Couples are often told a successful relationship is built upon knowing how to love the person you’re with in the way they need to be loved. While this isn’t bad advice I think it may be just one side of a very complicated coin! Numerous copies of the book “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman have been sold and used to help people get along better. Honestly, it’s a great book and I often mention it when talking with people about improving their relationship. Chapman sums up the core idea of his book when he says:

“We tend to speak our own love language, to express love to others in a language that would make us feel loved. But if it is not his/her primary love language, it will not mean to them what it would mean to us.”

I agree. If you continue to show love to someone in a way they don’t understand or appreciate, they struggle to feel loved. But what if the love language of your partner is one you just can’t learn? What if you’re with someone with a history of sexual abuse or has some physical limitations that keep them from showing love physically? What if sexual love is a real struggle for your partner yet you thrive on it and need sexual love to feel special in your partner’s life? Is the relationship doomed? Should your partner force themselves to learn your love language even though it’s painful, difficult, and something that becomes a real burden for them? Should we demand they speak our love language?

Love can never be simplified to be some general rule of engagement. Love is dynamic, involves an exchange of people, and is best experienced when communication and intimacy is part of the dynamic. Perhaps along with asking your partner to learn your love language you can learn to feel loved based on how they can show you they love you? Love is a mutual exchange and if that exchange occurs in a healthy way, even if its one not important to you, it becomes special because it’s important to your partner. Sometimes the best way to show love is to allow someone to love you the way they know how. Sometimes the best way to know you’re loved is to allow your partner to love you the way they know how and simply receive that as the gift it is.

Sure, learning one another’s love language and showing each other love in the way each of you needs to feel love is great. However, so is learning to be loved in the way your partner shows you they love you as a selfless act of care for your partner. When we sacrifice what we want to allow the other to be themselves we communicate to our loved one what’s most important is not what I get from this relationship but rather that the relationship we share thrives, flourishes, and transcends each of us to create a life of care and grace. Love is complicated but its complications create a mystery in which two people continue to find ways to transcend themselves to become a part of someone else.