Dear Gary - September

Today on Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman. I can't love on people like I like to love on them. Is it possible that somebody has no love language?

All of a sudden they say they would like to live separately to figure themselves out before we go further. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, our first Dear Gary broadcast of the fall season with your questions, comments, struggles, and feedback. We have a fresh batch of calls from listeners around the country. Oh, we have a bunch of questions about the love languages, some that I've never heard before. So it stumped Dr. Chapman today.

We'll see how he does. And we hope what you're about to hear will encourage you in some way in your relationships. Before we get started, here's our number. If you want to ask a question on a future broadcast, 1-866-424-GARY is our number. We won't take questions live today, but you may get an answer on a future Dear Gary broadcast.

Again, the number is 1-866-424-GARY. Gary, you don't speak as much during the summer months, but a lot of your seminars were canceled because of the pandemic. Are things changing as we head into the fall season? You know, Chris, pretty much all of my in-person events have really been canceled all the way through October.

I do have a few, but not nearly what I normally have. Some of them, of course, we're replacing, we're doing virtual, you know, and that's good. And others are just canceling it and rescheduling for next year. But yeah, it's been a different season. But it has been good to interface with people, you know, online. And so I've been busy continuing to work at writing books and taking the opportunities that are there. Yeah, you sure do find a way to stay busy. I'll tell you that.

I cannot keep up with just where you're going on a GPS. But if you go to the website today, you're going to see our featured resources. One of the things that Gary's been doing, he's worked with R. York Moore on a book titled Seen, Known, Loved, Five Truths About God and Your Love Language. Why is this an important addition to the series on the love languages? You know, Chris, I was really glad to link up with York Moore to write this book.

He is an evangelist that works with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and works with a lot of young people, a lot of college students. And so this book is kind of written to, well, I'd say a younger crowd, but anyone I think would find it helpful. But it's really written to non-Christians who are, you know, just by nature. They want to make a difference in the world. You know, they want to know that somebody loves them and cares for them. And so we use the love languages to talk about the concept that all of us have the desire to love and to be loved. And it greatly impacts our life, you know. If we're loved or we're not loved, it has a tremendous impact on our life.

But we use that to say that human love relationships will never answer the deep longing of the human heart. It's experiencing the love of God that really brings that sense of peace, which Jesus said would come to those that would come to Him. So we're using the love languages to show that God does speak all five of these languages. And whatever your language, then God loves you, and He loves you in that language. And if you look in His direction, you'll see His love. You can experience His love and hopefully come to commit your life to Christ. So we're hoping it's going to be used to help a lot of folks make the step from the longings that they have inside to finding those longings satisfied in Christ.

What a fantastic idea. Seen, known, loved, five truths about God in your love language. You can find out more at fivelovelanguages.com. All right, our first caller here today, Gary, mentions what you were just talking about, the pandemic. It's a similar topic to that. Listen to this.

Hello, Dr. Chapman. Thank you so much for sharing "The 5 Love Languages" . It has opened so many avenues in my life, in my ministry, and I'm thankful for that. A question I have for you is, in a time of COVID-19 and churches being closed down, a lot of businesses being closed down, my two dominant love languages are words of affirmation and physical touch. So it has been really, really tough during this time because I can't love on people like I like to love on them, and it's hard to be loved when those are your love languages, when you're not having that personal contact. So I was wondering if you could just address that for those of us who have those love languages. Thank you so much, and may God continue to bless you. Bye-bye.

That's a good question, Chris. You know, I deal with that concept in my book on "The 5 Love Languages" military edition. It doesn't have anything to do with the COVID, but it has to do with being deployed so that you're away from the people that you love and relate to, and I talk about ways that you can express these love languages long distance. So if the caller has close relationships, I don't know if she's married or single, but if she has close relationships with friends and she knows their love language and they know her love language, you can express these languages even though you're not physically with each other. For example, the friend could say to her or send her a text or even send her a little card and say, you know, if I were with you right now, I'd give you a big hug, you know, that sort of thing, and it communicates. You really sense it, and quality time, lots of ways you can do that quality time.

