Love languages and your relationship with yourself

Oct 7, 2024

For anyone not familiar with the love language test, it is a quiz that you take to figure out how you think love and affection should be shown, given and received. If there’s an immediate answer that comes to mind for you, like ‘It’s obviously saying I love you’, or ‘By doing little things for them’, you’ll be surprised to know that not everyone gives and receives love in the same way.

Taking this quiz is like figuring out some deep unlocked part of you and suddenly, a lot of your actions within your relationships, past and present will be seen in a new light and you suddenly understand where each one fell apart. Once you realise how you show love and how your partner shows love, it’s far easier for us to understand and appreciate the gestures. Just because you show it one way does not necessarily mean that they will show it the same way. But once you know how the other person shows it, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to make them feel loved.

There are six categories of love languages and most people are often a blend of two. They are;

Quality time:

Create special moments together
plan thoughtful dates
do chores together
have focused conversations
setting goals and achieving them together

Acts of service:

Assist with projects
make their favourite meal
random acts of kindness
help with workload
thoughtful personal care

Physical Touch:

Hug your partner
take a walk holding hands
make intimacy a priority
kiss your partner
sit close to each other

Receiving gifts:

Giving thoughtful gifts big and small
show excitement when receiving
make genuine gestures
give small tokens of appreciation
celebrate special occasions

Words of Affirmation:

Use encouraging words
give genuine compliments
appreciate the little things
empathise when hurt
listen without distractions.

Which ones of these sound like you and your partner? Is there a few, or just one?

So for example, my friend’s love language test revealed that her language was acts of service, whereas her partner’s was words of affirmation. So she was showing her affection by doing things for him, taking care of little stresses or annoyances, coming up with thoughtful ideas, and taking care of his personal life, sending takeaways to his house after a long day of work.

Meanwhile, he was showing affection with compliments, appreciation, listening and comforting through the phone. So she was showing and he was telling and often, there was miscommunication in the relationship, until they realised that affection was being shown by each side, just that they were showing it in different ways.

What struck me, was that we always talk about how we show love to our partner and our partners to us and to the people around us. It never even occurred to me how we might reverse the process inwards, to show affection to ourselves.

Understanding how we take time for self-love and self-care is just as important as how we show love to not only our partners but the other friends and family in our lives. I realised, I love planning parties, and nice meals and thoughtful gifts for people because I’m a total receiving gifts/acts of service person. But how does that look once it’s turned back towards myself? How do any of them look, when we practice self-care in our own love language?