Book Critique: The 5 Love Languages

The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman

Summary

Learn to communicate your love in a language your spouse can understand. Chapman’s main message is that each person has one or two methods, or “languages,” for expressing love:

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Receiving Gifts
4. Acts of Service
5. Physical Touch

Often couples fail to convey their love effectively simply because they do not know each other's love language. For example, a husband might be doing “Acts of Service” for his wife to show that he loves her, because this is how he believes a person expresses love. But if her language is “Words of Affirmation,” then she is waiting for him to tell her he loves her, so she doesn’t notice the acts of service.

Chapman asserts that these love languages are as different as English and Chinese. When a couple is newly in love, their “love tank” is kept full with the emotional, adrenaline rush of it all. But later, their lack of awareness about their unique love languages emerges. That’s when the arguing begins and their feelings of love for each other decline, which eventually empties their “love tank.”
Married couples do not need to possess matching languages to be happy, but they do need to know how to speak their partner’s language is in order to successfully convey their love. Certain languages may feel unnatural, even foreign to a spouse, but the author believes that if a husband conveys love in the “correct” language, his wife will readily recognize when he is expressing his love.

The Sigma Male's Take

I don’t disagree with this concept, because learning effective ways to convey love certainly has merit. However, correcting this form of communication will not fix most relationships. At the end of the day, even when a person believes that their spouse truly loves them they still find themselves arguing and fighting. Again, the author misses the true root of the problem.

It doesn't matter which love language a man speaks. If he is failing to fill the most critical role of all, his wife will misunderstand what he says.

I believe there is only one love language: Protection.

If a man is not fluent in Protection, each of the 5 languages can be misinterpreted.

Think of Protection as the Rosetta stone of relationships. When a man learns how to protect his wife completely, she will interpret all 5 love languages correctly.

I wish all foreign languages could be learned that easily.