Love Languages

Ah...love languages.  We've all heard this phrase but do we really know what it means?  And how important this is in our relationships?  I didn't.  I knew my love languages and Sean's, but until I read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, I didn't know what a big deal this whole business was. 

My primary love language is acts of service.  My secondary love language is quality time. 
Sean's primary is words of affirmation and his secondary is physical touch (typical man! haha). 
Let me just tell you, I suck at words of affirmation. Like really bad. Which means that my husband's "love tank", as Dr. Chapman calls it, can easily run on empty unless I am intentional about affirming him.  To help me (and take some of the awkwardness out of telling my husband every day, "Honey, I really love ______  about you"), I wrote the words "I love you because..." on my bathroom mirror with a dry erase marker.  Each day I write and new message to him. Then Sean started writing them back to me.

Now I'll be honest, although I like to read the little things he loves about me, this is not my love language so it doesn't do for me what it does for him.  But the thing about love languages that I've discovered is that not only do I need to speak his love language to him, but I also need to let him speak it to me...because that, to him, is showing me love.  And I know that if I tell him not to write me these compliments on the mirror because they make me cringe more than woo, it will discourage him from showing me love- in any language. 

I am a big fan of doing things for my family.  I like to cook, and make things that they can use, and do things to make our lives easier.  Sean likes to have a clean house and good meal, but he could care less if I found the perfect way to organize the linen closet.  I also like our quality time to be playing games, or watching a tv show together or just talking.  Sean considers quality time to be hanging out in the same room together.  Like right now...I'm blogging, he's playing his video game.  And to make sure that I don't kick him off anytime soon, every once in a while he looks over at me and tells me that he loves me.  Like I'm not on to him.  But, more often than not, our quality time looks like I think it should.  And that's because Sean also knows that he needs to speak my love language and let me speak it to him. 

There have been times in our relationship where our "love tanks" have run on not just empty, but in the negative.  And that's because we're both the most stubborn people we know.  If Sean doesn't do something that I've been asking him to do (like, um, prime the master bathroom for paint...just a random example...) it's really easy for me to use the thing that makes him feel the most loved against him.  I can tell him that he's lazy and he never listens to me and make him feel like he's not a great husband. Not very affirming.  And then, in addition to not doing my "acts of service", he decides not to spend quality time with me.  So I decide that there won't be any physical touch.  (Don't be pervs....this can be a hug, a back rub or a kiss...not just s-e-x).  But do you see the cycle?  And Sean and I have been on it before.  But almost 5 years in to our marriage, I am learning (yay!) that the best thing to do when he hasn't done something that I've asked him to do is to leave all the supplies on the floor next to the bed so he steps on them when he wakes up remind him how much I love it when he does things for me that I can't or don't have time to do, and what a great job he did with the last project. 

I'm not saying that this can solve all marital problems, but I do know that nothing bad can come of being intentional in making sure each other's "love tanks" don't run on empty. 

Date Night

Sean and I have never been "daters". Even when we were dating, most of our dates were just hanging out and watching our favorite tv shows and movies together or playing a board game. 

Over the years I've had several friends ask me why Sean and I don't go on real dates.  And I didn't know how to answer them.  Why didn't we??  We like each other. A lot. And we go out to eat as a family almost every Sunday afternoon. So why couldn't we go out to a nice restaurant, just the two of us? 



I talked to Sean about it and we started putting money aside for date nights.  We'd end up spending it on something else, but neither one of us made a big deal over it.  This continued even after we were married with a child, when everyone told us it was really important to go out on dates together.  So if it was so important, why couldn't we do it?

Sean and I were out to dinner recently, doing our norm- watching other people, scarfing down our food and talking sporadically about...I don't remember what, but it wasn't exciting or interesting. (Am I the only one that thinks that "date" talk should be fun and exciting and you should laugh a lot so everyone around you knows that you're having a good time?) Anyhow, not that I had been thinking that there was something "wrong" with our relationship, but I had a moment that night where I realized that Sean and I just aren't the dating type.  Never have been, never will be.  And that's okay.

We have better conversations from the comfort of our couch, or at the kitchen table eating a homemade meal. Our "dates" usually happen after we put Brylee to bed and then head downstairs to watch the latest episode of Modern Family, or a movie, or we talk and play a game.  Ok, sometimes he plays Modern Warfare 3 while I zone out on Pinterest.  Ok, I'm usually on Pinterest no matter what we're doing.  But I swear I'm really good at multitasking.   Other times we stick Brylee in her stroller and we walk around a track nearby for an hour or so. And even when Brylee stays the night with Sean's mom and dad, we might run some errands and then go right back home to lounge.  And we like it that way!

The point is that we make time for each other, to talk to each other and do things that we enjoy together.  And I love that we can do those things in our pajamas!

 

Redefining

I don’t know when I started caring what other people think of me so much.
But I do. Like to the point where sometimes it’s all I can think about.

I’d like to not care if people don’t say hi to me.
Or ask me how I’m doing.
Or if they didn’t “like” or comment on my facebook status.
I'd like to not think that consistencies in these things mean that someone doesn't like me.

I’d like to focus more on the people in my life whom I love unconditionally and who love me unconditionally. But instead I find myself focusing on the fact that something must be wrong with me to make certain people not like me.

This has been an issue for as long as I can remember. My mom would tell me that I had so many friends, and I would tell her that I didn’t have any. Then she would rattle off a dozen names of really close friends, and remind me that I was always gone because I was always at a different friend’s house.
But I let the handful of people that didn’t like me define me. I wasn’t thin enough. I didn’t have the trendiest clothes. I wasn’t a cheerleader. I laughed too loud. I was a know-it-all. Very unlikable qualities for a middle-schooler. So why would anyone want to be my friend? It was obvious to me that the people who didn’t like me knew me better than the ones who liked me.

This measuring my self-worth in the number of people who carry offenses with me did not end with middle school and it has had an impact on every single relationship I’ve ever had.

It has made me quick to judge others when I feel as though I have been judged.
It has made me unnecessarily defensive.
It has made me read far more into the way someone looks at me, things they say to me and actions done toward me more than is healthy.
It has made me feel unworthy of being a friend.
It has made me feel like I didn’t matter to the point of attempting to take my own life. (No need to intervene, thanks….this was a LONG time ago.)
But sometimes, although my suicidal thoughts are gone, I find myself feeling like I don’t matter.

But I have reached my breaking point.
My identity is not in what others think of me.
My identity is in Christ.
Romans 8:31 says, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Like, really? Who cares if people don’t like you. If people hate you. God knows you, and loves you. For exactly who you are. Not the person you are trying to be so that other people like you. God knows the intentions of your heart. And the people who truly love you? They do too.

I am not thin. I don’t have the trendiest clothes. I’m [still] not a cheerleader (in fact, my husband does a better toe-touch than me)! I laugh too loud. I’m a know-it-all. None of that has changed. I also love every single person on this earth. I pray for my friends and I cry for them when they are hurting. And if you need anything, I will jump at the opportunity to help. I care what you think of me because I care about you.

But if you don’t like me, I won’t let it define me anymore.