Help For A Hurting MarriageНамуна

Devotion from Loving Your Spouse When You Feel Like Walking Away by Gary Chapman

Speaking a Language of Love

The fact that love is an attitude rather than an emotion means that you can love your spouse even when you do not have warm emotional feelings for him or her. That is why in the first century, Paul the apostle wrote to husbands, “Love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her [by willingly dying on the cross]” (Eph. 5:25). In another of his letters, Paul challenged the older women to “urge the younger women to love their husbands” (Titus 2:4). Love can be learned, because it is not an emotion.

After years of counseling, I am convinced that there are only five basic “languages” of love. They are: 

1. Words of Affirmation — Verbally affirming your spouse for the good things he or she does.

2. Quality Time — Giving your spouse undivided attention.

3. Receiving Gifts — Presenting a gift to your spouse that says, “I was thinking about you.”

4. Acts of service — Doing something for your spouse that is meaningful to him or her.

5. Physical touch — Kissing, embracing, patting on the back, holding hands, sexual intercourse.

Part of the problem spouses have in demonstrating love to each other is that they fail to understand that they speak different “love languages.” Seldom do a husband and wife have the same love language. By nature, you tend to speak your own language. For example, if quality time makes you feel loved, then that’s what you try to give your spouse. But if that is not his or her primary language, it will not mean to your spouse what it would mean to you. 

So you need to know, and then speak, your spouse’s primary love language. This simple message, which I have shared in marriage seminars and the book The 5 Love Languages, has helped millions of couples. Discovering your spouse’s primary love language and choosing to speak it on a regular basis has tremendous potential for changing the emotional climate of your marriage. 

Love is the most powerful weapon for good not only in the world but especially in a desperate marriage. When you choose to reach out with a loving attitude and loving actions toward your spouse in spite of past failures, you create a climate where the two of you can resolve conflicts and confess wrongs. A marriage can be reborn. Reality living says, “I will choose the road of love because its potential is far greater than the road of hate.”

I am sympathetic to those who feel that there is no hope for their marriage. But let’s not assume that past failures must be repeated in the future. With a new set of guidelines and a willingness to take action, there is hope for a hard marriage. And if your spouse is not going to join you on working on the marriage at this time, that does not mean that your marriage is hopeless. One person must always take the initiative. Perhaps that person will be you.