Want better sex? Speak your partner’s Love Language
I have a bad habit of saying mean things when I argue with my husband. After 10 years of marriage and learning better habits through counseling, I’m not as mean. I especially try to stop myself when I’m about to name call. I’ve learned that my husband hates to be called names. While it’s true that counseling has helped me recognize my patterns and appreciate my partner, I also have to give credit to the theory of The Five Love Languages.
The 5 Love Languages
The theory was developed by Gary Chapman, an American author and radio talk show host who wrote a book regarding human relationships. Chapman proposes that everyone has preferences when it comes to how they receive and perceive love and that these preferences can be classified into five different “languages.” Chapman suggests that the five unique love languages consist of:
Words of affirmation
Quality time
Receiving gifts
Acts of service
Physical touch
The Importance of Being Bilingual
I can’t remember how I heard about love languages – probably a friend – but it interested me enough to Google search a free quiz to see what it said about my relationship. Keep in mind I am science-minded by nature so I don’t put a lot of stock in validity of these types of quizzes That said, I still enjoy a little chance and fun in life; I still appreciate the mystic features of zodiac signs and the occasional silly survey. Plus, I appreciate any effort that helps me know myself better.
I learned that my husband and I share a love language – physical touch. It’s my preferred love language and his second preference. His primary love language is word of affirmation, which explains why he gets so upset when I call him names. Meanwhile, desire for words of affirmation is lower on my love language list, which explains why he can call me anything during an argument and I forget about it as soon as we make up. Words don’t hurt me like they hurt him. And I need him to touch me more often to feel close to him than he needs from me. The fact that we both share quality time high on the list explains why we choose to spend so much time together. We even built a shower with two shower heads and different water controls because we shower together at night so often. Quality time – even spent just showering together – is an important part of maintaining the health of our relationship.
I’ve learned that when you consider your partner’s love language, you become a more considerate partner. It’s easy to think that someone isn’t being loving to you if they aren’t expressing love by “speaking your language.” I’m quite certain this assumption was the root of the many arguments I started in my early years dating my husband, when I didn’t feel he was giving me the attention I need. I didn’t recognize that I assumed he wasn’t showing me sufficient love, when we were actually speaking different languages. It’s easy to assume your partner should see the world as you do.
Scientific Proof of the Love Language Connection to Good Sex
Color me happy when I discovered a study published in the Psychology journal PLOS One that gives some credibility to the power of love languages in relationships.
The researchers gathered information from 100 heterosexual couples between the ages of 17 to 58 who had been in their current romantic relationship for at least 6 months and who were sexually active with their partners.
They identified participants’ preferences for feeling and expressing affection and used this information to associate these preferences to the five love languages. They then compared which couples matched in the sense that they express love in the way their partner prefers to feel, and then evaluated the how these couples measured their sexual satisfaction with their partner.
The couples who matched on love languages, meaning they expressed love in the way their partner prefers regardless of whether or not it matches their own preference, were more satisfied both with their relationship and the sex they were having together.
Want a Better Relationship and Better Sex? Do This!
These findings indicate that if you want to have a better relationship and better sex with your (heterosexual*) partner, you’d benefit from identifying and understanding each other’s love language, and working to express love in the way that each other desires.
I Love the Way You Love Me
The journal article is titled “I love the way you love me…” and I think it points to a piece of advice that we’re all missing as couples. We hear about the importance of saying “I love you,” but we never hear that it’s important to also be able to say “I love the way you love me.” This is something I need to continue to practice in my relationship; communication is the hardest part of any relationship and we all need to put thought into how we communicate our feelings. That’s the grownup shit in real life that they don’t show you in the fairytale relationships in tv and movies that I used as my model growing up.
If you’re interested in learning more about yourself or your partner in this way, you can take the Love Language Quiz for free. (I have nothing to do promotionally with the Love Language site and I just took the quiz myself to make sure I got my results for free. I’m cheap; I love free stuff.)
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*PAUSE FOR SCIENCE
After years of working as a science writer for a pediatric hospital, I learned that not all research studies are created equal, and that there are always limits to their application. You’ll see this study only included heterosexual couples, so we should be cautious in generalizing these findings to non-heterosexual couples. The results could be the same, but it’s unwise to over-generalize science. That’s why we need more science in the world; there’s always more to know. If you want to see the full details of the study for yourself, find a full-text version here.