How can we reconcile different love languages?

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You know what time it is sweetie?

It's Hump Day Q and A time.

Hump Day Q and A. Hump Day Q and A. Welcome to the Naked Marriage Podcast. Hump Day Q and A. We love answering your questions. So every Wednesday we're dropping a special podcast episode focused on one of your questions. You can submit your own marriage related question online@nakedmarriagepodcast.com or by sending us a message on Instagram. Aveandashleywillis. We've got a great question today, so let's dive in. Hey friends, welcome to Hump Day Q and A. It is the best day of the week. No, it's not Friday or Saturday. Wednesday is the best day of the week because that's when it's Hump day. Hump Day Q and A. We answer one of your questions. Thank you for your questions. You can send them to us on Instagram at Dave and Ashley Willis got a great question today. It says Dave and Ashley. My spouse and I have different love languages and it feels like no matter how much we try to show love, we're constantly missing each other's needs. I express love through acts of service, but my spouse values physical touch and words of affirmation. We've reached a point where our efforts to connect often lead to frustration rather than intimacy. How can we bridge this gap and learn to speak each other's love languages in a way that truly nourishes our marriage to rather than feel, feeling like we're speaking in tongues like that. Nice Pentecostal reference.

It is.

And of course this is a reference the Love Languages to the best selling book by Gary Chapman. It's an excellent the Five Love Languages, which is excellent and I highly recommend it to anyone. It's just probably the best, the, the most well known marriage book of our time, I would say.

And it's even beyond the scope of marriage because they have them for kids, they have them for other relationships in your life. But yeah, I sense the frustration and I can totally get it. Like I Mean Dave and I don't even have the same primary love language. Like tell them what yours is.

So mine, my primary one is acts of service.

That's right. And just right out of the gate, let's say what the five love languages are. So there's acts of service, there's physical touch, there's quality time, there's gifts.

And words of affirmation.

And words of affirmation.

Right. So I am, number one, acts of service number two.

Well, explain what acts of service is first.

So acts of service is when you feel most loved, when your loved ones are doing an act of service for.

You, like an example. What would that be?

Well, I mean, it's. For me, it's like anything that. To lighten my load, anything to make my life a little bit easier, something that I was planning to do that you do for me. And I just feel, I feel loved, I feel appreciated, I feel seen, you know, not now any of these love languages taken to extremes can become like, really, you know, narcissistic. Like, sure, I'm acts of service. So I'm just going to lay back and expect you to do everything for me all the time, you know, or I'm gifts. So shower me with expensive things that we can't afford. That wrecks the family budget.

Right.

Any of these can get out of balance. But all of these are just part of our natural wiring. And Dr. Chapman does great research pointing out how really all of us have a primary love language. So for me, acts of service, I feel loved when I receive. Receive that. So most of us try to give love that same way. Like, I'll try to do something for you, and which I do appreciate it, but you don't appreciate it in the same way because that's not your primary love language. So you have to get bilingual in marriage. You have to learn to speak whatever your spouse's love language is.

I would even say multilingual.

Yeah, multilingual, exactly.

Because it's. And you might even now there's debate on this. Some people say your love language never changes, but I would beg to. I, I think that's probably not true.

I feel like mine has sort of shifted. I think physical touch has gotten more important for me, not just sex, even though that's, that's part of it. But physical touch as a love language isn't really referring to sex drive at all. It's referring to non sexual physical affection. It's referring to giving, you know, giving.

Massage, massages, you know, just even hugs, high fives. I remember taking the assessment, they were like, you know, like, do you love it when your friend pat you on the back or like, you know, gives you a hug and things like that? Because that is my primary one is physical touch.

And I found that out, and I was like, yes, thinking it was like, all sex, but, you know, completely. No, the. The physical touch, love language, sex is a tiny, tiny, tiny part.

I mean, I think it is part of it. It's not like you deny that.

But, yeah, you know, the spouse with a higher drive, you could have a primary physical touch, love language and not have a high sex drive. Your spouse could have, you know, words of affirmation, primary love language, and have a sex drive that's through the roof.

Exactly.

So, yeah, so kind of just disconnect sex drive from the physical touch.

