Understanding Your Love Language

Hello ladies! I hope that you all are getting excited about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. I am! I can smell the stuffing, pumpkin pie, butter, butter, & butter. Yummy!

Last night Adam & I had dinner with Pastor Jeff from Lifepoint Church & his wife, Michelle. We had an amazing time getting to know them a little bit better. Adam & I are both on fire in our faith right now & it was awesome to be around another couple who feels the same way. We are looking forward to becoming a more active part in our church & helping in any way that we can to help Lifepoint grow.

Adam & I are not only interested in helping in our own community, but in all of your communities as well. We would be honored to speak to your group or church to keep as many marriages & families together as possible. Every marriage is important, not just our local ones. It might not always be easy for us to travel to your town, but we can also do a video conference to help reach more people in need. Just let us know how we can help your community & we will see what we can do!

I added another mommy blogger site to the left side bar. Check it out. Hopefully it will help with increased exposure for us so we can offer more support to anyone that is in need. It looks like a pretty busy site with a ton of useful information. I believe that you can not only vote for your favorites blogs, but also your favorite individual posts.

Several of you asked for the 14 day challenge to be posted on the main page. I went ahead & did that late last night. As we have more & more posts, it would have become difficult to find where each challenge was hiding. Now, you can just click on what day you want & it will take you directly to that day. I hope that helps.

I hope that everyone had a great time last night with the challenge. I hope that you were able to understand what is the most important love language to you & what is the most important to your husband. In case anyone is wondering, mine is Quality Time & Words of Affirmation. Adam is Words of Affirmation & Acts of Service. This was no real big surprise to us. So, we know what love language we are, but what does all of this mean?

Quality Time - This is my main love language & I know it well. I want 100% undivided attention. Adam is comfortable with us just being in the same house or being shoulder to shoulder. I need face to face. We argued a lot last year about this. Adam would think that because we were in the same house 95% of the time that I was being satisfied. If I asked for an hour at the end of the day he would not understand. He felt that I was never happy. Since we have been going through the Love & Respect series & now The Five Love Languages, he gets it. He has been very attentive & I can see him making a conscience effort to give me what I need each day. I enjoy sitting on the couch & talking, a walk on the beach, a romantic dinner, or going to get a coffee together. Anything that is just the two of us, without distraction. No cell phones, kids, laptops, etc. Just us! What could you do for your spouse that would give them the quality time that they need so desperately?

Words of Affirmation - This is Adam's major love language & my secondary so obviously this is something that is really important to both of us. Proverbs 18:21 says, "The tongue has the power of life & death." Proverbs 12:25 says, "An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up." Verbal compliments or words of appreciation are powerful communicators of love. This language is something that we both work really hard at. Adam tells me everyday that I am beautiful, but there are some days that he says it in a different way that allows me to really feel it. I have always been terrible about giving compliments. I have made a serious commitment to eliminating that issue. My husband is hot, & I need to let him know. Otherwise, I am leaving the door open for someone else to do it. Aside from looks, we both like to be praised when we do something good or do a chore for the other. Acts of Service is important to Adam & Words of Affirmation is important to me. They go hand in hand. If I do a good deed, I like to be praised. Without both languages being spoken correctly, one of us will slack off & then we are both unhappy. I may have a hard time doing nice things if Adam doesn't make an effort to recognize them. Make sense?

Gifts - This was actually at the bottom of the totem pole for both of us. This is not to say that we don't like gifts, because we do. If just isn't what we NEED to be happy in our marriage. I also want to say that just because this may not be important to your spouse, you can't stop buying them gifts. LOL However, what I try to do for Adam is to pick up something extra for him at the grocery store. Something that wasn't on the list that I know he would like. Such as, his favorite magazine or snack. Since he is a personal trainer, I will not incriminate him by saying that I occasionally will pick up his favorite pizza, brownies, ice cream, or candy. I am proud to say that Adam did the same thing for me yesterday. He stopped at the store & brought me some Chex Mix & a Diet Dr. Pepper. Yum! The funny thing is that I thought about asking him to stop for a soda & I almost ate Brandon's Chex Mix that was on the counter. Adam read my mind. Now, gifts don't always have to be purchased or be expensive. Gifts can be purchased, found or made. To me, it doesn't matter if Adam buys me a dozen roses, a single carnation, or if he picked a tulip from someone's yard. All three choices mean the same thing to me, that he was thinking of me & he wanted to show me with a gift. What can you give your husband to show him that you were thinking of him today? I bet for many husbands, a replay of day 13 of the Love & Respect challenge would be a much welcomed gift!

Acts of Service - What does Acts of Service mean? It means, doing something that you know that your husband would like you to do. (I hate to sound redundant but....day 13 ladies.) Most of us normally do things like cook dinner, do the dishes, give the kids a bath, etc. So, you will need to do something that is normally "his job" for him to notice & to appreciate it. Like, taking out the trash or mowing the lawn. Or maybe we aren't keeping up with "our jobs" as good as we should be. Maybe the house needs to be a little cleaner, the kid's toys need to be picked up, & dinner is on the table when he gets home. This will be an area that you may need to discuss together so that you know how you can please him the most. You don't want to be spinning your wheels on 10 things that don't really matter & missing the one thing that pains him the most. While Adam appreciates a clean house, clothes, etc., he likes the small things too. If I am going into the kitchen, I will ask him if he needs anything. In turn, he has been doing this for me too. Adam says that the most important thing to him is that if he is busy with something for work, that I keep the kids busy so that he can dedicate his time to get his task completed, without distraction. Or, that I do something that he would normally do to allow him extra "free" time to get caught up.

Physical Touch - We have long known that physical touch is a way of communicating emotional love. Research shows that babies who are held, hugged, & kissed develop a healthier emotional life than those babies who are left for long periods of time without physical contact. A slap in the face is detrimental to any child, but it is devastating if their primary love language is touch. Not all touches are created equal. While I love a good massage, petting my hair is the way into my heart. Don't mistake that the touch you desire is the same touch that your husband desires. We all need touch to survive & to be happy. We just need a better understand of what touch is the most important to our spouse.

Lesson - 


Commit to one change that you will do for your spouse in THEIR love language. Make every effort to follow through with that commitment in the next few days. I understand that it is Thanksgiving this week & this may be a bigger challenge, but you can do it! I have so much confidence in all of you. In our small group class they made us go around the room & say out loud what we were going to do. Believe it or not, saying it out loud makes the commitment so much more real & so much stronger. So, I would like all of you to send in a comment & let us know what you plan to do to fill your spouse's love tank. If your spouse is willing, let them know about this challenge & what each love language means. Tell them what you plan to do for them. Hopefully, this will get them to say what they will do for you. If not, don't push or start a fight. Your attempts will not go unnoticed & they will come around. Remember, we are working on changing ourselves. We can't control our husbands. 


"Lord, thank you for this support system that we have for each other. We all could learn so much from each other's personal stories & successes. Thank you for bringing us all together. Some of us were drawn here because our marriage is in desperate need & some of us are here to help those women try save their marriages. Father, please speak through all of us & allow us all to be there for each other as much as we possibly can be. With you by our side we can accomplish anything. Amen."