Of course, you can have quality conversations on the phone or FaceTime with each other. So I think, you know, just thinking in terms of how might we meet this need for love by speaking each other's love language even though we're not physically together, and the reality is all of those languages can be spoken when you're not together physically. So on the other hand, I'm deeply empathetic with the caller's desire to love others because we tend to speak our own love language, and so she loves the physical contact that she gets with people. She's a toucher, and she loves the quality time, and it's more difficult to have that when we have social distancing. So I think a lot of people are struggling with that.

And it's a different world in a lot of ways, you know. We're having to navigate that, so I appreciate your answer to that, and a lot of the questions that you hear on a Dear Gary program have to do with here's my problem, what do you say? I have one for you next, Gary, from someone who is not writing about her situation but a friend.

She says, I'm not sure how to advise her. Her husband, my friend's husband, has a shady past, alcohol, drugs, adultery. He claims he got saved about two years ago. He was doing well, but recently he's just gone off the wagon. It started with drinking, and he's gone downhill to the point that he's visiting strip clubs. He will not listen to reason from his Christian wife and won't answer calls. He's upsetting the entire household, which includes young children. He's not violent, but she's at her wit's end trying to deal with him and caring for her children, which includes a baby. She's been putting up with this most of their married life and was actually delivering their third baby when he had taken off. She's forgiven him over and over and wants the marriage to work.

He keeps saying he's sorry, and then he goes back to his shenanigans, which I think is a pretty good word there. I would like to tell her to leave, but she really has no family here, and with the pandemic it makes everything difficult, especially with the children. She's seeking godly advice.

What would you say to that friend? Well, first of all, Chris, you know, my heart goes out to a wife and mother who's in that situation. And listen, there are many who are in that situation. I guess one of the first things that comes to my mind, and as much as he said that he became a Christian two years ago, I'm assuming that perhaps when he made that, you know, profession of his faith in Christ, it may have been in a church or with someone who had befriended him or reached out to him. Most people don't come to Christ just on their own. There's somebody else in their life that's God's instrument for helping them come.

If that is the case, I would suggest that this wife talk to that person. It may be a pastor, it may be a friend, and share with them what's going on. We all know that a person is an alcoholic often, even though they come to Christ, will often fall off the wagon and go back to drinking.

And when they go back to drinking, then a lot of other things pile on top of it. That doesn't mean that that's the end of the road, because God has a way of drawing his children back to himself, and I think God will certainly be working in this man's life if he truly did commit his life to Christ. So I would say to reach out to someone that you think your husband respects, and ask them if they would intercede, if they would talk with him, if they would try to communicate to him their love, and bring him back from this present situation. I know that there does come a time when you just feel like giving up, and I think the positive thing in this I'm hearing is that he is not violent.

That is, he's not physically abusing, and I don't know about verbal abusing, maybe, maybe not, but certainly his behavior is not helping the marriage or helping the children. It's just very, very difficult to deal with that sort of thing. But I would say, again, with the COVID situation, even if you decided to use tough love, you know, which basically says, I love you too much to do nothing.

I'm watching you destroy yourself, and you're hurting us, and I love you too much to do that, so I'm going to move in with my mother. But in this case, she doesn't have any relatives nearby that she can move in with, so it's more difficult to do that. So, but I do think reaching out for help, someone else who can help intercede, and also can walk with you, and that might be a friend at church, it might be a women's leader in the church with whom you could talk, that would, and maybe this is what's happening, maybe the one that sent this question in is the person she's reached out to, and she's saying, what do I tell her? You know, I think that empathizing with her, expressing your concern and your love for her, asking if there's anything that you or others in your church or group might be able to do to help her in the midst of all of this, that's basically what a friend and a coach like can do for her. But just hearing her out and knowing there's somebody she can call and talk to when she's really feeling desperate is a real ministry to her. But hopefully, someone can reach out to him and be God's instrument of bringing him back in fellowship with God.

Hi, Gary. I just was curious if you have ever used the love language method to help people, family members dealing with addiction, and if, you know, I noticed reading your book that a lot of issues can happen in the first years of someone's life if they're not, you know, getting fed that love language. So I was just interested to know from your perspective if, you know, it doesn't necessarily solve the addiction, but if it can help and have any results if you start feeding the right love language to someone dealing with drug addiction, alcohol abuse, or anything like that. So any knowledge you can share with that would be great.

