Identify How You Experience Love

Love is felt by each of us differently. For some, it’s a loving expression of appreciation or thoughtful gesture of support. For others, it may be an insightful gift. So long as you do not equate forms of abuse as love, there isn’t really anything wrong with how you need to be loved. While this author believes that The Five Love Languages is overly simplified, it is a helpful tool in identifying acts that speak love to you. In this book, Author Gary Chapman posits that there are five ways in which someone can give and receive love: acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, words of affirmation and physical touch. It is important to know what acts speak love to you because this is likely how you will love others and how you will expect to be loved. In long-term relationships, communicating how you receive love is key to your partner attuning to your needs. A lack of attunement can lead to feelings of resentment and loneliness.

Another way to reflect on how you experience love, is to consider what you need in a relationship to feel safe and secure. In the book Attached, you learn about different attachment styles and your unique attachment style. Attachment styles are formed during early life experiences and are usually a reflection of the quality or love and nurturing you received. Many of us, do not make it out of childhood with a “secure attachment” style, self included. Most of us, emerge into our 20’s, with an anxious, avoidant or disorganized attachment style. Knowing your unique style, equips you to navigate the emotional terrain of relationships by helping you identify what you need to feel secure and how you may make another feel insecure. The good news about attachment styles is that healthy relationships can and do heal attachment wounds. We can all learn to love and be loved securely if we are willing to risk loss, pain and disappointment through the process.

Recap of Topic: Your Experience of Love

When you know how you need to be loved, you are better prepared to notice when a relationship does or does not meet you needs. Through this awareness, you can choose to communicate to increase satisfaction, explore barriers to giving and receiving love and/or end the relationship to seek a more fulfilling partnership. The Five Love Languages is a tool that can assist you in considering some ways in which you receive and show love. Attached is another resource that you can use to further explore your attachment style and attachment needs.

Identify How You Demonstrate Love

The ways in which you show love are just as unique to you as the ways in which you receive love. While there are some commonalities between us, understanding your demonstrations of love increases awareness of how you impact those around you. If you are asking why this awareness matters, great! I will tell you. Awareness of how you show love in relationships allows you to:

Communicate this to others so that they know what they can expect from you. For example, I show love to others by lifting them up with my words and encouraging them.

Request feedback from others to learn if they enjoy receiving love the ways in which you demonstrate it. In the above example, you could seek clarification from your loved ones if they feel seen and loved by you through this action. Believe it or not, not everyone can accept affirming words.

Understand when your gestures of love are not received as such. A common dynamic in heterosexual relationships is that male partners tend to want to “fix”. When their partner expresses a problem, they see this as an opportunity to solve their partner’s dilemma thereby removing all pain. Also common to this dynamic, is the partner’s rejection of these solutions. Most people want the space to understand their struggles and find their own solutions. When this dynamic occurs in a relationship, it can result in one partner feeling unheard and dismissed and another feeling attacked.

Explore the impact of this choice to yourself. For example, I am the ultimate nurturer and protector. I like to keep a pulse on the emotional well-being of everyone close to me. Knowing this allows me to offer more or less support through differing seasons of life. While the nobility of this behavior is obvious, the consequence to myself is that I can over-function for others and fail to preserve emotional energy for myself.

Identify when your attempt to show love is masking an unmet need. In my work with couples, I frequently see the masking of needs through over-functioning and confusing communication. Examples of this may look like, one partner noticing an emotional shift in the other and experiencing uncertainty and anxiety around this shift. In lieu of asking about the relationship or asking for connection, this is frequently masked by questions or statements such as, “How are you?”, “Is everything okay?”, “You seem stressed.” or “Did you have a bad day?” Not surprisingly, the response received is not the one the partner needed to hear. Over-functioning may come in the form of picking up additional household or parenting responsibilities while the other loved one is free to under perform.

Recap of Topic: How You Demonstrate Love

Understanding how you show love to others increases awareness and communication of this for both you and your loved one. With effective communication, you and your loved one can explore allowing for you to show loves in ways that are consistent with you, tailoring your demonstration of love to ways in which are unique to your loved one, and/or modifying behaviors that are not effective expressions of love for either of you.

Understand When It’s Time for Tough Love

Sometimes, the most effective way to show love to another person is through what we typically refer to as “tough love”. In case you are unfamiliar with this expression, tough love is a balance of clear boundary setting and enforcement of consequences around harmful or toxic behavior. Most parents are familiar with the practice of tough love, but tough love can be used in any relationship where the presence of boundaries is necessary for the well-being of both parties. Tough love can be used in all of the following situations.

An unreasonable work environment where your physical, emotional or mental well-being is not being respected. This may look like refusing to work additional hours or perform work tasks that you do not feel are ethical.

A romantic relationship whereby your partner suffers from addiction. It doesn’t matter if the addiction is porn, gambling, alcohol or drugs. If the addiction poses a threat to either or your well-beings, then this would be an appropriate situation to set clear boundaries.

A peer relationship that is frequently imbalanced or exploitative. This may occur in relationships where one party is frequently the giver and the other is the taker. This may also occur in relationships where one person borrows money or resources from the other without return or appreciation. Really any act that elicits feelings of resentment in you, is something that you want to attend to and set boundaries around.

A demanding or abusive parent who demonstrates a pattern of harm to you, the child. Just because someone gave you life, does not mean that they are entitled to hurt you. When a parent-child relationship becomes toxic, you may notice a pattern of taking money or resources from you, speaking poorly to you or about you, lying to you or about you, attempting to turn others against you, failing to accept responsibility or accountability and/or frequently dismissing or downplaying your concerns. In this situation, it would be appropriate to set clear boundaries around acceptable and unacceptable behavior with an understanding of how you will enforce these boundaries, if needed.

An under-functioning or self-sabotaging child is probably the clearest and hardest example of how to practice tough love. As a mother of three, I understand and struggle with the impulse to protect my children from all harm. This becomes a challenge when your child is the one causing him/herself harm. This can be seen in small ways like failing to study for a test, failing to create daily routines of self-care and hygiene or failing to bring a backpack to school. This can also be seen in big ways like engaging in cutting, using drugs or alcohol and having unprotected sex. Regardless the severity of the behavior, the practice of tough love is appropriate for reinforcing responsibility and development.

Recap of Topic: Practicing Tough Love

Tough love, while emotionally difficult for both parties, is also a necessary and healthy way to maintain close relationships. Without tough love, both individuals remain stuck in their relational dynamic. This dynamic typically involves one person over-functioning and another person under-functioning. In this scenario, neither individual is free to live life to their fullest potential.

Recommended Product of the Week

This week’s recommended product(s) is The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman and Attached by Amir Levine, Rachel Heller, et al. The combination of both of these books create a solid foundation for understanding your needs in love.