You may remember that back in April we went to San Francisco, fully intending to interview Patrick & Michelle Gannon about their marriage – and their jobs as marriage and family counselors.
Michelle’s laryngitis got in the way of the interview, but we were still able to attend their fantastic Marriage Prep 101 workshop, and met a bunch of lovely couples, most of whom were engaged or just recently married – unlike us old hands. One couple was Linda and Devin, from Boise, ID, who we chatted to, sitting outside in the sunshine during one of the breaks.
Linda emailed us recently to tell us that she was enjoying reading the blog (awww!) and she also mentioned that one of the challenges that she and Devin were encountering was that sometimes he does things for her that he considers nice, chivalrous, helpful, considerate. The problem is that as someone who has lived an independent life for many years, to Linda these little bits of help can seem like an attempt to diminish her self-sufficiency. She says:
“I’m 43 and have been single many years. To me marriage is not about being ”taken care of” – at least not in the financial aspect and maybe in other ways too. As our wedding gets closer, I think I’m struggling a bit with that. Devin (my fiance) tries to take care of me and while I know he doesn’t mean it this way, to me it feels like he wants to take away some of my self sufficiency – something that was so crucial to my single life.”
One of the most important things we learned on the Marriage Prep 101 workshop was about the five love languages. It sounds like Devin’s main love language is acts of service – he understands that the most important way to express love to someone is to do nice things for them – change a lightbulb, fix a misbehaving laptop, and so on. So when Devin tries to take care of Linda, he doesn’t understand why she wouldn’t take it as intended – as a loving gesture.
Equally, it sounds like Linda’s primary love language might be something like words of affirmation – she doesn’t want Devin to do things for her (because she’s proud of her independence), and, in fact, she probably wants him to confirm to her that she’s capable of taking care of things herself.
All is not lost, however. This love language misfire is a little like the situation most of us experience when someone gives you a gift and it’s so completely different to your own taste that you wonder if the gift giver knows you at all. They’ve given you a gift not because they think it’s a gift you would want to receive, but rather because it’s a gift they want to give.
People show love to others, usually, in the ways in which they would like to be shown love. I tend to use a lot of words of affirmation with Melissa because that’s my primary love language – whereas she wants to be shown love through quality time.
So maybe Devin needs to pay more attention to Linda’s love language, and vice-versa. It’s not just about making the effort to show someone love in the language they best understand, it’s also making the effort to appreciate when they show love in a language that you don’t understand quite so well.
Do you and your spouse have different love langauges? Does this manifest as a clash over who has responsibility for what? Do you struggle to maintain a feeling of independence even as your life is linked with someone else’s? How do you think your respective love languages play a role?
I used to be the same way as Linda! One thing that helped me was to stop looking at acts of service as replacing things I used to do and rather view them as complimentary to the things I do. AJ and I fell into specific roles and while I often whine about being the one who manages finances, I appreciate that he does the laundry and cooks- even if I was used to doing those things “my way” for myself before. It’s hard to let go sometimes and give someone else control over things like your delicates, but it showed me a different side of AJ and, frankly, I am glad that I’m learning how to do all of the “money stuff.”
Interesting…the two of us have the same love languages as you and Melissa (surprise, surprise), but in the reverse–my love language is words of affirmation and Tony’s is quality time (surprise, surprise).
The love language concept is a great way to understand what matters most to your spouse. Even though my husband and I were able to accurately guess one another’s primary love language, it’s a nice way to validate and appreciate our differing styles. Now Rob realizes that his acts of service aren’t unappreciated. It’s just that words of affirmation mean so much more to me. Good stuff.
So I love whne my husband does things for me but only certain things — and this post actually made me realize that those things that drive me crazy are about issues of control. So I love when he helps with kids or drives the car when we go on long trips but I cringe when he pours the cream in my coffee for me, or serves me food. One for the srhinky dink, me thinks!