When You Speak Different Love Languages with Dr. Gary Chapman

So literally I will reach out at night and go like physical touch.

True love begins not with a feeling, but with an attitude, and the attitude of love is, I want to enrich the life of the other person. Hey everybody, I'm Kim Holdernis. And I've been Holdernis! Welcome to Laflides! If you ever stood up, walked over to the pencil sharpener.

I'm just really sharp in that pencil for really long time, because you wanted everybody in class to see your brand new outfit, your home. Welcome! To be clear, there used to be a pencil sharpener next to the door, and it had a little rotary thing.

“Do they not have pencil sharpeners in class anymore?”

Next to the door? They're probably still there, you can't really eat. You can't really eat.

I'm pretty sure they were bolted in the corner.

They were hard bolted into the concrete. Um, I think, honestly, now them thinking of it, I think they just used their computers for everything. So no one knows how to write things when they're in school anymore? More or since handwriting, he looks like he is sending a ransom note. I would argue that about both of our children?

I know, guys. Anyway, it's just not in a premium anymore. Yes, obviously. A little housekeeping, we have a wonderful, wonderful episode for you today, but we have exciting news to share. Very exciting news, guys. We have another book out for pre-order. It is a Children's Book.

It's called Get It Done and Have Fun, ADHD Hacks for Awesome Kids. It's basically got a bunch of tips and tricks on how to help your child with executive functioning. And I'll be honest, like this could also work for adults. There's some really good stuff in there. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to work for just kids with ADHD.

So don't be offended if I gift this book to you. Yeah. You can go to theholdernessfamily.com to get more information or pre-order your copy, including an option to get a sign copy. Yeah.

Okay, love signing.

Today, we have an incredible show.

Okay, we are talking about love languages with the guy who invented them, Dr. Gary Chapman. If you've ever heard someone say, yeah, quality times my love language, that was invented 30 years ago by a single human being who has turned it into a wildly successful franchise. And we're talking to him today about his new book, but let's back up a second. We retook our love language assessment.

“I think your dad, because his hand side was a pastor and he married us.”

And so we did some pre-marital counseling, which was very weird to do with your future father-in-law. Anyway, this is one of the tests he had us take. He had to take like Myers-Briggs, this, everything, which was very helpful. I don't think mine have changed much, but I am an acts of service girl.

I love some words of affirmation as well, but if you sweep the floor for me, it's on. You are, so I'm looking at yours right now, acts of service is the clear top. Then there's like a three-way tie, words of affirmation, quality time, and honestly, physical touch is fourth for you. Right, which you're shocked at this.

No, I'm not shocked at this. Okay, and then both of us, we'll go through years real quick, but both of us have received gifts at the bottom, which works out because you're just not big gift people. Honestly, for us, usually the gifts are some sort of active service, like something that I've done for you that you don't have to do anymore.

Or a trip or something like a scary trip for you. It's quality time, yeah. It's done. Right.

“So like the, yeah, I think that like those are the things are baked into it.”

Mine is like the clear winner was physical touch, right, that's no one surprised about that. That's the way I've been since I was a kid. And then words of affirmation, we both have the same number two, words of affirmation. Quality time is three for me and just like my top one is your fourth.

Your top one is my fourth. As far as like things that I want to receive, which is acts of service. Okay, before we get to Dr. Gary Chapman, let's head to the Lafline. [MUSIC] Hi, this is Fubby, you know something that's making happy right now.

This is Mary from Kansas City is leaving Christmas up. So long Christmas is so happening in decor in my house. And I'm rubbing it. It helps me get for January this year.

I love that this is a sixth love language.

Dr. Gary Chapman. Christmas is the sixth love language. Yeah, Christmas, the sixth love language is just Christmas. I love this energy and I want to steal her joy. Where is that on your list?

“Like if there's a sixth love language, where does that go?”

And Sam, I'll get this from you as well. So right now, we've got these rankings. Do you have Christmas ahead of acts of service? No. Do you have it ahead of words of affirmation?

Maybe. Might be your number two. Christmas. I think Dr. Gary Chapman, we need to calm up and say, hey, you might need to edit all of your books.

Yeah. For whatever reason, like I do get sad taking it down. But then I also, I don't know if I could be the person who leaves a cheer up a tree up your realm. Like I still do want it to feel special.

Okay. This is what I think. Why do you love Christmas? So for me, Christmas, I love Christmas. I put Christmas so high if it was a sixth love language.

But then when I think about it, I'm like, oh my gosh, Christmas, we go ice skating. We do all of these events a whole time. We cozy up on the couch and watch movies, physical touch. You're 100% right.

There's also gifts. Gifts. Exactly. Christmas is the love language. Christmas is the love language.

Oh, all of that. All of that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely right. Like I love the joy that all of those things bring. Dr. Chapman was nice enough to let Anne Marie and I also take care of.

Yeah, I want to hear about this. And it's surprising or not. My lovely languages were exactly the same as pens. Like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. But Anne Marie and I, number one, physical touch.

