The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts Paperback – December 11, 2014

I was once asked to read this book by the only person in the world I love.....I refused. At the time I figured it to be some shrinks opinion on how we should all be in our relationships....what the hell does he know I thought.....what if he is wrong and my future wife bases our whole future on just what he says.....I imagined this book to be some guy with opinions on how to fix problems that he knows nothing about because he doesn't know "us". It's not a good feeling as a man to agree to read a book on relationships because you feel like you're putting everything into the authors hands.....and what if he "doesn't understand" or what if the advice doesn't apply to us.....what if it makes things worse between us because he advises things we don't believe in.....no....I'm not reading that I told her.I thought no matter what we would always figure each other out and we would be ok......I didn't see being asked to read this book , was a cry out from the woman I love hitting a boiling point and her attempt to communicate to me in a different way......the same things she's been trying to for a long time.....Being close minded that day costed me so much regret and misery....I used to wake up to the most beautiful smile in the world and now I don't....I recently ended up reading this book and I couldn't put it down....sounds crazy but it's true. Instead of being some guys opinions or......typical shrink talk that in no way could apply to each specific relationship.......I found it to be a book that opens up the mind to the understanding of love.....and how it is not this one universal "language" we all feel we should be the same with.....I once told her...."nobody taught me how to love, I'm growing....learning".....I pleased with her to understand I love her.......we simply didn't have an understanding of how and why we didnt approach love the exact same way as each other.....only makes sense that it should be the same right? You bicker and argue and it drives you crazy......why doesn't she understand you think.......the book is not an excuse to use or justify a true bad relationship let me add.....but it truly answers so many questions.....it is really a language of love. Once understood, this book leaves you feeling like a fool and only wanting to apply so much of what you've now learned to your future together. It takes away the work of trying to understand the things that at the time make no sense.....and allows you to focus on what's important....loving instead of wasting precious time. Read it carefully and I recommend reading it together.....I didn't get that chance but I can guarantee reading this book with who you love will allow you both to stop frequently throughout the pages and talk,learn,smile, probably cry.....but then go on to a much happier fulfilling life together once the book is closed. It can save so much if you only let it.*Update 12-1-17I drive a bus so I have nothing but time to think as I look out the window and look up at the sky looking around me. You would probably think of screaming kids and noise but for me it is driving in my own little world and using time to think about lifeI am a trainer so I spend my time trying to help people learn how to maintain their body and prevent problems. And the funny thing is that it is are very choices of what we do to our own bodies that I am teaching to have to change. All of our problems nutritionally and physically and even mentally come down too poor choice and repetitive habits that we know we need to change but never do until it's too late. Every single person reading this can relate to thatMy point about what I do is that I spend a lot of time trying to fix my body because professionals out there either won't take the time to do it or I don't have the money to spend on who is needed. I have spent countless months doing stretches and exercises and what I have found is a lot of times I'm doing the exact same stretches and exercises that don't seem to be working. Soooo......why not do different ones then right...... what a lot of reasons it may feel good, you may not know any other stretches or exercises, you may simply believe that if I just do it one more time again tomorrow....THAT it will finally help..... you just believe in that stretch so much that in your mind you just say I'll keep trying. You are maybe even making things worse by this but you're honest to God intentions are to completely cure one of the biggest problems in your life, pain...... I think you see where I'm getting at.Getting a little long for whoever is reading but there is a lot of meaning here that can help who knows thousands of people as long as this review remains online......I will just end it like this..... last night I took a stretch that I have been doing for over 2 years and I changed it in a slightly different way....... a lot of the pain I normally get daily is gone.......just to put a spotlight on that sentence .....I'm saying that what I had been doing for so long..... trying to cure one of the biggest problems in my life that hadnt been working............that I continued doing........ believing in and depending on.... to be my much needed answer.......It wasn't until I allowed the idea of the same stretch applied in a different way, that I ALLOWED life to be better for me.I did not say this stretch doesn't matter anymore and say forget it to never exist again.....no, I used it to COMMUNICATE with my body in the same exact physical form....just different language from mind to body....because I always believed in it.Belief can be amazing and help you....it also can be your own worst enemy when refuse to change your ways.....lots of time I lost believing my way instead of another.....all while would have given anything to accomplish my goal......once again I stood in my own way......but I didn't give up.....otherwise pain would still be here and I wouldn't have came on here to add all these thoughts.You have to go into the book with an open mind because if you do it with the mindset of wanting it to say what it is that you want to hear.....then you can never let the life-changing words happen.......you're learning a language as you read...not what's right and wrong but what was being lost in life.Keep in mind this is a book about the language of love so if you think about when you go to school to learn a different language...you are taking the difficult step of taking time there in order to understand.....be able to take what you understand and apply it.....and be able to communicate in a NEEDED way once you learn....AND THEN USE......communicate and UNDERSTAND eachother.Just think how you feel when you meet somebody and you want to communicate but you can't and you get frustrated. you are trying to figure out what you want the other person to know and they're trying to tell or show you..... it becomes stressful and sometimes you end up walking away from each other never knowing the real meaning that was right there between the two of you. When you are able to speak the same language this simply does not happen.....The same two people if we're able to learn the same language, could come back in front of one another again and.....just imagine......imagine the possibilities with that communication.......so much never lost again.The exact same message and the exact same feelings that were always there, except now instead of the stress of not understanding, there is the excitement for anything to be possible just by coming together and understanding.....The power of language is amazing........think of when you meet somebody and they're able to speak five or six different languages, you are in awe and wish you could do it.well imagine being able to speak the one language in life that is the most unexplainable, powerful language and meaning of life, love....I would also like to mention the fact that if these two people sat down and learn each other's languages together how helpful that is.....and how much easier it is to be able to learn how to communicate with the exact person that you're trying to ........spending time helping each other learn different languages.......TOGETHER.Bus is parked.