Thanks so much. Well, let's face it. Whether a person is addicted or whether they're not addicted, the deepest emotional need we have as humans is the need to feel loved by the significant people in our lives. And many times, sometimes because of the addiction, the people who are closest to that person are not expressing love to them because they're frustrated with them. And so they basically are condemning them and trying to, you know, say you've got to straighten up.

They're preaching to them. So I think, yes, I do think if you can learn the primary and secondary love language of an addicted person. And you can typically, if you reach out to them and show interest in them, you can even get them to take the quiz online to determine what their primary love language is. And then you start speaking that love language to them. So essentially what you're doing is what God does.

He loved us while we were still sinners and sent Christ to die for us. So we don't wait till they break the addiction to love them. We love them where they are. And speaking their love language is the most effective way to communicate love to them. And when they begin to realize that you genuinely love them, you genuinely care about their well-being, they are far more open then to listen to suggestions, advice, challenges that you might throw out to them to deal with their addiction.

Whereas if you just simply, you know, criticize them for what they're doing, tell them how awful they are, how they're hurting everybody in the family, it just pushes them further away from listening to you or reaching out for help. But if they see you loving them in spite of the fact that they are going through addiction, they're far more likely to eventually respond and reach out for help. And there's always help, as you know, for addiction. There's always help. There are Christian programs all over the country who work with people who are addicted.

And in the power of Christ, we can overcome addiction. And so, yeah, I think loving them in the right love language can be a part of that healing process. This is Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times best seller, "The 5 Love Languages" .

That's why you're hearing a lot of the questions that are linked to the love language concept. I think you're going to love this next call though, Gary. It's from a newlywed. Listen to this.

Hi, Gary. Me and my wife are actually currently reading your book, "The 5 Love Languages" , and just learning a lot from it, really trying to get in touch with how we can make our marriage last. I mean, we've only been married about four months now, but we really want to make sure that it works. We don't just want to fall in and be one of those silent old couples who has nothing to say to each other.

We don't want to end up splitting apart. We both care about each other very much. But my question was, maybe what love language would fall under if the time you feel most loved is when your spouse connects with you mentally and opens up to you and kind of just tells you what's going on in their head, tells you some things that they've been thinking or feeling, and they really like open up to you and let you know what love language that would fall under.

Thank you, and have a wonderful day. Well, first of all, Chris, I'm glad to hear that a young married couple is reading "The 5 Love Languages" . I wish every young married couple would read "The 5 Love Languages" , because it will help you have a long-term healthy relationship. I would say, in answer to his specific question, that very likely the love language that he's talking about is quality time. It's being with the person, showing interest in them. They're opening their heart and sharing their hearts and their feelings with you, which shows that they trust you, they care about you.

So I think it falls in the category of quality time. And that's true for many people, that when you have honest, open conversations with them, and you're not watching TV, you're not messing with your computer, you're not answering your phone, you're giving them your full attention. That's what really communicates to those people, that you love them, you care about them. So I think the love language would be quality time.

But if you haven't taken the online quiz, it's free, FiveLoveLanguages.com, and take the quiz. It'll also help you discover your love language. I think this relates too to our featured resource, Seeing Known Loved. When you're able to express the things, you know, here's what I'm thinking about, here's what I'm going through, here's what, you know, whether it's about the relationship, or your own feelings about one thing or another, the other person is able to see the real you. And that, you know, brings you closer, brings intimacy to the relationship, right? Yeah, because intimacy is basically sharing your life with each other. It's being intimate with each other. It's not just not just with the, what we typically call the, you know, the physical or sexual part of the marriage. No, no, no, it's, it's sharing your heart and your soul with each other, being open and honest with each other.

That is emotional intimacy. The love language questions continue. Could there possibly be a person on the planet who has no love language? Now, before you answer that question, listen to what's behind it from this listener.

Hi, Gary. I just recently got out of a 10-year relationship. And I guess my question is, is it possible that somebody has no love language? Or is the sixth love language, no language at all? I'm truly convinced that my ex boyfriend doesn't have a love language. I just wanted to know your thoughts on this. And if you think that is completely wrong, or if you cannot somehow understand what I'm coming from. Thank you.