We can, how does that make you feel? When I saw those results, again, Dr. Great Chapman has a book on how to bring this into the workplace. My immediate reaction was, these are the three people I interact with. I mean, besides my son, like the most.

“Am I supposed to just like walk up and hug them every morning?”

Like is that an HR violation? Like we don't have an HR department, but we joke about it. So I, I really do want to get his workplace book because I want to find out how to make you guys feel appreciated because I do appreciate you guys so much.

I really, truly do. But I think that me walking up and giving you a back rub is again some sort of workplace rule. Fair, yeah, physical touch and a relationship is going to be different from physical touch in the workplace.

Right, so there has to be a workplace language that we can, but it wasn't surprising to me 'cause you guys are all very touchy-feely. And I'm like, hi, Merry Christmas, handshake. Let's get to our guests.

Yeah. Dr. Gary Chapman is a renowned author, speaker, pastor, and relationship expert whose life work has helped millions and millions of people. He is best known for the book, The Five Love Languages,

which is sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.

It's remained on the best soulless for years and it's been translated into 50 different languages. With over three decades of hands-on experience in marriage and family counseling, Dr. Chapman combines his academic expertise

with real world insight. His enduring impact is help people not just understand love, but how to live it well. His latest book, which we'll ask him about, is called The Love Languages that matters most,

how to personalize love, so they really feel it. Welcome to the show, Dr. Gary Chapman. Well, thank you, I'm glad to be with you all. We are so excited to have you. We are super fans.

In fact, when we were making breakfast for my 16-year-old son this morning, he asked what we were doing, I said, we're going to be interviewing the Five Languages. He goes, oh yeah, I know all about that.

So my 16-year-old son has an awareness of your work so well done. You've really, really infiltrated the pop culture even of the teens that's huge. Would you mind just let's start from the beginning for people who may not know, just giving us a brief

on the basics of the Love Languages? - Yeah, well, you know, many years ago, I first discovered that what makes one person feel loved doesn't make another person feel loved.

“I'll never forget the first time that dawned on me.”

I didn't know the couple, never met them,

it's found out later that they've been married to each other for 30 years. And we discussed a while, the wife said, no, gentlemen, here's the problem. I just don't feel any love coming from him. And she said, I feel empty inside.

And she said, we don't argue, we're cordial, but he lives his life and I live my life. And I'm just, I don't know how long I can go on like this. And I looked at him and he said, I don't understand her. I do everything I can to show her that I love her.

And I said, what do you do? And he said, well, I get home for work before she does. I start the evening meal. Some nights I have it ready when she gets home. If not, she'll help me and after we eat,

And on Thursday, I vacuum the flowers. And on Saturday, I wash the car, I move the grass, I help her with the laundry, and he went on, and I was beginning to wonder, what does this woman do? I wanted to keep going, but this man, you're describing,

I think, I think-- My dream, my dream is in love with this man, you're sorry. But please continue, yeah. And he said, I do all of that. And I don't know what else I can do.

I look back at her and she started crying. And she said, he's right. He is a hard working man. And I appreciate that. But we don't ever talk.

You know, he's always mowing the grass.

Watchin' the dishes vacuumin' the flowers. We don't ever talk. And I realize that here was a sincere husband

“who was loving his wife and the best way he knew how,”

but he was not connecting with her emotionally. And then, I heard similar stories for years after that. And finally, I thought, you know, there's got to be a pattern to this. So what I did is go back and read several years of notes

that I made when I was counseling and ask myself, when someone said, I feel like my spouse doesn't love me, what did they want? What were they complaining about? And their answers fell into five categories.

And I later called them the five languages. And I started using that concept. But if you are heard of field love, you've got to learn how to express your love in her love language.

And if you own him to field love, you've got to learn his love language. And so I started using it in my counseling and couples would come back after two or three sessions and say, you know, this is really changing things.

I mean, the climb is different now. And then, I started teaching it in small groups

“in our church and the same thing happened.”

It was probably five years later when I wrote the book, The Five Love Languages. And the reason I wrote it, I thought, you know, if I can put this concept in a book and write it in the language of the common person,

leave out psychological terms and even theological terms that a lot of people would not understand, maybe I could help a lot of couples

that I would never have time to see in my office.

So that's what led to the book. And here's it's a brief summary of the five love language. One of them is words of affirmation. You look nice in that outfit. I really appreciate what you did.

You know, one of the things I like about you is just using words to communicate your love to them for some people, that's their language. Another is acts of service, doing something for them, that you know they would like for you to do.

In a marriage, that is such things as Washington did, she's in vacuuming floors and mowing the grass and walking the dog and changing the baby's diaper. That's a big act of things.

(laughing) So, you know, there's an old saying, actions speak louder than words.

“If this is the person's love language, that's true.”

It's not true for everyone, but for some people, actions do speak louder than words. And then number three is gifts. It's universal to give gifts as an expression of love. Before I started counseling in theology,

I did an undergrad and later a master's degree in cultural anthropology, studying cultures all over the world and how they're organized.

