Very soon after I met Bette, she showed me a book she was interest in. It was Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages. It didn’t look like too tough a book to me, so I asked to see it. I looked at the structure and saw that his one idea was contained in the first chapter (there are “five languages of love” and that he dealt with those languages at a rate of one per chapter. So I spent a few minutes, my new lady friend of only a few weeks was looking over my shoulder, and got the ideas in Chapter 1. Then I turned the pages over as fast as I comfortably could. just verifying that they said what I was pretty sure they were going to say. They did.
So I sat back and expounded to Bette what was in this book. She was impressed, but she wasn’t pleased. It took me a day or so to figure out why. I had treated lightly a book that was about something that mattered to her. I didn’t even notice. I was busy showing off.
Then I did something I am still proud of. I asked to borrow the book for a few days and I gave it a really thorough reading. We still use that book, although I think it means more to me than it does to Bette. The way Chapman defines “languages” is a little soft; almost arbitrary. But
the point he has in mind is that if you are trying to communicate to your wife, it is probably a good idea to use the language she understands best.This is Bette in front of her favorite bookstore in The Dalles, Oregon, by the way.
To tell you the truth, I’d be more likely to choose the language I was most fluent in. Wouldn’t you? The five are: 1) words of affirmation, 2) quality time, 3) receiving gifts, 4) acts of service, and 5) physical touch. “Words of affirmation’ comes easiest to me and it is my own favorite—it is the language I always hear best. “Acts of service” is Bette’s favorite. I was very very surprised. But the fact is, when I want to tell her how important to me she is and how very much I cherish her, “doing things for her” is the way I can say that so that she will hear it best.
In Chapman’s five chapters of explication, there is not a single surprising episode. but if you read them all, carefully, you will have acquired a lot of little clues about how best to say the things that matter most.
I still like efficient reading. But if I had to choose between that and emphasizing a valuable and affirming common interest between my wife and me…I think efficiency can find its own way home.
Hmmm. I like the idea of this book, but I'm not sure (without reading it)if I buy the premise completely. I mean, is there a person alive, male or female, who doesn't want all five of those things?
ReplyDeleteI get the idea that one person may want affirmation a little more than physical touch, but that just makes this a question of degree. A person's "language" is the one of these a person has an elevated sensitivity to or need for?
Anyway, I haven't read the book so I'm talking out of my butt, but I like the fact that you chose to give the book the time Bette deserved. ;-)
-Doug
That's the same question I asked. Having thought about it, I think the answer is that everyone wants all those things (at times), but not everyone translates them as acts of love. "Acts of service," for instance could be only ingratiation or--sorry about this--the tit looking for a later tat.
ReplyDeleteWith Bette, I have found that working on the "modes" together, we get two hits for one. When Bette sees me doing something for her: a) she appreciates it and b) she knows I am trying to speak her language.
It's almost as if the story proves the point. Frankly, "The Five Languages of Love" seems as unlikely a Dale Hess book as I can imagine. So, you "shallow read" the book and move on, having properly impressed your new friend. But you notice she is not pleased and either because you picked up the idea in your quick read or because your intuition served you well, you serve her by reading her book deeply. And, well, the rest is history as they say.
ReplyDeleteDoug, (have we met along the way? I'm one of Dale's conversation partners from way back and I count him as one as a prized friend) anyone looking for nuance or ambiguity will not like Chapman's ideas. Even a deep read does not necessarily require a pressure suit and there is little danger of the bends as you come back up. I think one can add the nuance and ambiguity one needs and still find the ideas satisfying and, more, surprisingly workable.
Hi, Bill. I think we may have met at some point, but I think we can be forgiven for not remembering the specifics.
ReplyDeleteI like your point about Dad's reading the book being an act of love, and I agree completely. Oh, the irony: reading "The Five Languages of Love" is an act of love. I think Chapman probably planned it that way.
-Doug
What a delicious irony. Not just that I should pass by the "act of love" implicit in reading the book seriously, but that it should be pointed out by two friends with sharp eyes.
ReplyDeleteBill is certainly right both about the lack of nuance in Chapman's writing and about the chance to add the necessary nuances as you think about your own marriage. None of the three women the three of us are married to shows up in Chapman's little stories. Nuances that we add ourselves will be all that saves any of us.