Bye. Well, you know, one of my first thoughts would be, if I had, if I could sit down with her ex boyfriend, would be, do you feel loved by anyone? He either does or doesn't. He probably can answer a yes or no question. And if he does say, yes, I feel loved by, he tells me the person, my question would be, why? Why do you feel they love you and other people don't necessarily love you? That would be a clue to what the love language may be. But my guess is that his answer would be no, he doesn't feel loved by anyone.

And there are people like that. If you grow up in a home where you did not receive the love languages, any of them, and where what would have been your primary love language is used in a negative way toward you. That is you hear criticism, you hear verbal abuse coming from your parents or other significant adults in your life, rather than words of affirmation.

And all the love languages come across in a negative way, or they're turned on their head. Then you grow up not feeling loved. So consequently, when you get to be an adult, it's hard to answer the question, what would make me feel loved?

Because you don't really know what love is. Emotionally, you've never had that sensation that someone genuinely cares about you and your well-being and they value you as a person. So typically, folks who tell me that they can't determine their love language, fall in one of two categories.

One is what I've just described. They grew up, they've never felt loved all along the journey by anyone. And consequently, they don't know what their love language is, because they're not even sure what it feels like to feel loved. The other person who often cannot discover their love language, their primary language, is the person who grew up in a home where they received all five of the love languages. And they grew up feeling loved. They don't know why, they don't know which one of them was more important, because they got all five of them. And in adulthood, maybe they married someone who also tends to speak all five. So they've always felt loved.

They're just not quite sure what the primary is. But those people, I say, don't worry about it. You feel loved? That's great.

That's wonderful. That's what's important. So it's the first person that struggles most with not discovering their primary love language, because they simply don't know what it feels like to be loved. I would, if we could sit down with her, like you just said, I would wonder, she mentioned this was a 10-year relationship. So she's hung in there for a long time. When did it dawn on her that she didn't think he had a love language? And what attracted them in the first place? What attracted them together at the beginning of that relationship? And did she just not see what was going on? She hoped that things would change? I mean, all those are really good questions.

It doesn't really help any at this point. But it would be interesting to see that, wouldn't it? It would be, and especially to hear from him.

What was it about her that attracted you to the relationship? Because whatever that was, again, it's a clue to what his love language would be. Through the years, Dr. Gary Chapman has fielded questions about the possibility of the discovery of a new language. And our last caller just said, is the sixth language, no language at all? Now listen to this next question. I think it's really interesting. Here we go.

Hi, Gary. I want to thank you very much for your books. I've been using your very, very proven message a lot. It's in my life. I was wondering if there would be another love language, which is called acceptance. I understand that it might fall a little bit on the words of affirmation. I'm a mentor with Teens at Risk, and I find many times teens need their love languages actually feeling accepted. They don't need the compliment necessarily. They feel accepted. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, I do think it probably falls in the category of words of affirmation, but I understand what you're saying. Teens need to feel accepted. In fact, all adults need to be accepted. Acceptance and the sense of belonging are both emotional needs that a person has. They're very closely related to the need for love, because if you genuinely feel loved, you do feel accepted, and you do feel that you belong to the group. When you think in terms of what are the emotional needs of teenagers, he says he's working with teens who are troubled. What are the emotional needs of teens? The need to feel accepted by someone, the need to belong to someone. This is what draws teenagers into gangs, is at least the gang accepts them, and consequently they belong to the group, and there's a sense of satisfaction that someone accepts them as they are. So I think acceptance and belonging are certainly emotional needs of teenagers, or actually for adults as well, but feeling loved is tied very closely to feeling accepted and feeling like you belong. So I think that's kind of the way I would view that, and I would see acceptance itself being more falling in the category of words of affirmation.

It's not necessarily you're saying I like the way you look and all of that, but it's giving them affirmation that you love them, you care about them, they are accepted by you. Ever forget something? Oh, I sure have, but what about when you forget the same thing over and over and over for years? Here's our next caller.

Hi Gary, hi Chris. So I've been married for 11 years in April, and it has not been easy. Something that I'm really struggling with is my husband forgetting. I know that seems very minimal, but I help him in his second business, and in exchange for me to take the time and help him, I've asked him to pay me, and out of the money that he pays me since I'm a student, I use that to pay like my credit card balances, and I've helped him with this business for eight years, and for eight years he consistently forgets to send me the list of tasks that I'm supposed to do for him for that week. He consistently forgets to pay me. I've been nice about it. I've been mean about it. I've yelled about it. I've been calm about it. I've explained to him not only do I feel unappreciated when he doesn't follow through and pay me or send me the list of things he wants me to work on for that week, but it's also messing me up financially because I'm getting overdraft fees because I have my bills set on automatic payment, and it just doesn't seem to matter what I say.