We've never discovered a culture

where gift giving is not an expression of love. The gift says, they were thinking about me. Look what they got. So, for some people, gifts is their primary love language. And then there is quality time.

Giving the person your undivided attention. This is what the lady was complaining about when she said we don't ever talk. She didn't mean they didn't discuss logistics. Who's going to take the kids to school?

Which restaurant you want to go to? She didn't mean that. She meant we don't ever sit down and give our full attention to each other and share life with each other.

She was begging for quality time. For some people, this is their primary love language. And then number five is physical touch. We've long known the emotional power of physical touch. That's why we pick up babies.

Hold them and kiss them and cuddle them. Long before the baby understands the meaning of the word love, the baby feels love by physical touch. So, the basic concept is that out of those five, each of us, married or single, young or old,

have a primary love language. One of them speaks more deeply to us emotionally than the others. Now, all of them are fine. We're not going to turn away any of them.

But if we don't receive love in our primary language, we will not feel loved. Even though the person may be speaking some of the other languages. So, that is such part of our lexicon.

I mean, it is such a popular concept now. But you have a new book. So, how does the new book build on that? Well, you know, the original book's been out now for over 30 years.

Yeah.

It is sold over 20 million copies.

It's been published in over 50 languages around the world. But through the years, the two most common questions I've had from people who have read the book, is, you know, Gary, in the book, you mentioned that in each of these love languages,

there are dialects. But you don't tell us anything about what you mean by that and what are the dialects. And then the other question is, they say, you know, you mentioned in the book that our personality

does interface with the love languages, but you don't really tell us how that works. And so, this new book is dealing with those two issues among other things. You know, we talk about, you know, why people have tried

some of this and didn't work. And we look at all those kind of things.

But, and I teamed up with less and lessly parent.

You may be familiar with them. Some of your listeners may be familiar with them. They written a number of books on marriage. He is a psychologist, a Christian psychologist. She is a marriage and family therapist.

Living Seattle, Washington. And they're really great. One of their best known book is, saving your marriage before it starts. And along with that, there's an online thing that you can take.

So I teamed up with them. And before we wrote the book, he put together the mainly, mainly less, lessly helped him some. He put together what we're now calling a premium assessment.

Five-level language, premium assessment. You know, the original quiz that we have online to help people discover their love language.

My publisher told me 155 million people

have taken that free quiz, which is amazing. That's amazing. But in that newest assessment,

“which you have to pay for, or on this one,”

because it's a 15 page, you know, Brennan, that you're going to get on yourself. And we do help them discover the dialects within the language that are most meaningful. And we do talk about personality

and how they'd interface it. So we did that premium assessment first. And it's been well received. And a lot of counselors are using it with their people.

But the book goes into all of that. The book spells out in each of the love language, it spells out all the dialects, and it talks about to personality and how that interface is. And we give lots and lots of real-life illustrations

in this new book. So I'm really excited about it. I think it's going to help people who've read their original book. I think it's going to help them the even more specific and how they relate into each other.

Yeah. So what do you mean by dialect? I know that, like, in a metaphor of language, it's, you know, there's a language and inside a language, you know, there's in British, there's Cockney and there's old world English and all that stuff.

“So can you give us an example of, like, a different dialect?”

Yeah, the dialect is simply a different way of speaking that particular language. OK. Just like, you know, what you mentioned. I speak English with a Southern accent.

You go to Boston. It's going to be different, OK? It's a different accent, different dialect. And let me just take a gift, for example. There are fanciful gifts.

Things like, you know, for a lady, jewelry is a really nice piece of jewelry, but fanciful gifts. But there's also sentimental gifts, like a photo that you had framed of a memory, a place something where you had a memory, a sentimental gift.

That's very different from a fanciful gift. And then there's practical gifts. Like, you know, a vacuum cleaner or a coffee maker. And then people would love that. Like, my sister-in-law, for Christmas, like, one year she asked

your parents to have, they needed trees cut down and their yard to have trees cut down. Whereas, like, I would love-- That's not fanciful. That is not fanciful.

That's very practical. But like, that's a great use of a gift. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So helping people understand those different dialects and each of the languages is going to really help them.

The more specific and realized, you know, maybe I don't need to spend all this money on this fanciful gift when they've been saying for quite a while that they would like to have a new coffee maker, or a new food maker or something, you know?

I've got a comment, and then I've got a question.

“My comment is, 30 years ago, I think it was genius”

going back to what you said that this was based on notes

that people were having. Really, this is--

the book is about problems people are having,

but your title is positive and its solutions.

“And I think it's a genius title, because it's a way for people”

to buy that book and feel like, oh, this is going to be good. Instead of, oh my gosh, I'm not going to law them with my own. Yeah, I'm doing. So on the marketing end, I don't know if you meant to do it in 1996 or whenever, but well done, sir.

