The five love languages- Book review

Author : Gary Chapman

A week back, one of my friends asked me
“ Should I go back to the first guy I spoke to? I don’t feel that way with anyone else?”
I said, “ No. You should just work it out with whoever you are speaking to now.”
She felt offended. “ Why do you look at arranged marriages lower to love marriages?”
I told her that in love marriages you are blinded with love initially, in arranged marriages you choose to love after marriage. A guy you meet in arranged marriage setup can make you feel the same if he chooses to make you feel that. You might never again feel after marriage the ‘in-love’ experience you are talking about.
She never replied to me. We have not spoken in the past ten days again.
Why does it take so much effort for a person to accept that love is a conscious choice you make?

This book answered that question of mine.
Even though this book has been written extensively for couples, it is not just for them. For any happy relation, you should be able to provide what they need and not what you can give.
If your baby is hungry and you give a toy, will it make the baby stop crying?
That is the concept which the author explained in the book.

It is a really short book. I finished it in one night. Even though it talks about the concept which we already know, he put a structure to it, which makes the concept clearer. He calls the way you can feel someone loved is like a language. If you don’t speak that language, you need to learn it. Knowing the language alone is not sufficient, you have to speak in the dialect too.

After each chapter, he gives you practical exercises which will help you take action on learning the language. At the end of the book, he has given a test to identify primary love language if you are not clear after reading the book.

I now know how to make my parents, sibling and friends feel loved. All I have to do is what they need and not what I can do the best to make them loved. Previously, I used to think that one form of expressing love was superior than others. But now I understand that one form is not superior than the other. It is about which one is important for the person you want to make feel loved.

Once when all my friends met, the host’s sister said “ Every weekend you complain that you have no one to go out with. Now when your friends are here, you just want to stay at home.”

My host friend said, “ All I want to do is spend time with them by playing indoor games and make wonderful memories.”

Her love language is quality time. What is yours?

Read the book and identify yours and that of important people in your life.

Happy loving!