He constantly says he just forgets, and I'm taking that personally because I feel like he's either not listening to me or he's doing it on purpose. I don't know what to do. I'm not sure how to take this. I'm not sure how to stop taking it personally, so any suggestion you guys have is awesome. Thank you so much.

Have a great one. Well, I can see how that would be extremely frustrating. I mean, she's trying to help him. Apparently, he's asked her to do that, and so she's trying to help him, but he forgets to give her the assignments that would be helpful to him that week, and then sometimes he forgets to pay her.

It'd be interesting to know if there are other people involved in the business. If so, I would say tell them. You know, if he has an assistant at work that keeps things straight for him, then I would let that assistant know that this is what's happening so that she could remind him of the things that he wants his wife to do for him this week and also remind him this is the day to write the check to her or put the money in her bank account. Sometimes an outside person can help. You know, it would be interesting to know why he forgets. I mean, maybe he's just a forgetful person.

He forgets a lot of other things as well. On the other hand, maybe he doesn't want you helping him. I don't know what the dynamics are there, and so maybe he's just putting up with the fact that you volunteered to help if he will pay you, and so he's accepting that, but it's not necessarily what he wants. It'd be worth a discussion to find out if he really wants you to be working with him in the business, because if he doesn't, then you can get another job. I mean, you can make money somewhere else. You know, maybe it's easier for you working with him, but it sounds like it's very frustrating for you working with him.

It doesn't mean he's a bad person necessarily unless he's doing this intentionally. If he's saying to himself, if I don't pay her, maybe she'll quit, you know, because he doesn't want you working anyway with him. I would try to get to the root of what's behind the fact that he forgets to give you assignments for each week and forgets to pay you. Whether there's someone in a position that can help him see what's happening, or someone can help you see what's happening, I think there does come a place where you simply say to him, it appears to me that maybe you don't want me to be helping you, because you don't consistently give me work to do, and you don't consistently pay me.

So if that is the case, I'm going to look for another job, because I need to have an income. So to me, that would be the approach. Open, honest, and then he has a choice. If he really does want you to be helping him, then let's find a way that he can be reminded to give you that list. Maybe someone else can do it, maybe you can send him a text, or maybe there's some other approach, but if it's simply forgetting, there's a way around that, but if there's an intention behind the forgetting that he really doesn't want you to be working for him, you need to know that and respond accordingly.

And you're not going to find that out unless you have communication. I can't resist, though, I'm thinking of her, I wonder if her love language is acts of service. And so she's been doing this year after year after year, and there's no gratitude, there's no recipient, and maybe part of her love language is a paycheck too, because you deserve that. I think one of the key things that she says there is, I take it personally. I don't know how you wouldn't take it personally, you know, if he forgets every month or every two weeks.

Yeah, no, I agree, I'm very empathetic. I'm very empathetic with the caller, and I think anybody would be frustrated in that situation, but it's not going to go away with time. And she's already said, you know, she's tried arguing, she's tried putting him down, she's tried just being quiet about it, none of that's worked. So I think she needs to face honestly whether or not he wants her to be doing this for him.

If not, then she needs to just look for another job and don't worry about that. Well, we take calls here on the program Building Relationships from people who represent, you know, their own struggle, a husband who forgets. Here's a caller who I think represents a lot of spouses who have reached out to us, particularly recently. Both husbands and wives have this same basic question.

Hi, Gary. I'm in the middle of a divorce that I do not want after many years of marriage, and I'm trying to stand for my marriage because I made a vow and I'm praying for reconciliation, but I don't know how to handle it because there's no communication, and sometimes I get discouraged even though I'm a stander. I'm standing for my marriage, and I do have a lot of people praying for me. My husband's being deceived.

Thank you. Bye. Well, anyone who has been in this situation can certainly identify with this caller, and I find this is very common, especially among Christians, that the Christian is deeply committed to the marriage. They want to work on the marriage. They're open to doing whatever would be positive, but the other person is saying, I'm through. I'm out of here.