Yeah, and so here's my question about those conflicts, right? What if the love language that your loved one craves the most, you suck at, or don't do as naturally as some of the other things? Yeah. More on this after these words.

Well, this is going to be a learning curve. Yeah. I remember the man who said to me, he said, Doug Shaman, he said, my wife and I read your book, and we took the quiz, and her love language is words of affirmation.

And I'm ashamed to say this. But I don't know how to say those kind of words.

I never received positive words growing up.

You know, what I was told growing up that I was lazy, that I was never going to mount to anything, and this negative words. And I don't know how to say positive words. And I said to him, well, you are, where you are.

We can't change our history. I said, but here's the good news. You can learn to speak this language as an adult, even if you didn't receive it as a child.

“Now that you understand how important it is to your wife.”

I say, for example, can you tell me three things that your wife is good at? He thought a moment and said, well, she's a good cook. And she's a good school teacher. And she's a good mother.

I wrote those three words now. And I'll be side to those words to a three sentences. For example, like on the cooking, it was something like, honey, I haven't told you this, but I really appreciate all the meals you cook.

You're a wonderful cook. Just two or three sentences after each one of them. I handed it to the sheet to him, the paper. I said, here's your assignment. This week, twice a day, I want you to get in a room

by yourself and say these words, read these words out loud. So you hear yourself actually saying these words twice a day. Okay, every day. And when you come back next week, I hope you can say them to me without looking at your notes.

Okay. He said, well, I'll try. So I came back and he did it.

“I said, okay, now here's your assignment.”

The next three weeks. I want you to give her one of these each week. I don't care what day of the week or what time of day, but you give her one of these each week. I said, now the first time you give her one,

you may want to say it when she's looking in another direction because to look at her and her eyes and say it, just make blow your mind. Okay, so let's just take it easy here. But you give her one each week and come back.

I want to know what happened. So when it came back, he said, well, I did it. How did you wife respond? He said, well, on the third week, she said, what is going on with you?

I've never heard you give me so many compliments.

I said, what did you say? He said, I said, well, honey, you know we read that book. And we took that quiz and your love language is words of affirmation. So I'm just trying to learn how to put my love into words

because I know that's your language and I love you. She said, oh, that is so sweet. Oh. And that is the, that's the goal, right? So okay, my, if you couldn't tell, my love language

is active service. So pen before this recent ice storm, he got gas in my car. Just so I was like, I had never felt so loved in my life that he went out in the freezing cold to get gas in my car. His physical touch, physical touch, physical touch

and words of affirmation, physical touch is first. Yeah, physical touch is very high. I am a parry menopausal, sorry to be to you in my. And sometimes, you know, it is hard. I'm just, there's just, there's a lot going on, Dr. Chapman.

So for me, I know it's physical touch. So literally I will reach out at night and go like a grab his arm and go physical touch. Like I'm touching you. I know you need this and I'm trying my very best.

Like what? Yeah, and me as someone who needs physical touch more living with someone with menopausal, I go for a little bit of acts of service knowing that that might lead to physical touch.

To physical touch, it's a symbiosis that exists in our relationship. But what happens if, I mean, I know I'm not alone in this parry menopausal journey, which physical touch is like

So what happens when that language is hard to speak?

Well, I think, first of all, it's understanding

how important it is to the other person. When we know how we feel when they speak our love language,

“that's how they feel when we speak their love language.”

And so when we've got that concept and we've also got the concept that really true love begins not with a feeling, but with an attitude. And the attitude of love is I want to enrich the life

of the other person. And we, all of us either have an attitude of love. I'm talking about it in the whole of life. We have an attitude of love. I want to enrich the lives of the people that I encounter

or we have a selfish attitude. And when you put that in the marriage, if you have a loving attitude, and then you have the information on what would meet one of their deepest emotional needs,

you highly motivated to go beyond your feelings, not all out your feelings. We don't choose our feelings. But we don't have to be controlled by them. So we go beyond our feelings

to express love to that person in a way that's meaningful to them because we have an attitude of love. Now if we have an attitude of selfishness and by nature all of us are self-centered.

And there's a good part of that that means we feed ourselves, we get rest and we get exercise. But when it becomes selfishness in which I'm approaching all of life in terms of what I can get out of it,

I'll bring that into the marriage. And this is where many individuals are marriages. They're in that marriage and in their mind, their spouse is not making them happy and they will say eventually after they've gone

for a few years struggling with all this, they will say, well, I haven't felt loved in 10 years and I just want you to know about this marriage. And by that time, maybe they've already found somebody else that they haven't affair with that is speaking their language,

can understand what I'm saying. But selfishness leads to divorce eventually. But an attitude of love helps us go against whatever we're facing, whether it's menopause or whether it's the gentleman I mentioned

that you just never receive that language.

So how can I speak it? I've never received it. Well, it's effort, but just like it will be effort to learn a new spoken language, it's effort. But if we are motivated with an attitude of love,

then we can learn how to speak that language when ever's going on with us. - There you go, thank you, Beth. And also, I'll take the garbage out later. So the great philosopher Paul Abdull once said,

"Opus, it's a trap."

