I've never been an expert in relationships, to tell you the truth they all miserably failed without me understanding why each time. On my last true relationship, 2 years ago, after it failed once again, i decided to find out why at any cost after i've lost the best girl i ever had. I bought a lot of books about relationships and love, i've read a lot of material on this subject and i found out what i would call the ultimate truth.
At first i was very naive, i just thought that you could love anyone and that anyone could love you, just like that. That if you were "good" with that person, that person would be good in return with you. But this is not how things work in real life. And it cost me a lot of emotional pain, nerves and money to find it out.
First choose carefully the pretendants to your heart
I then imposed a set of rules to myself to preselect potential girlfriends instead of just falling in love with any nice girl out there. I believe each of us has different "rules", so make a realistic list of what you would like to see in your partner and don't settle down until you find it. But don't make the mistake to try to look out for someone perfect, that someone doesn't exist.
An example of those rules could be : She is younger than me, she doesn't ask me for money, she's an active woman who do something with her life, she is attracted to me, etc.
Ok, so now what ? This is not a revolution...
I'm getting to it, because me i was at the lowest level possible of naiveness in the world i had to write down the rules to find a suitable girlfriend and stick to it, the second step after you've found someone corresponding your personal criteria is to find what her/his love language is. You may not have any idea of what i'm talking about, and this is the ultimate truth that i've discovered in this book. Without this your relationship wont last, it's very important that you understand the concept of the 5 love languages.
The 5 love languages
The book is : http://www.5lovelanguages.com/
It has been written by Gary Chapman : http://www.5lovelanguages.com/about/gary-chapman/
In his book Gary exposes his findings in love counselling, he studied carefully what is love and how to "speak" love to each other. And he found out that love doesn't mean the same thing for all of us. Each one of us has different love languages, one is the principal and the others are secondary.
Johan, blogging from Bangkok browsing the website of Gary Chapman
How does this 5 love languages work
If you lack love in your principal love language, you will feel unloved by your partner. And the same goes for your partner, if you don't speak her/his love language, she/he will feel unloved by you and your relationship will end or you will be living in hell.
These are the 5 love languages :
- gifts,
- quality time,
- words of affirmation,
- acts of service (devotion),
- and physical touch (intimacy).
Gifts
Believe it or not, in some cultures gift giving is the most important love language, for example in Thailand where i live. Anyone could be in this love language as primary love language, even americans or europeans. What does it mean ? Someone who's love language is gift giving or receiving will expect gifts from you, if you don't regularly give gifts, that person will not feel loved by you. Even if you spend time with her/him or tell her/him that you love her/him.
Quality time
For some people (like me) quality time is the most important love language, for me someone who spends time with me is the most important thing. I don't care about anything else. But for some people this is their last concern. I personally can't understand those people who don't want to spend time with their loved ones, but they are out there, a lot of them. If you are like this it's important to find someone compatible with this love language, because people who are not interested in quality time they won't like to spend any time with you, even if they love you. I've seen it with my own eyes.
Words of affirmation
For some people words are the most powerful love language, they like to hear things like "I love you", "You are beautiful this morning", "I feel so lucky to be with you". I'm personally not that kind of person, in 10 years i may say 1 time "i love you", but that doesn't mean that i don't love my partner, it's just that this is the last of my concerns in my love languages priority list. Again, if you like to hear stuff like this, you may want to find someone compatible with you or you will feel unloved.
Acts of service (devotion)
For some people acts of service are their primary love language, what does that mean ? They would like you to do things for them. For example a wife who would make food for her husband and clean the house. People who respond to this love language love to see their loved ones do "acts of service" for them. If this is your case, i believe you should find someone compatible with this love language, i'm totally at the opposite of it for example, i hate doing things around the house and i really don't care if my girlfriend clean or cook, for me, it's mean nothing to me.
Physical touch (intimacy)
For other people the most important thing is to be touched, sometimes just the feeling of your hand on his/her shoulder is enough for that person to feel loved. If you are someone who hate to be touched and only do it on marital duty, try to look for a partner who's primary language is not touch or you will be living the worst relationship you ever had.
Important note
Someone who's primary language is something as a giver doesn't mean that he will expect the same thing in return, example :
Mike primary language as a receiver may be acts of service but as a giver it may be words of affirmation. Mike's like you to do stuff for him while he says that he loves you.
Rachel primary language as a receiver may be gifts receiving but as a giver it may be acts of service. Rachel wants to receive gifts (in some culture money is also a gift) and she wants to be at your service.
The only primary love language that is fully compatible with each other is Quality time, because it's mean that you both want to spend time together. That's mine by the way.
I hope that i've helped you, there is a lot of my personal comments in this article. You can read the book if you need to understand a little bit more this concept. But i believe this to be the ultimate truth about love, and since i know this, my love life is much much better. Everyone who i talked about this book and this love language concept changed his view of love and relationships.
End word
If you are in a relationship go and find out what her/his love language is, then try to adapt to it and see how your relationship gets much better. If your partner doesn't understand what is your love language make him/her understand, send him/her a link to this article or buy him/her the book.
I wish you all happy relationships and tons of love.