Five Love Languages

[Shan-Nav01]

I think my order is pretty much the same for giving and receiving, although I think I'm better at giving gifts, but that's because they can be something which is obviously nice...
Quality time
Acts of service
Giving/receiving gifts
Physical touch
Words of affirmation

And again very similar to what a couple of others have said I can give or receive a hug comfortably from a select group of friends, but there are other people which I have properly freaked out about the thought of doing so! And the words of affirmation feel like emotional blackmail to me, and make me cringe and not really know how to react!

 

[Caterpillar]

Words, touch, and quality time are the three languages that come naturally to me. I'm especially fluent with words and touch. The second is a bit of a surprise to me because I hate touching most people, but it comes naturally when I love someone. My fiance is very fluent in the same three languages as me, and also one of those people who naturally does acts of service all the time. My mother's the same way and I try hard not to take both their actions forgranted because it doesn't naturally register in my mind as affection. I'm afraid I'm horrible at doing acts of service in return, though. I'm okay with receiving gifts but HATE giving them. I never know what to get anyone.

Thankfully my trauma issues don't effect my ability to show or receive affection.

 

[Saule]

Yah PTSD interferes with mine definitely... Touch is my no. 1 love language, but when I'm really agitated I can't stand to be touched. Although if I'm experiencing the uncontrollable crying side of things all I want is to be held by my partner.

 

[The Albatross]

My language is not the same for giving and receiving. Appreciate the topic, thanks.

 

[zaniara]

1) Touch/closeness(that's why PTSD is so incredibly cruel for me: because it makes it so hard to recieve touch without being messed up by it(sexual and physical abuse) most of all. I am a very physical person by birth, but the abuse messed that up. The only one who felt safe to be close to were my kids, but lately I've been able to accept hugs more from friends. (When I had a partner I could deal with the touch if I could 'turn it into sex': because then I felt as if I had control..)

2) Someone wanting to spend time with me and actually listening to me too means a lot. Not many people do actually listen when you speak to them. Most people only talk shit about others, and don't even show interest in anything about you. Someone showing me interest make me shy, scared but a bit happy(on a good day). Am very social as a person, by birth... Also very ironic that PTSD messed that up so badly and made me suffer from social anxiety for most of my life. (Better now though: after a lot of therapy, and making improvements.)

3) Validation in the form of words. Not a big fan of "I love you"; and compliments about my looks or body or stuff like that. But hearing someone expressing they care about me, and appreciate me is starting to feel good. (Hard to take it sometimes though.)

Don't care that much about gifts. Also have a problem with dealing emotionally when I recieve one. Hate getting red roses: that's a trigger. (Ex always gave me that after abusing me, and said he was sorry, and then if I didn't accept them he started abusing me again.. ) Don't really need people to do stuff for me: even though it can feel good to be able to get some help with something practical: but I handle most of it on my own. And like to do so. Lived on my own for such a long time now..

When giving to others: I love to give gifts(but can't afford any :( which make being invited to a birthday party a bad stressor) , physical affection(but have problem giving that a lot of the time with others than my kids; but slowly making progress in this too after all the therapy), words of affirmation and love(give that too easily: and I scare people and my kids would benefit if I didn't say those things as often...) and love to spend time with the ones I love(when PTSD don't make me crasch). But I don't really feel like using 'acts of service': probably because I've done so too much in the past, have too little time and energy and rarely get back what I give and thus mess my own life up if I try to do stuff practically for others. Of course it's entirely different when it comes to my kids..

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Revisiting this one....

I just started seeing someone new a few weeks ago. I already brought up the love languages concept with him, and I think that it was a good thing. We both know how the other person likes to receive love the best. He is a time/affection person and I am a time/service kind of person. This really helps me because now I know how I can best show him my feelings for him. I'm glad we both align on the time factor, as most guys in my past just never had any time for me (and I need a LOT of alone time, so I am saying they were giving me crumbs which wouldn't sustain any real relationship, but wanted all the "benefits" so to speak!)

It is interesting though, that I love it when he showers me with compliments and words of affection, as I used to hate this. I know he is being sincere versus manipulative as my mother is when she says "I love you". I also get so excited at the little things he gives me. I light up like a kid on Christmas, which I think really surprises him, LOL.

So I guess what I want to say is that talking about love languages early in a relationship can be helpful, as it can align you better with your partners needs, and vice versa.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Lemmie just say that it is VERY important to have love languages that align or at the very least can be discusses and worked with!

I mentioned how words of affection can be an anti-love language for me. I was seeing this guy who wouldn't stop with the compliments. It was VERY overwhelming to say the least. I asked him to tone it down (in a nice way, explaining that I wasn't used to it all and it made me uncomfortable). He was ok with that, and said he understood. Then..................nothing for 4 days. Now mind you that whenever I needed space, I would tell him, but he didn't even have the courtesy to do the same for me!?!? What gives...!? He told me that he couldn't handle negativity. Yeah, asking him to tone down the compliments was negativity to him. I know he has baggage from the past, and I'm chalking this up to that, as he said his ex was negative, and he didn't want to deal with negativity ever again. So I sit here and thing "good luck with being single, as life has negativity in it, no matter how hard you try to eliminate it from your life!" No, I am not perfect, but at the same time I did shield him from most of my issues and its just sad that he couldn't handle a personal struggle of mine. I know that if he couldn't handle something like that, there is no way he would be able to be supportive for me as a whole. I am a bit sad, but also a bit relieved that I could see early on that this match up would not work. On to the next, LOL. I WILL find my match!

 

[Reba]

I can relate. Physical touch is a big one for me, but it is also so very confusing.
My parents weren't affectionate, and I grew up craving physical touch. I ended up boxing and street fighting as a way to get physical touch, especially from males, without feeling like I would earn judgment.
The problem I face now, is that for the first 6 years of my marriage, my husband was sexually abusive, and now 16 years into the same marriage, when he tries to touch me non-sexually I just can't stand to be touched. But I still crave touch, and he is far to insecure to let me go boxing or street fighting.