“And I know that that happens a lot in personality types, right?”

Is that a similar thing in Love Languages too? Or I mean, can people with the same exact Love Languages get along fine, we obviously have slightly different ones? - Yeah. Well, you would think that if both of them

have the same primary Love Languages, it would be easier. And I think it probably would be. I've done research on that, really. But it makes logical sense that it would be easier for them.

But the reality is very few people in a marriage

have the same Love Languages. And so for most people, we're going to have to learn to speak a Love Languages that is not natural, or not as natural for us. But it doesn't have to be natural for us.

And yes, at the first, it will feel a little strange. And just like if you're trying to speak a different language, it's going to feel strange. But it's OK, we just say, yeah, this is kind of, for example, to say to your spouse, if word is their language,

to say, I know that I haven't done this. And I don't know really much about it. But I'm going to really try. And one of the things I'm going to do, I'm going to write some sentences down.

Things I'd like to say to you that I've never seen. And I'm going to write them down. And sometimes, honey, I may have to read them. I may not be able to remember them. So please bear with me.

But I want to learn how to speak my Love to you in words, in your language. And just the fact that you're committing to them, that the, yeah, this is new, this is hard. It doesn't come natural for me, but I love you.

And I want to communicate love in your language. I mean, that alone speaks to them that you're willing to put effort into this. We are talking about romantic love, which is oftentimes people's primary relationship.

But we have children, we have co-workers, we have friendships.

“It's important to know their love language, right?”

Absolutely. This concept applies in all closing and relationships. You know, the second book in that series was the Five Love Langages of Children.

who was a Christian psychiatrist for 30 years working with children.

“And I say to parents, the question is not”

do you love your children? By nature, we love our children. The question is do your children feel loved? And if you have two or three children, they may all have different love languages.

You can't treat all of them the same and expect that they're going to all feel loved. I remember a 13-year-old young man, and run away from home, and I ended up in my office. It's a number of years ago.

And he said to me in our conversation, "My parents don't love me. They love my brother, but they don't love me." I knew his parents. I knew they loved him.

The problem was one that they didn't love him

is that they've never discovered

that he had a primary love language, and they weren't speaking that language. So to plies with children, to plies with teenagers, the third book was the five-level age of teenagers for parents. Now we have one, 14 ageers.

Call the teens, a guy, to the five-level language. We have one for single adults. On how this applies to all their relationships, their parents, their college roommates, their dating partners, their work associates.

So yeah, you're right. It applies in all human relationships. And I don't know, just a few years ago, we took it to work. And the books entitled The Five Langages of Appreciation in the Workplace.

But we use the word appreciation rather than love, but it's the same basic thing that they feel that they are important, that people care about them. They're not just a cog in the machine, you know.

And we've had a great response to that. And I tell you what motivated me to write that book. I wrote it with Dr. Paul White, who for 20 years, he's a psychologist at 20 years experience worth of business leaders.

But two research projects. One of them found that 70% of the people who have a job in this country say they feel a little appreciation at work. 64% of the people that leave a job

and go to another job, say they're primarily because they didn't feel appreciated where they were. So that's what motivated me. And so he did two years of research before we wrote that book.

But yeah, it applies in all human, close human relationships. OK, I'm fascinated by the evolution of love languages within a person. The fact that sometimes they can change, right? I imagine when I'm a child, it's very different

for what it is when I'm an adult. And also how they can change in relationships, I want to bring in Sam Allen or producer. She's going to hear her on the mic. You're going to hear Sam on the mic

because she has a question for you on that. I want to ask you about how love languages change over time because I did the free assessment maybe six years ago. And my top love language was words of affirmation. And I did it this week and now it's physical touch.

Six years ago when I took that first test,

I was in a relationship where I didn't really know where I stood with the person. And that actually ended up in a divorce.

“And so I'm wondering if that's why words of affirmation”

was coming up. Yeah, I think there are seasons of life and there are circumstances where another love language may jump to the top. And I think that the circumstance you were in,

not sure about how they felt about you, the words of words met more to you. A mother who has two preschool children, acts of service may not have been her primary love language, but during those years, it's probably going to up to the top

because she's overwhelmed. Or even just an immediate circumstance. Let's say your spouse hangs up the telephone and starts crying and you say, "Honey, what's wrong?" And they say, "I just got worded, my mother died."

And they're just weeping. Physical touch may not be their primary love language, but in that circumstance, wrapping your arms around them and holding them while they weep

may be the most powerful thing you can do

to communicate your love. I'm with you, honey, I'm with you. So yeah, seasons of life and circumstances, often we'll push another love language to the top. The different partner, push it to the top,

like if that partner is, say, better at certain things that would make you want to-- - But you feel more confident in that relationship. - Exactly. - Yeah.

“Yeah, I think that, I think that is possible.”

