#note/sourcereview/book #source/book📚/ingested ## What is the thesis? There are 5 basic love languages. We all have a primary (and often a secondary) language. These include: - Words of Affirmation: [[appreciation balances our negative tilt]] - Quality Time: [[focus attention]] - Receiving Gifts - Acts of Service: [[Doing]] - Physical Touch: [[Embodied Cognition]] of love If we are in a relationship where there is a mismatch, and our partner is giving love but not in our language, the conflict creates a sense of not being loved. Our "love tank" becomes depleted, we feel rejected, and we stop feeling loved. We avoid the pain of that feeling, and the relationship breaks down. We need to pay attention to how our partner appears to want us to show love, so that they may feel that we are loving them effectively. This is our duty. Only they can tell us if we are being effective. They may give us [[accidental feedback]], which we are going to be prone to mis-interpreting through our [[Assumptions]]. ## Am I convinced and why? I think this is a useful model, it pulls on lots of the threads I believe in. While this book has lots of challenges, including it's cis-normative bias and it's religious basis, if we can [[Listening to Understand]], I think there is value here. In my most positive reading of the source, when we put the focus of our [[love]] on acting in a way our partner is more likely to interpret as love, we will be doing our best for our partner and our relationship. The focus here is important, we are just doing things our partner needs because we love our partner. We are not doing these acts for our own benefit, or because they come naturally to us. If we can [[focus attention]] on our partner's needs, and all the feedback (eloquent and not) they are giving us, we will do our best to allow them feel loved. [[any attention is a behavioral reinforcement]] and will lead to improvement, [[you amplify what you focus on]], so the best improvement will come from focusing on giving them love in the language they need most. Once the tank is full, then we can use [[🐓 Idea Farm/6 Long Form Sources/Nonviolent Communication]], because [[emotion changes the world we are in]] and when we are in a state of comfort we can hear requests as they are, instead of as attacks. ## Summarize the argument Challenges in relationships occur when we need one form of love but get another. Here, [[Explicit disagreement is better than implicit misunderstanding]], so it might be good to talk about that mismatch (that's what a therapist could do). Another approach would be to look for what our partner cares about by what gets them activated, or what they persist in asking of us. ## What is the other side of the argument? On the flip side, recognize that there are many ways our partner can be showing they love us. We have a primary love language, but we can be open to different languages, we can also learn how they are displaying love, and be open to those signals. Then we will be doing a better job of [[Identifying Reality]] of the relationship. ## What else do I wonder about? This is a model, [[all models are wrong but some are useful]], in what ways is this wrong? How can it be more nuanced. What about not just the language, but the pitch, tone, and variability. In many ways, [[variability is more important than average]]. Comfort also comes from predictability, so [[what are the conditions]] that create predictability. Are there [[black swan events]] in relationships? Of course, how about the death of a pet or child, other traumas, life events, and tragedies. How do these add up? How do you build resilience, and a [[Relating]] [[Mindset]], so your focus is on the higher purpose of the relationship and learning? ## Action: [[it's all data]], so be open to a new reality. Want to know if your partner loves you? Look in all 5 languages for signs of it. ## When do I want to stumble across this? #on/love | #on/relationships | #on/listening | #on/attention ## Source: Chapman, G. D. (2015). _The 5 love languages: The secret to love that lasts_. Northfield Publishing. ## References, Quotes, Ideas ```dataview table file.mtime.year + "-" + file.mtime.month + "-" + file.mtime.day as Modified from [[ ]] and !outgoing([[ ]]) sort file.mtime desc ```