The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

chapter nine

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D
ISCOVERING
 Y
OUR
 P
RIMARY
 L
OVE
 L
ANGUAGE
D
iscovering the primary love language of your spouse is
essential if you are to keep his/her emotional love tank full.
But first, let’s make sure you know your own love language.
Having heard the five emotional love languages,
Words of Affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch
some individuals will know instantaneously their own
primary love language and that of their spouse. For others,
it will not be that easy. Some are like Bob from Parma
Heights, Ohio, who after hearing the five emotional love
languages said to me, “I don’t know. It seems that two of
those are just about equal for me.”
“Which two?” I inquired.
“‘Physical Touch’ and ‘Words of Affirmation,’” Bob
responded.

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“By ‘Physical Touch,’ what do you mean?”
“Well, mainly sex,” Bob replied.
I probed a little further, asking, “Do you enjoy your wife
running her hands through your hair, or giving you a back
rub, or holding hands, or kissing and hugging you at times
when you are not having sexual intercourse?”
“Those things are fine,” said Bob. “I am not going to
turn them down, but the main thing is sexual intercourse.
That’s when I know that she really loves me.”
Leaving the subject of physical touch for a moment, I
turned to affirming words and asked, “When you say that
‘Words of Affirmation’ are also important, what kinds of
statements do you find most helpful?”
“Almost anything if it is positive,” Bob replied. “When
she tells me how good I look, how smart I am, what a hard
worker I am, when she expresses appreciation for the
things I do around the house, when she makes positive
comments about my taking time with the children, when she
tells me she loves me—all of those things really mean a lot
to me.”
“Did you receive those kinds of comments from your
parents when you were growing up?”
“Not very often,” Bob said. “Most of what I got from my
parents were critical or demanding words. I guess that’s
why I appreciated Carol so much in the first place, because
she gave me words of affirmation.”
“Let me ask you this. If Carol were meeting your sexual
needs, that is, if you were having quality sexual intercourse

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as often as you desire, but she was giving you negative
words, making critical remarks, sometimes putting you
down in front of others, do you think you would feel loved by
her?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “I think I would feel
betrayed and deeply hurt. I think I would be depressed.”
“Bob,” I said, “I think we have just discovered that your
primary love language is ‘Words of Affirmation.’ Sexual
intercourse is extremely important to you and to your sense
of intimacy with Carol, but her words of affirmation are
more important to you emotionally. If she were, in fact,
verbally critical of you all the time and put you down in front
of other people, the time may come when you would no
longer desire to have sexual intercourse with her because
she would be a source of deep pain to you.”
B
ob had made the mistake common to many men:
assuming that “Physical Touch” is their primary love
language because they desire sexual intercourse so
intensely. For the male, sexual desire is physically based.
That is, the desire for sexual intercourse is stimulated by
the buildup of sperm cells and seminal fluid in the seminal
vesicles. When the seminal vesicles are full, there is a
physical push for release. Thus, the male’s desire for
sexual intercourse has a physical root.

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