And I think for all of us, it's going to be a learning thing. It's not just discovering their love language, but it's learning how to speak it in a way that's most meaningful to them. And here's one of the things

that I encourage a married couples to do. What about over two or three weeks? You just saved your spouse. Honey, on a scale of zero to 10. How full is your love tank this week?

Gar, are, how much love do you feel coming from me this week? And they give you a number.

what is the best thing I could do or say this week

“that would be most meaningful to you expressing my love?”

- How's your love to give you? (laughing) - And what they say may not be their primary language on that particular week. - Right, I'm feeling a 10.

- Yeah? - Yeah. - I think I'm 10ish. - 10ish? - Yeah, all right.

- But I'll tell you when it dips. - Yeah, I feel like we're very, we are less in Dr. Chapman. We get a lot of, we work together. So we had a lot of quality time. So there's a lot of opportunity to talk about these things

because there are weeks where we're like, oh, we're about a five, like, but I think what I love about that exercise is it is an act of service then, so I am an act of service brain. So if it's also an affirmation, it's an affirmation.

So if you're like, you know what babe, I'm about a seven, I, 'cause I communicate through acts of service, I can then get to work. Like, I know I have like a job to do and I've, like, and it's not just to check the box to be selfish,

but like, it gives me something concrete to go off earth. - Does it necessarily mean, if you like it, that you like to, also, so if you like receiving acts of service, that means you like giving acts of service?

Is that always the case? - Well, it's, it's, it's typically true that the love language you speak most naturally is the one you want to receive. - Gotcha.

- When we first got married,

of course, I knew nothing about love language, it's an early days of our marriage, but I gave my wife words of affirmation. I would not have called them that at the time, and it wouldn't have used that term,

but I told her how nice she looked, how much I appreciate what she did. I told her probably several times a day, I love you honey, I am so glad I married you. I love you, love you, love you.

And one, one night she said to me, you keep on saying, I love you. If you love me, why don't you help me? And I say, what do you mean? And she said, well, you don't ever offer

to watch the dishes or vacuum the floors or clean the toilet. I mean, you don't offer to do anything.

And I didn't say this, but what I was thinking,

what are you talking about? My mother did those things. - Oh, Dr. Chattin. - Oh, I'm glad you did my things. I love you. He did say it aloud. - Well, I did say, well, honey, I didn't realize

she wanted me to do that. I mean, I don't mind watching dishes. I didn't know you wanted me to do it. And I said, I can vacuum the floors. I said, I don't mind doing that. And I said, I don't know how to clean toilets. And she said, I can teach you.

I can't teach a man to look him back on it. She was telling me her love language, you know? - Yeah. - And so I think, listen, people had good marriages before I wrote the book on five love languages,

but if they did, they stumbled upon how to express love to each other. And that's kind of what we did in those early years. I took kind of two quotes. She said and started doing those things.

And then she started telling me how much she appreciated me and so forth and you. So we're still on the, yeah, I still watched the dishes. After all being here and she tells me I'm the greatest husband in the world.

(laughing) - Because your love language is words of affirmation. - Yeah, absolutely. - We know that through seasons of life,

“your love language and what you need to hear”

and you need to feel may change in shift. But what doesn't change in shift is, I believe at least, is your foundation to your personality. I am more introverted.

He is more extroverted. So how does love at language work within those personality types? - Yeah, it helps us know how again, how that influence is, how we speak their language. For example, let's say that the husband's love language

is a words of affirmation. So the wife's got that down clearly. So she decides that she's gonna not just tell him personally, but she's gonna tell him in front of a whole group of their friends.

It's gonna tell everybody how wonderful he is. - He would not back by the way. - Yes, now intellectually, he's okay with that. He understands her intentions. But in his heart, oh honey, I'd rather hear it.

This you and me, not in front of all these people. So whereas an extrovert, that'd be wonderful. He'd love to hear you talk about how wonderful he is in front of other people, but not an introvert. So that's kind of the example of that.

“And I think another thing, let's say quality time.”

One of the dialects is improvising. That is just on the spur of the moment. It's starting to try to get quality time going. So her husband said to his wife, "I'm Friday night at dinner."

"and go take a hike and that's been the whole morning "to gather up at Pilah Mountain." And his wife says, "Honey, tomorrow Saturday, "I've already got my Saturday planned." He said, "Oh, you can put those things off the next week."

You see, in his mind, he's doing a wonderful thing. He wants to speak her language all morning, be with her all morning. But she is a managed person.

“If it's quality time, yes, that's why she wants.”

But let's, if you want to go to the next. Yeah, let's do it next. This next Saturday or two Saturday is down the road. Let's plan it. So again, the personality and the dialects.

You see, interface with each other. And that's true on all the personalities. So to dialect. One more question, you talk a lot about love languages, obviously. But there's also a quality language, it's only give us a primer on that real quick.

Yeah. More on this after these words. Let's go to a school in a school for X-Ray and Sabrein. There's a man without an answer. I hope you'll understand what he says.