I'm gone. Maybe the other person is not a Christian, or maybe they're not in fellowship with God, and they're just simply being pulled away in some other direction. Very frustrating, very painful for the person who wants to work on the marriage. I don't think there's a magic wand that can be waved. It certainly doesn't help to condemn them. It doesn't help necessarily even to preach to them and say, you know, this is not God's plan for us, that sort of thing.

They already know that very likely. I did write a book for people who are separated and sometimes already going through the divorce proceedings. It's called One More Try, what to do when your marriage is falling apart. I think that the caller would find that book to be helpful. I do share the reality that one person cannot, you know, create a marriage. It takes two people to do that, but one person can do things that has a more positive influence on the other person. So I think you'd find that book to be helpful. I wrote another one that was called I wrote another one that was called Loving Your Spouse When You Feel Like Walking Away, and that one's for people that are married to someone who's, you know, an alcoholic or a drug addict or won't talk to you or they're physically abusive or verbally abused.

I mean really, really, really difficult things. I think the first one I mentioned to apply more to this caller, One More Try, what to do when your marriage is falling apart. Do you think that it helps or hurts or somewhere in between when most of the stories that you hear on Christian radio, and I know this is a sensitive question and I may be out of balance here, Gary, but most of the stories that I see in print as well as, you know, we even feature here are my marriage was bad, it was really gone, I was headed to divorce and God grabbed a hold of me and turned me around and here we are today and we're in love more than ever. Does that paint a picture that God is always going to do that in your life and that you can depend on him to do that or is there, you know what I'm asking, what do you say? Well, Chris, I think sometimes we get frustrated because God doesn't turn the person around. You know, we pray God work in their heart, turn them around, help them understand, put a roadblock in front of them, and those are good prayers.

I'm not opposed to praying those things because God does respond in that manner sometimes. But I think as an individual who wants to work on the marriage, you keep open to the possibility that God will bring someone or something into their life that will change their thinking. And the worst thing that you can do is because your spouse is saying, I'm going to get a divorce and they've already got the process going, that you start looking for someone else that you can start dating and have a relationship with. Because what I've seen happen many times is, you meet someone else, you get caught up in a new relationship.

Six months down the road, your spouse, sometimes your former spouse, hits a crisis, hits a wall, and God uses that to bring them back to himself and they repent, and they turn around, and now they want to work on the marriage. And because you're involved with someone else, you say, I'm sorry, you had your chance. And now because you're caught up in all the euphoria of a new relationship, you're not open to it. So I say this to people who are separated and who are in the process of divorce. At least for one year, don't get involved with anyone else. You just work on your relationship with God and understanding yourself. Maybe get counseling for yourself to deal with your struggles and the pain and the misunderstandings and all of that.

You use this as a time of growth in your own life. Then, if in that year, they genuinely turn around and they genuinely repent and they come back and want to work on the marriage, now you are at a better place to begin the process of working on that marriage, because you understand yourself better, you understand the dynamics of what happened in the marriage better, and you're far more likely to have the marriage that you dreamed of having when you first got married. So that would be a very strong word of advice that I would share. And hear my heart in this whole thing. I don't want to stop giving messages of hope or that God has the power to turn a marriage around.

We're going to still talk about those stories. In either situation, your spouse goes through with the divorce and runs off or God grabs a hold of that person. In either situation, your reliance is on Him. You are surrendered to God Himself and allowing Him to work in you and that other person as He will, right?

Absolutely, Chris. And let's face it, life's deepest satisfaction is in our relationship with God. You know, we can't keep the person from divorcing us and we must live with the consequences and the effect it has on our children and the effect it has on us and the effect it has on the larger family. We have to live with that.

We didn't make that choice. That choice was made by someone else, but we have to live with the consequences. God will walk with us through the consequences. God will help us, teach us, grow us, mature us as we walk through that process.

And we desperately need to be looking to Him. If there's children involved, we need to do everything we can to get the children the proper help they need to process this because they often feel neglected and abandoned by the person who's pursuing the divorce. So use it as a time for personal growth, both for you and for any children that you may have. I need to figure things out before we go further. Our next caller heard those words and wants Gary's advice. Hi, Gary. My question is, what should you do when you've been with somebody almost six years and the relationship is going great and all of a sudden they say they would like to live separately for six months to a year to figure themselves out before we go further?

