A little over a year ago I came across a book called ‘5 love languages’ by Gary Chapman. I had heard about it from a few friends but it took me a while to buy it and start reading it. When I got the chance to begin reading it, I was hooked from the first few pages. Why hadn’t I read this before? I asked myself. I felt like I’d been missing out because of my keen interest in how humans interact and communicate.
The book in three sentences
- Everyone speaks in different love languages.
- After years of counselling people in relationships, the author came to the conclusion that the love languages we wish to receive can be simplified to the following 5 love languages: words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, gifts and quality time.
- The author believes that, once you identify and learn to speak the love language of those you love, that is the key to a long lasting relationship, whether it be with friends, family or your significant other.
Some interesting things I got out of the book
- It helps you use introspection to understand the things you love and come naturally to you in the way you express love to others as well as how you most enjoy receiving love.
- You begin to think about and recognize the love languages of those closest to you - this can help you navigate your relationships through the good or turbulent times.
- You realise that for some people, they express love in one way, yet expect it from others in a different way.
- The 5 love languages aren’t necessarily something revolutionary but we should all know them and their purpose which is to bring us together and better understand each others needs.
I decided to ask members of my family what they think their love language is after explaining all 5 to everyone. I encouraged everyone to keep it to themselves so we could guess each one together as a family. I’m pretty sure this was probably the first time they had thought about it. Most of us got each others primary love language pretty spot on which really surprised me, but it just highlighted to me that without even reading the love languages book, my family were able to naturally predict them. I recommend you all do this, it was a funny yet interesting talk and we all learnt something new.
Although it is valuable, having only 5 ways to express and receive love does sound quite limiting. For me, they are the basic categories but I think within each of them there are particular love ‘dialects’ shall we call them, that speaks to the hearts of your loved ones. Whether it’s eating food or cooking together, your loved one making you a lovely cup of tea after a long day, running you a bubble bath or buying you flower, there are so many things you can do to communicate love, you’ve just got to spend time observing and make a bit of an effort to be thoughtful.
Things such as cooperation, loyalty and kindness are also very important and I consider them love languages too. I also think that people who you become very close with, often share the same love language and so, you gravitate towards each other. You may not have the same primary love language but your secondary or tertiary love language will often be similar.
Although many have heard of the 5 love languages, the 5 apology languages aren’t as well known. For any relationship to stand the test of time, you’ve got to be able to communicate your apologies in a way that the person finds fulfilling. All relationships have rocky times but getting in tune with each others primary apology language will really go a long way in helping you both feel listened to, understood, valued as well as ensuring disagreements don’t get dragged out because the apology wasn’t meaningful enough to move forward from the situation. Even the least attentive and not so thoughtful among us can grow to connect the dots when it comes to each others love languages but apologies on the other hand are a little more tricky.
The 5 languages of Apology
- Expressing Regret: Admission of guilt and shame for your actions whilst not forgetting to say ‘I’m sorry’, for some of us even to say sorry is a struggle. Don’t mistake this for ‘I’m sorry you feel this way’ or some variation of that as that is still lacking the admission of guilt and in fact shifts the blame on the other person.
- Accept Responsibility: Admit fault, admit when you are wrong, accept responsibility, be sincere.
- Make Restitution: Pay for wrongdoing through using loved ones preferred love language to establish most effective way to demonstrate sincerity.
- Genuinely Repent: Heartfelt repentance which means verbalising the desire to change and communicating a dedicated plan as to how to change.
- Request Forgiveness: Physically ask for forgiveness.
If perfect communication exists, apologies would be a rarity because such communication means that people would know what their loved ones will be offended by and try their best to avoid doing those things. In reality, perfect communication does not exist so, it’s important to communicate understanding and empathy despite conflict by really listening and trying to see the situation from a their perspective.
It’s likely that you may hear an apology but feel it is missing something and so it falls short of what you need. This is because to you it isn’t the most ‘satisfying’ language to hear, while for them it may be the most significant and natural way they express their apology. The key is to work on understanding this difference and find a solution that works for both involved.
Apology is an important ritual that shows respect and empathy, a lack of a discerning apology can undo a lot of the love, hard work and effort you’ve put into the relationships with your loved ones.
Do not underestimate the power of apology.