First of all, I think you can do something else.

Let's take a look at your time, with HBO Max. Streaming stories like Harry Potter and Night of the Seven Kingdoms Superman and many more. Up yet, HBO Max. A fellow counselor here in our city,

who I knew, but hadn't seen it in a while, made an appointment to see me. And when she came in, she said, Gary, I don't have a problem, but I want to share something with you. I've been using the five love languages for years in my counseling.

“But I think people also have an apology language.”

I say, what do you mean by that? She said, I think that what one person considers to be a sincere apology is not what another person considers to be a sincere apology, and people are missing each other. As soon as she said it, I resonated, because for years, they'd been in my office arguing over whether or not one of them apologized.

She would say, I would forgive him if he would just apologize. And he would say, I didn't apologize. And she would say, you didn't apologize. I told you I was sorry, that's not an apology. So as soon as she said it, I resonated, and I said, well, I think you've got a good idea

here. I hadn't really thought about it that deeply, but what are you going to do with this idea? She said, well, I was hoping maybe you and I could write a book together on it. I said, well, if we do that, we've got to do some research and find out if it's true. And then what are the polishing languages?

So we agreed, and for two years, we asked thousands of people all over the country.

“There were two questions when you apologized, what do you typically say or do?”

And the second question, when someone's apologizing to you, what do you want to hear them say or do? And their answers fit into five categories. I promise you, we weren't looking for five. I just happened to happen, and so we wrote the book on the five apology languages.

One of them is, I'm sorry, you see, where do we learn to apologize? Typically, if I'm our parents, and if our parents tell us when we're four years old, don't push your sister, go tell her, you're sorry, we're still saying I'm sorry when we're 23 and married. If that's all we were ever told.

But I'm sorry, it's expressing regret, that not always with the words I'm sorry, but

you're trying to communicate. I feel badly about what I have done. And so expressing regret, and then it's accepting responsibility. I was wrong, should not have done that. No excuse for that, except for responsibility.

And so then, I think that's the first step in teaching a child how to apologize, help them accept responsibility for their behavior. A four-year-old breaks the cookie and says, "It broke." And the parents says, "Honey, let's say that in a different way, I broke the cookie." Nothing wrong with breaking the cookie, just helping the child accept responsibility.

And then, number three is expressing the desire to make a, what can I do to make this right? What can I do to make it right? And for some people, this is what they're waiting for. I sent the manuscript to Councillor Finna-Man in California before we published it.

Ask him to read it and give us feedback. He came back. It's scary. My wife and I decided to read this together, it's helping us.

He said, "No, I realize what I always have said for 15 years as I'm sorry."

And it's always seem like she couldn't let it go. We got to this one, and she said, "This is what I've been waiting for for 15 years.

He said, "So now, I tell her I'm sorry, but then I said, "Okay, honey, what can I do to make it right?"

And he said, "She always has an idea."

“"You have to do it, she can say for all these years she thought he was not sincere."”

And then there is expression that is higher to change. wife said to me not long ago, she said, "Dr. Chairman, he does this and she told me what he does." And then he will say, "Honey, I'm sorry, I didn't really mean to hurt you, I'm sorry, honey." And the next week he does the same thing again.

And the next week he does the same thing again.

She said, "I'm sorry, means nothing to me." The thing we're sorry he would change his behavior. For some people, if you don't express the desire to change your behavior and get you a pattern and a plan to start changing your behavior in their mind, you could not be sincere. And then number five is actually requesting forgiveness.

“Will you forgive me or I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me?”

This one kind of blew my mind, I had not ever thought of that, but I just assumed that if if I'm a pilot as an any manner would you not know I want to be forgiven. But there are some people for them. This is a part of the sense of your apology. Give them agency to do it. You know what I didn't hear as an apology language? I'm sorry if that offended you. No, not an apology. No, not an apology. I'm sorry if you're a villager. I'm sorry if you're a villager. Okay, so what I've also learned is if that you have a question about any relationship that you've ever had in your entire life. Dr. Gary Chapman has written a book about it.

So yeah, any questions? Just find out information on the book he's written. Can you as for people listening and we'll put this in the show notes as well? Can you point people on the direction for resources and where to get started? Yes, they can go to the website five love languages.com. The number five five love languages.com. And you can check on resources and see all my books and so forth. You can check on events and go to see where I'm going to be speaking. I do some Saturday marriage conferences around the country and other things and the quizzes are all there also. So you have the five love languages.com.

I think we could do a five love language is cookbook. I think we can do it. Yeah, we'll have to do that. Or like if you like access service, this takes a little longer to make or like a five love language is travel guide. Like if you. Yeah, let's pause for the physical touch people. We're just interviewing to be a part of your strategy. I'm not just trying to help him out. It's a great franchise. It's incredibly positive. So many people's lives. I mean, let's keep it going. Let's keep it going. It has been such a joy to talk to you. And I love that you're down the street. So don't be surprised if we show up to one of your Winston Salem events.

