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Five Love Languages

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I've been wanting to start this discussion for awhile as I find the concept of 5 love languages to be fascinating. (There is a post in the book club forum about one of the 5 Love Languages books, but you don't need to have read the book in order to join in this discussion, so I figured I'd post this as well.)

The general concept is that there are 5 general ways in which we best feel loved, and conversely, there are 5 general ways in which we best express love to others. The way we feel most loved is oftentimes not the way we most readily express our love of others. I know that mine are different.

The five love languages are...

1) Words of Affirmation (ie saying "I love you")
2) Acts of Service (ie doing things for other people)
3) Giving/Receiving Gifts
4) Quality Time (ie spending time with those you care about)
5) Physical Touch (ie hugging, kissing, sexual contact, etc)


My personal order of how I feel love is...

1) Quality Time...By far & away, this is the best way I feel loved. If you care about me, you'll spend time with me.
2) Acts of Service...I am quite appreciative of any time someone does something to help me.
3) Receiving Gifts...I am neutral on this one. Receiving an occasional gift is nice, otherwise, gifts mean little to me.
4) Physical Touch...Perhaps an anti-love language. Half the time when I'm touched I want to come out swinging.
5) Words of Affirmation...DEFINITELY an anti-love language. Hearing "I love you" makes me want to throw up.


My personal order of how I express love is...

1) Quality Time...I try to give as much time to those I love, but anxiety issues get in the way much of the time
2) Giving Gifts...Nothing grand, usually its a small token of my appreciation, or a simple "thinking of you" gift
3) Physical Touch...I like to touch others (hugging) as a way of saying I care. This contrasts with the above list.
4) Acts of Service...Neutral on this one. I don't mind doing things for others, but not my first choice for expressing love
5) Words of Affirmation...again, DEFINITELY an anti-love language. Saying "I love you" feels manipulative.

So for me, time is the most important in giving and receiving love. I think that it's interesting that I love to give gifts but don't feel love when someone gives a gift to me. I know that touching is an issue for me as when it's initiated by someone else I feel violated and used, yet I love to express physical affection with others if I am the one to initiate. But, the most problematic area is definitely words of affirmation. Hearing "I love you" makes me want to throw up. Literally, I want to throw up. My mom says it at the end of every phone call and it just makes me sick to hear it. I feel that it's a manipulation tactic. I hate hearing it, and I've told her that I hate hearing it, but she says "I'm free to say whatever I want". Ok, fair enough, but she doesn't say it because she means it. I never heard those three words growing up when they counted the most. And conversely, I can't say "I love you" to anyone else because it feels manipulative. To me, words of affirmation aren't said for any purpose but manipulation....well, when they're said to humans. God knows that you can't manipulate animals by telling them you love them!

Figuring out the order of my love languages has really helped me, and I thought that it could help others as well. Now I can identify where my problem areas are and what I need to work on. Does anyone else want to share what their love languages are?
 
Physical contact is at the top of my list for receiving and giving love. As a child I had no physical contact that was not awful, so I distrust it in others, I hate being touched accidentally or casually - in short, I have major issues. When it comes to showing love, I am extremely affectionate towards my daughter, but simply can't touch other human beings.

Spending time is next on the list. I'm not at all sure about the others. I guess I've never made a connection between them and love.
 
There is an online quiz you can take at www.5lovelanguages.com For me it wasn't completely accurate as it is the sort of quiz that will pose 2 scenarios and ask which one is more appealing. For a number of them I thought "ICK, I hate both of these options!" and had to chose the lesser of 2 evils. But, it did show that I had a very high score for spending time with others and acts of service. The last 3 were a bit wonky, as I attribute it to the setup of the quiz itself.
 
My personal order of how I feel love is...

1) None of the below! It's probably just knowing that someone cares by giving me room to be myself (Mum & Sisters).
2) Quality Time is probably my first on this list, even when stress is too much - at the lowest end, someone just watching telly with me is nice and if even that's too much it falls back to #1. I need space but I know people care when I can handle them back.
3) Words of Affirmation, whilst bold statements like I love you or you're beautiful disgust me, someone liking something I like/have made and saying so or gentle reassurances make me feel more comfortable. Also I can tolerate some statements in sarcasm from people I know well - my sister frequently greets me "Hey sexy", I know she doesn't mean that literally but I like her humour it amuses me (if ANYONE else did this I would freak out though!). I also find it difficult to believe that people are saying the truth about their personal opinions of me and often the more someone likes me the less I trust them.
4) Acts of service, I am very grateful that people help me with things, however it often causes me to second guess their motives, also I feel indebted to them if it's genuine. I have to work on accepting little things as not being huge for me and that I'm worthy of these things (though that sentiment makes me squirmy).
5) Receiving Gifts (or payment for a job) makes me incredibly uncomfortable to the point of sickness and panic on every level, the reason behind the gift, not being worthy of the gift, indebted to the person who gave it. Even when I have earned payment for a job, I feel wrong accepting a kind gesture or payment. However I am much better at accepting small gifts from close family now (my mum bought me a 4 pack of Bounty's that were on special offer, for clearing the garden of sewage when we had a pipe blockage the other week and I only felt quite guilty when she picked it up, when she paid for them,when I ate them and for two days after (I also gave some away to alleviate my guilt)! That's actually not an exaggeration :confused:)
6) Physical Touch. I hate physical touch, it feels like a punishment at best. It scares me. I fear the motive behind it and the actual vulnerability I'm in during the touch, I lowers my trust for people. It makes me feel sick and trapped. It's wrong for me on every level. The only person I have lapses in this with is my aforementioned sister.