Please and thank you. From my perspective, it's unfortunate that so many couples today are living together sometimes for years before they get married. And research indicates that most of those couples do not get married. Most of those couples do break up somewhere along the line. You see, the idea of moving in together is the idea that if we live together, we'll get to know each other better and then we can make a decision about whether we get married or not and we'll make a better decision.

Well, the fact is that the couples who do get married, who live together who live together before they got married, the divorce rate is higher than it is for the couples who did not live together before they got married. So having said that, and I think it's important to understand that research is very clear on those issues. Having said that, I want to come back to this to the caller because I'm empathetic when you've made the decision to live with someone for several years and you think the relationship is going really well and all of a sudden they say, I think we ought to separate for a while. I need to discover who I am.

Those are very common words, very common thoughts. We ought to be apart for a while so I can discover myself. Which means I'm not totally satisfied in this relationship. I don't know if I want to make a commitment to you in marriage.

So I think we ought to split up for a while so that I can decide who I am and where I'm going. It speaks to the inner person, the inner heart that is not satisfied where they are in life and not satisfied with the relationship they're in. And some people will have two or three of these kind of relationships. And the fact is, we don't ever find ultimate satisfaction in life in a relationship unless it's the relationship with God. When that's settled and you have a right relationship with God, then human relationships become very, very meaningful. But when we're still seeking who we are, still trying to find out what life is all about, it's very, very common that a person will break up after living together for some time.

So very empathetic. There's no easy answer to that. Certainly, I say you give them the time, give them the space, and then you have to decide what you're going to do. Are you going to wait and not see anyone else while they're trying to find out who they are? Or are you going to keep open to the possibility of starting a new relationship yourself? And again, you need God's guidance at this juncture in your life.

So if you don't have a personal relationship with God or you're not close to God, I'd suggest you find a pastor, you find a friend that you know who is a Christian, and let them walk with you through this journey. Because it's very devastating when you've invested so many years with someone and now they're walking away without making a commitment to you. Someone else can help you as you walk through that. I wonder if part of the struggle that her boyfriend, however we term him, I wonder if part of the struggle is, I want to be happy, that's my greatest goal in life, and I'm not happy right now, and you're not making me happy, you know, and I'm searching for that happiness, so I'm going to take six months to a year to find what is real, maybe you'll make me happy in the end. And that's honestly, in this culture, that's how a lot of people live. I'm going to stay in a relationship until I'm not happy anymore, and then I'm going to go find happiness. Well, I think you're exactly right, Chris, and that's why many times they don't get married.

They don't want to make a commitment for a lifetime. They're happy right now in the euphoric stage of the relationship, you know, what we call falling in love, but that has an average lifespan of two years, and we come down off the high. So I think, yes, in our culture, happiness has become the goal. I want to be happy in life, but we search for happiness. We don't find happiness. We give our lives to God, and we invest our lives in serving other people, and that's when we wake up happy. Happiness overtakes us when we're investing our lives in a positive way, but when you're in a relationship for what you can get out of it, you know, as long as you make me happy, I'm in this relationship, but when you don't make me happy, I'm out of this relationship, you're going to go from relationship to relationship, and you will never find ultimate happiness until you anchor your life in God, and you do what God does, and that is reach out to love and serve other people. It's in serving other people that we find true happiness. I wonder what you just said. If this phrase would would fit, happiness is not something you find.

Happiness finds you as you commit to loving others. Is that close to what you said? I think so.

Yeah, I think so, Chris. Yeah, that's profound. We got to something profound here. Well, I just love that we're able to have these kinds of conversations, and they don't happen unless you give us a call and ask your question or make a comment.

Maybe we've said something today, and you say, I agree with that. 866-424-GARY. Let us hear from you.

Good, bad, indifferent, somewhere in between. 866-424-GARY for any question or comment you have. We'd love to hear from you, and don't forget to check out our featured resource at 5lovelanguages.com. Seen, known, loved. Five truths about God in your love language.

Again, go to 5lovelanguages.com. Next week, if you want to know how to effectively pray for your children and grandchildren, don't miss our conversation with Dr. Erwin Lutzer. Well, a big thank you to our production team that helped bring you today's program, Steve Wick and Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.