We all give and receive love in different ways. To identify how people prefer to give and receive love from those close to them, a marriage counsellor developed the 5 love languages.
Most of us have one or two preferred love languages. It’s very likely that yours is different to your partner’s. If you’re speaking a different love language, miscommunication can often occur. Learning to speak the preferred language of those close to you can improve your relationships.
What are the 5 love languages?
The 5 love languages are:
1. Acts of service
Acts of service are thoughtful gestures to meaningfully make someone else’s day better, e.g., your partner makes you breakfast, packs your lunch or cleans or does the washing without being asked.
If this is your love language you see meaning in your partner’s actions and feel loved when your partner willingly does things to ease your workload to make your life a bit easier. Acts of service make you feel cared for, but broken promises and laziness can make you feel unimportant or unloved.
2. Words of affirmation
This love language involves spoken expressions of praise, encouragement, affection, validation, or care. If this is your love language, you like receiving compliments and hearing you’re loved quite often. Words build you up and make you feel good about yourself. Mean words and criticism can upset you a lot.
3. Physical touch
Physical touch is to show affection through physical contact like holding hands, kissing and cuddling. If physical touch is your love language you enjoy public displays of affection, touching your partner and being held close to feel safe and warm. You love cuddling up on the lounge. Lack of physical touch makes you feel neglected, uncared for and more possibly unloved.
4. Quality time
Quality time is all about spending time really enjoying each other’s company without any outside distractions, like mobile phones or other people. A person’s undivided attention makes you feel loved and important.
If this is your love language, you value people who want to make regular plans and spend lots of time hanging out with you. You will begin to feel unloved if your special person if you go long periods without one-on-one time.
5. Gift giving and receiving
Gifts are physical tokens given to show someone you're thinking of them or to express your love and care. If this is your love language, personalised gift tells you that you are special. You feel loved when someone has taken the time, effort and thought in planning and buying a gift for you.
If gifting is your love language, this means that you feel the best and most loved when you’re giving and receiving gifts. You choose gifts to bring joy and pleasure to those that you’re giving them to. Generic gifts and forgotten special events make you feel unloved and unimportant.
Gift-givers are not selfish or materialistic, you simply show love and affection by giving physical mementoes and need that love to be reciprocated in the form of gifts and tokens.
What love language do you use?
To work out what your love language is, consider how you express affection to the people you love. Do you like holding hands and cuddling? Do you shower people with gifts? Do you use kind words and compliment people? Do you clean the house when it’s your partner’s turn? Or do you always make time for those that you love? The way you show people that you love them usually indicates your very own love language. You may have more than one love language.
If you’d like to learn more about what love languages are important to you, you can take one of 5 Love Languages quizzes: Click here.
What's your partner's love language?
The easiest way to discover your partner's love language is to ask them which of the 5 languages they most enjoy receiving. You should mainly use the language they tell you they prefer to show them affection.
If you feel uncomfortable asking them, then consider the ways they show you they love you and you should be able to work out what their love language is quite quickly.
Discovering your partner’s love language will help you discover ways to validate each other, make each other happy and strengthen your relationship.
Is your love language gifting? Ours is!
At Present Box Co. we understand love language gifting and the importance of meaningful gifts. Each item included in our gift boxes has been well considered and selected for its superior quality, practicality and thoughtfulness.
Our gift boxes are specially curated to provide joyful and memorable gift giving experiences. All gift boxes are hand packed and shipped with care.
For some great gift ideas check out our full range, we’re confident you will find the perfect present to let your special person know just how much they mean to you.
The Present Box Team