My personal order of how I express love is...

1) Acts of service, I am happy to give up my time to help others and do so regardless of my ability to give them or at the sake of my own health. The only exception is when I am in isolation where I practically don't exist to the world or to myself.
2) Quality Time, along with acts of service is something I give freely as I don't work and have the time to give.
3) Giving gifts, I love to give gifts, whether small or big, I like making others happy.
4) Words of Affirmation, I find a little uncomfortable to give and feel that I might be lying or have an ulterior motive but I can usually reason that out. I also feel uncomfortable is some situations where people seek reassurance (though not all, I think it's people rather than circumstance though) and often give political answers safe from every angle but not really answering.
5) Physical Touch, I do this because I know other people like it and as a gesture, for me it's a big gesture.

This is a very interesting thread and is useful to assess my own behaviours, I shall take this to therapy. Thanks for posting :D

Edited to add for therapy as example of receiving praise negatively:
Sister just said thanks to me cooking for her and helping her with stuff and all I could think was, I'm sorry and felt bad for it. I recognise this is wrong! :)
 
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Interesting. I actually have this book somewhere but I never got around to reading it.

I scored:
1) Physical Touch. As an adult I love to hug and show my love to my partner, friends and family through touch and I love to receive the same. As an older child/teen however I was generally very hesitant/uncomfortable with any touch and it's only in the last few years that this has really blossomed as my main love language. Likely connected to my own healing I'm pretty sure.
2) Quality Time. Almost equal with touch. I really feel valued when others spend time with me and it's a major way I express my love, too.
3) Words of Affirmation. Yep, I'm big on the 'I love you' and telling people how much I appreciate them (that is if I pluck up the courage to tell them to their face. Getting better at this, though. I still find it easier to write loving words). Also love to receive the same.
4) Acts of Service
5) Receiving Gifts. This last one is interesting. I love making homemade gifts like crafty things and food for others as an expression of my love, but generally only for traditional gift giving days like Xmas and birthdays. Otherwise I'm not big on the gifts and I'd rarely think to give a spontaneous gift. And while receiving a gift is lovely, I'd be totally fine not receiving any and would much prefer my top 3.

So it all rings pretty true. The top three are all very close together, especially the first two. My partner is all about Acts of Service which can be challenging when it's such a low scorer for me. We've worked out now what the other values the most though, so it's gotten easier over time.
 
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Does anyone else feel that their PTSD is blocking a love language?

I know that from certain, proven, safe people, physical touch is one of my biggest love languages. But having been physically and/or sexually abused by 4 different people, most of the time I avoid touch. If it feels unavoidable (social situations where I'm more uncomfortable explaining that I need some space) I can usually get myself to comply, but I am very awkward and uncomfortable about it. I usually feel very on edge afterwards and at times will feel dirty, or used. Even if I know and trust that person, unless they've somehow hade their way onto the elite list of huggable people, I hate getting hugs from them. Or even a high five.

But from those few people, a good hug can be one of the most reassuring, calming, healing, loving things they can do for me.

As for how I express love, my top two are quality time and gifts.

Words of affirmation are pretty high up for both giving and receiving.
 
@digger1,
You don't need to take the quiz to figure out your love language. I didn't take the test until after I made my first post, so that's why I said my list didn't match the results I got. But of course, if your love language doesn't match up with anything on the list, that's another thing. I am wondering if you are similar to @y5L who says that PTSD is blocking a love language, or maybe you could say what your love language actually is? (Or am I falsely assuming that everyone has some sort of love language?) I think my PTSD has affected my love language, mainly in the touch department and the affirmation department. Touch due to the sexual abuse, affirmations due to the emotional abuse. Something more I need to work on.....
 
Finding things to celebrate with my daughter and granddaughters so I guess that is quality time.

Giving and receiving hugs to the safe ones in my life.

Giving and receiving compliments.

Helping other people when I can.

Writing and phoning people I care about.

Writing in the journals for my daughter and two granddaughters for them when I die so they still hear my voice.
 
) None of the below! It's probably just knowing that someone cares by giving me room to be myself (Mum & Sisters).

Thank you for saying this. I don't relate to any of the five.

Being accepted and allowed to be who I am, and accepting and allowing someone else to be who they are, would be top of my list. I can't fit that into the five, because none of them are the same thing as that.

For example I haven't phoned my best friend for a long time so today she sent me a short no-pressure text to let me know she was thinking of me. I know she used words, but it wasn't words as such that were important. It was the hands-off, genuine lack of expectation underneath the contact that meant something. The contact was just to convey that there was a lack of expectation and that was OK.
 
Quality time and touch, although I've found that if I'm in a situation without either of those two (thanks, PTSD!), words of affirmation really help fill the gap. Oddly enough, now that I think about it, words of affirmation if I'm in a relationship where I have quality time and touch make me want to disappear through a hole in the floor... unless they're are written out to me in either text or email and I have time to freak out about them, then assess what they mean, and then properly digest them for the kind words they are meant to be.

Ultimately, in my heart, I know that touch is something that I crave and need, but my PTSD often keeps me from expressing it like I want to. And because I've been had lots of "bad" touch, I need some time to register that the present "good" touch is actually good. And that I need that time makes me ashamed and humiliated and terrified to talk about it because it just seems so pathetic, so I make do with keeping people at arm's length and deny myself what I need the most.

*hello breakthrough moment here*
 
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