quality time. If your friend goes on a business trip and you say, “You didn’t bring me anything?” you are revealing that receiving gifts is your primary love language. If you say, “I don’t think you would ever touch me if I didn’t initiate it,” you are saying that physical touch is your love language. If you complain, “I don’t ever do anything right,” your complaint indicates that words of affirmation speak deeply to you. The complaints reveal what you most like to receive from other people.

  Third, what do you request most often? If your friend is leaving on a business trip and you say, “Be sure and bring me a surprise,” you are indicating that gifts are important to you. If you say, “Could we take a walk together this evening?” you are requesting quality time. If you ask for a back rub, you are revealing that physical touch speaks deeply to you. If you often ask people to do things to help you, acts of service is likely your love language. When you ask, “Did I do a good job?” you are requesting words of affirmation.

  Observe how you most often express love and appreciation to others; list your complaints and requests, and you will likely be able to determine your own primary love language. Have your friend answer the same three questions and they can discover their love language. You may also wish to take the free love language quiz available at www.5lovelanguages.com.

  It will be obvious that learning to speak a love language other than your own will take effort. The person who did not grow up receiving words of affirmation may find it difficult to give them. The person who grew up in a family that was not “touchy-feely” will have to learn to speak the language of physical touch. The good news is that all of these languages can be learned and the more you speak them, the easier they become.

  My wife’s love language is acts of service. That’s why I vacuum floors, wash dishes, and take out the garbage. It’s a small price to keep love alive. My language is words of affirmation. That’s why I never leave the house without hearing my wife give me a positive word. Without hesitation, I can say that the emotional depth of our love for each other is far deeper than in those early days when we were swept along by euphoric feelings. Keeping romantic love alive in a marriage requires making a successful transition from Stage One to Stage Two. Learning each other’s primary love language while you are dating will make the transition much easier. That is my desire for you.

  Talking It Over

  What do you think is your primary love language? Why?

  If you are dating, what do you think is the primary love language of your partner?

  Perhaps you would like to take the love languages quiz found at 5lovelanguages.com.

  Discuss how you think this information will enhance your relationship.

  If you have not read The Five Love Languages Singles Edition, you may wish to read it together and discuss its implications in all of your relationships.

  3

  I Wish I Had Known …

  That the saying

  “LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER”

  and “LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON”

  is not a myth

  I am not suggesting that the girl you marry will turn out to be exactly like her mother, nor that the man will be exactly like his father. I am saying that you are both greatly influenced by your parents.

  If he has a father who is controlling and verbally abusive, don’t be surprised if in ten years he has similar traits. To some degree, we are all products of our environment. Research indicates that abusive men were almost always abused as children.1

  You may be asking, “But can’t we learn from their poor example and change our own behavior?” The answer is yes, and the important word is “learn.” If the son of an abuser does not take specific steps to understand abuse—why his father became an abuser, and what he needs to do to break the pattern—then he is likely to repeat it.

  If a girl’s mother is alcoholic, we know that statistically she is more likely to become an alcoholic.2 However, she is not destined to alcoholism. If she takes positive action to understand alcoholism and learns more constructive ways to respond to stress and disappointment, she can break the alcoholic chain. Therefore, in a dating relationship if either of you has a parent with a destructive lifestyle, the responsible action is to enroll in a class, read books, talk with counselors, and discuss with each other what you are learning. Don’t sweep these issues under the rug.

  On the lighter side, look at the physical appearance of your same-sex parent and you are likely looking at yourself twenty years from now. If the father is balding, the son may well look the same in twenty years. If the mother is active and energetic, so will the daughter be.

  Recently, my wife and I spent a week at the beach with our daughter Shelley, her husband John, and our two grandchildren. After breakfast the first morning, we carried our umbrella to the beach. Our son-in-law was on one knee and, with an auger, was boring a hole into the ground so that we could set up the umbrella. With a smile on her face, our daughter dipped her hand in a bucket of water and sprinkled the cold water on her husband’s back. I said to her, “You are illustrating one of the points in my book—‘like mother, like daughter.’ That’s exactly the kind of thing your mother would do.” Later that day as John was leaving to go to the grocery store, Shelley said to us, loud enough for John to hear, “He’s such a wonderful husband.” That too is what her mother has said of me on numerous occasions. While I don’t know about the truthfulness of the statement, I must confess I like to hear it. I have an idea that John feels the same way.

  Most of us are far more like our parents than we realize.

  Whether we are talking about positive or negative characteristics, most of us are far more like our parents than we realize. I remember the young husband who said to me, “I knew that her mother did not wear makeup. She was the product of the ‘hippie generation.’ But I never dreamed that Julia would decide to stop wearing makeup. As long as I’ve known her, she’s worn makeup. We never discussed it while we were dating because I never thought it would be a problem. But now we are having these long discussions about the pros and cons of makeup. I don’t think I’m going to win the argument.”

  Communication patterns are another area in which we tend to be like our parents. For example, if you noti
ce that her mother often interrupts her father when he is talking and corrects the details of his story by saying such things as “No, it wasn’t on Tuesday, it was on Wednesday” or “It wasn’t 2005, it was 2006,” then you can expect the daughter to do the same. Perhaps you have already observed this behavior when you are talking. If this irritates you, now is the time to talk about it. If this pattern is not changed before marriage, it will not automatically change when you do get married.

  “Her mother talks constantly. I feel trapped when I’m in her presence.”

  One young man said, “It scares me to death when I am around her parents. Her mother talks constantly. She hardly takes a breath between sentences. She tells these elaborate stories, giving all the details. I feel trapped when I’m in her presence. There’s no good place to leave the room to get a drink of water. I see a little bit of this in Annie and I’m afraid she’s going to become like her mother. I don’t think I can handle that.” I was thrilled to hear him express this concern while they were still dating. I could tell that Annie did not quite understand what he was saying. So I suggested that the next time he was in the presence of his mother-in-law, he simply record thirty minutes of the conversation.

  Later, when Annie listened to this recording, she realized that her mother seldom asked questions and when she did, she gave the other person only a moment to answer before she jumped back into her flow of words. She now understood how this speech pattern could not only be offensive but actually stifle genuine dialogue.