All right. Well, thank you. It's good to be with you all today and keep up the good work that you're doing. People need to be laughing. So keep all keep on stimulating laughter. We're trying. We're trying. But thank you, Dr. Chapman. Have a great day.

“That was so lovely. In the great. He's so great. Can I tell you something, buddy?”

Like, so do you ever read a book and you just put a voice into someone like you imagined a voice? Yeah. I don't know why I thought he was going to sound like Jack handy from like the deep thoughts guy. It's like, I remember just deep thoughts by Jack handy. Oh, you thought it was going to be love is a language we all speak. You know, like that sort of thing. And then he came out with like, full on like my dad's southern and I was like, yes, he's not what I expected. He doesn't have a lot like your dad or, I mean, just anyone who lived in the south back and he's like my dad's age.

He looks amazing. I know. What was your biggest takeaway? The dialects.

Yeah, it's really like new book is about like within physical touch. So we did the, we did the, like the premium survey. It's like there's playful touch. There's, you know, and there's all the different categories of touch. And maybe you would like playful touch, but you know if you tickle me, I will throw punch you. I laughed so hard because being tickled was one of the questions and I was like, well, there goes, Kim's physical touch score. That's kind of because it's like, yeah, throw punch or just like you'd be in a bad mood for something happened to you.

I think what happened was like, I was pinned down and tickled at some point at some point in my life. Well, we all were, I think, right. I think that was like a, like a sibling cousin. It was like cousins. We got a ministered that to some people too. Right. And it's like meant to be like playful and most people giggle. I think I felt out of power. And I felt out of like I wasn't in control. So even if if I told my kids early on, I'm like, because they go like they would go like tickle tickle tickle. I, I can't control what's going to happen if you do that to me.

So we have a segment at the end of our podcast and we're working shopping different food products and hopes of a sponsor, but I have been buying a lot of cookie cakes to eat my feelings recently.

We've made it. How about this, crumbs of knowledge or as the cookie crumbles. So what are we going with today? We are going to go with as the cookie crumbles pens three things that he's really taking away this week. As Kim is said, as the cookie crumbles, pens three things that he's taking away that really falls off the tongue and as Sam is making a graphic so it's all good. So when you say it, it kind of has the cookie crumbles. It says like a day so far. It does as the cookie that's the, isn't it that's the way the cookie crumbles.

I don't know, pen. Just do your three. Okay. Sorry.

“Love language. Okay. So number one, the attitude, not the emotion and this was a really important subcomment he made.”

You can't really figure that attitude out until some of the emotions calm down from the beginning. So he talked about like this two year high.

Yeah. So it's tough to say what your love language is in the first two years of a relationship and I'm looking at Sam.

Well, yeah. I mean, but so you think like physical touches high because I'm in that first two years two years. What do you think? I think that I was probably my physical touch was probably higher in our first two years because there's a lot more physical touch. It's one of, I think it's like a biological coupling. It's like part of our DNA. Right. So I don't know. I'll get back to you and give me a couple years and then we'll retake it. Okay. So cool. Number two. I think it was really interesting learning that this book in this entire franchise is really more of a conflict resolution.

And then it is talking about love language is like it came out of him looking at these notes of complaints from couples and then turned it into something positive.

“So that was that was a great takeaway from me. I love that. That's what we try to do with ADHD is awesome.”

Right. Number three, the weekly check-in. Love the weekly check-in. Right. So are you a 10 if it's anything less than a 10? Ask the question. What can I do? What can I do? Yeah. In a scale of 1 to 10, how loved are you feeling or he uses the metaphor of like a love tank like a gas tank like how full do you feel? And as an acts of service girl, I love that because it gives me like a very direct thing to to do.

Yeah. I thought the apology languages that is definitely a book I'll be getting because when when people say if there's something that's gone awry.

“I'm sorry. Yeah. And they're like I'm sorry if because I've ever I've been on the receiving end of few of those and it's like you've not told me how you're going to change.”

And for some people that works like for some people just to say like I'm sorry the other person is like okay great we're good. I've learned that I'm a pretty tough cookie like I need to know that like you're wrong. You're taking responsibility. Here's how I'm going to make it right like sorry babe. Yeah, but you're actually really good at that like if but which is it's very rare that something goes that haywire with us, but. Yeah. So I also had to learn to apologize less because I was apologizing just to get out of conflicts.

And it was and it would didn't feel like it meant anything is really I'm sorry. What can I do to get out of this discomfort? Right. So so now when I apologize it's an actual apology. Yeah. And there's like action behind it. This was a lot and I can't wait to hear your feedback from all of this.

So hit us up. Leftlines is written and produced by Kim Holderness. Penn Holderness in Ann Marie Talkie with Original Music by Penn Holderness. It is filmed, edited, live produced. And today a bit co-hosted by Sam Allen and hosted by Acast.

As always, we love to hear from you, please write to us at podcast at the Holderness Family.com or leave us a voicemail.

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