About 10 years ago in my couples therapy practice I started having partners rank Gary Chapman’s five love languages on my intake forms. At the time, few people had heard of it. Something has happened since, because now the majority of my couples come in already knowing about the five love languages and a bit about how it fits for them.
I see a lot of distressed couples, often on the brink of divorce or separation, and the odd thing is that over the years I’ve found that more often than not these couples are actually pretty well matched in their love languages!
Chapman’s basic idea was a good one: that we each have certain modalities that are especially meaningful in terms of giving and receiving love, that we tend to give what we like to receive, and that one of the ways relationships can go awry is by being out of sync in these dimensions. So, for instance, I may feel especially loved when my partner cooks a ni…