It's not necessarily that way. So, yeah, so we've had to. We totally get this spouse who's written us, like, we have different love languages. And so I get where, you know, when your primary love language is different than your spouse's, you tend to speak, you know, speak in quotation marks, your native language. Your native language. But what Gary Chapman in his book explains so well is that the reason you want to learn what your spouse's love language is is because you want to learn how to speak their language. And so when I found out, like, you're an act of service guy, then I was like, oh, so me, like, just taking care of business, so to speak, in different ways really means a lot to you? It does. Like, take this one thing off my to do list. And so I. I do. I. I do that in different ways. I mean, what's one example you can think of?

I mean, just like, running an errand for me or. I mean, and you do so much. Ashley's the hardest working person I know, so I try to never lean on her for that.

Because, I mean, you'll ask me.

Well, because you do so much already, like, you do. There are some marriages where it's way out of balance, and one spouse really is carrying a primary load by, you know, doing everything at home. And maybe they're also the breadwinner and, I mean, they're. One spouse feels like I'm having to carry all the weight, which is really hard, which is a whole separate episode. But with Ashley, she is. I feel like I've got to run to, like, keep up with her pace. Her capacity to get stuff done is so high that even when it looks like she's resting, most of the time she's working on something. While resting. So she's got her computer open. She's.

I could say that about you. My goodness, you have trouble resting. But I do try to find ways I can do it. Like even we both, you know, obviously work from home a lot of the time, so we can really, you know, go back and forth on picking up the kids. And I mean, in this season, I'll be honest with you, with me getting through school and then launching this coaching, mental health coaching practice. Dave. Dave's been kind of carrying more of the load with a lot of the pickups and drop offs. But then I know if I have a window and I can do it, and it means a lot to you that I'm like, no, I'm going to do it today or I'm going to do it now and you know, to pick up the kids or I mean, it could be, you know, we, we both trade off with making meals. Like we, it hasn't always been that way. I mean, when I was a stay at home mom, I was the one primarily making dinner because it was something that, you know, I didn't. So, I mean, I think we shift in different seasons, but I try to find ways where I can just. I don't know, especially if it's something I know you don't like doing, like a home project. If I can figure that out.

Right. If you can do something, not that.

You don't do it, you do. But I know that's sometimes in life.

You have to do stuff you don't like. But if you know your spouse absolutely hates something, try to do it for them or try to hire someone to do it.

Right, right, exactly.

To just lighten their load instead of trying to make them feel like an idiot because that's way outside their skill set. And so just serve each other, speak their language.

And you do that for me?

Well, I think both spouses always have to do that for each other. And that gets back to the heart of this question when I feel like we're missing the mark there, what do we do? I would say the very first step is learn your spouse's love language and what that really means, what it means to them. Not what just you think it means or what the broad definition of it means, but find out what does it mean to them. If they're acts of service, what are the acts of service that really connect with them? If it's words of affirmation, what are the words? What is the tone, what is the conversation, what are the specific compliments that really help them? Is it Hearing. Thank you. To feel affirmed and appreciated. Is it to hear, you know, I respect you, I'm so proud of you. I love you. You're beautiful. What I mean, what are those words? Find them and then use them often. And you know, that just shows like, I want to get to know you. I want to keep exploring you and learning everything I can about you so that I can best serve and love you. Reading that book together could be a good place to start. If you don't want to go through the whole book. The are online assessments for the love languages. You can take in, you know, five minutes or less to tell you what your top couple are, what your spouse's top couple are, and give you some insight as to how to best connect with each other in those ways.

It's so true. And I think if you want to get that conversation started, I would go and be honest with your spouse and say, listen, I feel like we're both so frustrated with each other because we have these different love languages. And I just want to understand better on what resonates the most with you, like what makes you feel most love. Like, Dave said to get specific and say, like, when have you felt most loved by me and what are some ways that like, and when do you.

Feel closest to me?

Right. When do you feel closest to me? And like, what are some things that I'm not currently doing that it would really make you feel loved if I could do those things and then be willing to do it and just say, can we both agree that we're going to do our best to do this because, you know, life is busy, we all have a lot on us and I think I just sense from this spouse who wrote us just, just an exhaustion. And so sometimes we just need to have that heart to heart conversation and just start slowly. I mean, don't, I think, don't feel like, oh my gosh, we've got to completely change everything we're doing. Start with one act of service, start with one word of affirmation. Start with one, you know, act of showing physical touch. Like, just, just start simply, guys. Like, we don't have to solve everything in one night or in one day or one week. I think, and I'm, I'm talking to myself here. Like, I, I used to really struggle with an all or nothing mentality. And I still every now and then see that kind of rear in its head. And so I think, like, just start small and, and really just, just don't accuse each other of anything. Like, well, you're not Trying to speak my language. Just really go in with an open heart and open mind and really listen and. And just say, can we agree that we're going to try. We're going to try. One way to start speaking each other's language more this week and then build from there.