This 📕 was not on the list for 2025. In no way did I think I needed this. So how did this book land in my lap????A confession in early January with the late Father Richard Gross from @seaportshrine. During this confession, the topic of my love for the 🌎 and all those I meet came up & how I think I am failing at expressing that ❤️. Father Gross told me to pick up this 📕 and start at home and see where it goes.Shortly after this confession the world lost him tragically & I can only thank him through prayer for this recommendation. His passing crushed me beyond belief due to so many signs sent through him to me from our Holy Father.Father Gross was right - I needed this book to get over what I was feeling. Father Gross will never be forgotten by this family, not just for this 📖 recommendation, but also because of his knowledge, love, kindness and patience that he displayed every time I hid from him behind a screen for a confession.In saying that, if you find yourself struggling with understanding love, giving love or feeling love then I highly recommend this book. You won’t be disappointed.Started on January 29, 2025 & finished on February 21, 2025 - 24 days.

This book holds some great information for helping spouses understand how to demonstrate love to one another. Very good book.

I gifted this book to my friend for her wedding shower! The cover was so beautiful and aesthetic. I really think every newlywed couple would benefit from reading this.

When I was about 75% of the way through this book, I had intended on giving it 5 stars. It's lost a star and I'll explain why. First I'll start with the meat on this bone. Dr. Gary Chapman makes a brilliant observation: There are multiple and specific ways to express love, Words of Admiration, Acts of Service, Quality time, Physical Touch, and Gift Giving. Followed by the following brilliant observations: How we are raised influences our beliefs about how to express love to others. That we can naturally have an inborn way that we feel expresses our love (regardless of how we were raised). We have an inborn way of how we *want* to be loved. We can fail to recognize that others love us when they don't express it in the way we need, and others can fail to realize we love them if we are expressing love in a way that isn't meaningful to them. Those are the best parts of the books in a nutshell. I have several disagreements with other observations Dr. Chapman makes. One is he tends to harp repeatedly on there being one almost magical form of love expression that will make a person feel loved. I disagree with this, as I think most people will have a spectrum across the five traits, finding perhaps one most meaningful, but they will have feelings on all five categories. I also think he seemed to present the Five Categories as a Holy Grail, instead of guidelines. These were minor grievances however. Then came some problematic language. During most of the first part of the book, Dr. Chapman makes religious references to church, and although it aroused my suspicions (I hate when a book devolves into religious mumbo jumbo) the references seemed to just regulate the topic to another activity couples could share, like both enjoying going to see concerts. However, the end of the book did end in scripture quotes, and extremely questionable advice to a woman who apparently seemed to be in an abusive relationship. Dr. Chapman's view of divorce as immoral then came to the forefront. And I believe his faith came before a woman in need of help. The woman was being emotionally and verbally abused, and very possibly a victim of marital rape. Her own faith was tearing her apart, since her friends, and indeed her emotions were telling her to get out of the relationship. She came to Dr. Chapman to enable her to find a way *not to leave*. When she told Dr. Chapman that all her husband seemed to want her for was sex, Dr. Chapman *going against* references he's made earlier in the book (stating that if love isn't expressed freely, it is not a true expression of love, but rather fear), then he made the suggestion that her husbands language of love was "physical touch" and that she should sleep with him more. The women reacted negatively to the suggestion, saying how emotionally damaged she would feel after a sex act with a man who ignores her and treats her coldly and critically. Dr. Chapman's response was downright cruel and I believe sexist, urging her to ignore her feelings and aim to sleep with her husband twice a week. We live in a culture where sex is seen an act, something a woman gives a man, but is separate from her being. We don't see sex as just two people interacting sexually. And I felt his language attested to having this opinion. That women were sort of sexless, desireless creatures, and should sacrifice being comfortable or feeling safe to satisfy their husbands need for sex. He also expressed in the book his belief that polyamory is unnatural and immoral, and equated it with cheating, and inevitably resulting in abandonment of a spouse. Polyamory obviously happens, so it's absurd to call it unnatural. And while yes, many folks do cheat under the guise of polyamory, polyamory can work when communication, trust, honesty and willpower are combined. The book is still well worth the read. However I found it to be one good idea over-explained, and a few bad ideas, thankfully, mostly just touched on.

This book gave me insight and a direct path of what life is like to speak your partners love language. Read it for yourself and discover all the things You are doing wrong and be okay with changing it!