Yeah. I think it's so good. And thank them.

Oh, yeah.

When they do it, especially if words of affirmation is their thing, you know, I see the effort you're making.

And everyone loves. Thank you.

Everybody loves.

Thank you. Everybody loves. Thank you.

We all appreciate. Thank you. I appreciate you. I mean, again, just because your spouse isn't a number one on any of these gifts, it doesn't mean that they don't appreciate all of the love languages.

Right. Like, even if words aren't. Yeah, we have all. We. We appreciate all of the love languages.

I like all five. Sure. I like quality time and gifts and touch and all of it. They're ranked in order in terms of how much they mean to me. Like, for me, gifts is at the bottom of the list.

Same for me.

When Ashley would, you know, give me some thoughtful gifts, which for some people would just light up their world. For me, I appreciated it. And I mean, I. I saw that she put a lot of effort into it, which I. I love. But gifts just don't really mean anything to me. Like. Like it.

Well, they mean something. I don't think they mean the most to you.

Yeah. Unless it's a gift that. That is also, like an act of service. If it's a gift that or an experience makes my life easier or. Or the quality time. Because I like quality time. If it's a gift, that's a experience we're going to share. You see what I'm saying? We like them all. I can talk all day about one gift.

Sorry, I didn't mean to.

No, it's good.

What? You don't even know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, the wood burning.

No, no, I'm not even going to talk about the wood burning. I think I've shared that before. Well, here, now that we said this, I'll share it. But no, I wasn't going to talk about that. So one time I did this. I'm sorry, y'. All, Our pup's in here and she's growling. If you guys can hear her, I don't know what's happening there.

Chichi, get back over here. You guys are getting the full Willis.

Family the whole time on this episode.

See, we miss out on Chichi when we record these from the beautiful Exo studio in South Lake, Texas, which we.

Have our little chiweenie over here just.

But she does, she adds, she's kind of an emotional support piece layer to it.

But back to the wood burning. I'll tell it very short. So, like, we were. Had like no money to our name, and I thought, what can I make for Dave? You know, we're in our early 20s. You had your first preaching job. And I made him this wooden box that I like painted and then I would burned some different verses in it and like, was like, put all your sermons in here. Okay, you guys, this is like, before all the digital stuff and. And I spent time on it. I also made you a clock. Remember, it was make your own clock. And. And I put all this effort into it, but it was so funny. And I wrote you this beautiful letter. I think I found it when we.

Were moving and words of information. It was like, broken.

It was broken.

She was so hurt, and I felt so bad.

Well, let me say you redeemed yourself when many years later, probably a decade later, you were worried about your blood pressure. I mean, we're not even that old, you guys. I mean, we act like sometimes you make comments. I'm like, we're not that old. But anyway, I got you this blood pressure, like, your own blood pressure.

I loved it mechanism because I can.

Like a sleeve and all that I get OCD about. He loved it.

And I was like obsessed about my blood pressure. I can check it whenever I want.

Exactly. So you don't have to wonder. You don't have to go to Kroger, which is a grocery store, and like, get on their blood pressure thing, because that's what you were doing at that time. You have your own.

I got my own. So she. She gets me. She gets me. Well, guys, listen, I hope that sparked some conversation. A shout out to Dr. Gary Chapman. Thank you for writing that. That classic book several decades ago. It's benefited us and countless others, and we hope that this conversation has sparked some meaningful conversation for you and your spouse. Thanks so much for tuning in, friends. We'll see you next time on the Naked Marriage Podcast.

Thank you all so much for listening to today's episode of Hump Day Q and A. We love getting your questions and we want to answer your question. So. So if you go to nakedmarriagepodcast.com, you can submit your question right there, or you can follow us on Instagram aveandashleywillis and you can give us your questions right there by giving us a dm. So we'll catch you next time on Hump Day. Q and A.