Well, do the people you love feel loved by you? There are just so many dynamics that are wrapped around really understanding how to speak your loved one's love language fluently. Yeah, call it the love language that matters most. That person in front of you, when they have you speaking their love language in their dialect, love doesn't get much sweeter than that.
So, we're not trying to put a lot of pressure on somebody, we're just trying to give information that makes what they want to do, what they choose to do, much more effective. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chabman, author of The New York Times bestseller "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott join us to talk about a new tool that can help you express love in a way that connects with the heart of someone you care about.
Our featured resource is the love language that matters most, how to personalize love so they really feel it. Find out more about it at buildingrelationships.us. And Gary, this is a brand new resource that releases next week that I'm sure you are excited about.
Well I am, Chris, because it's going to deal with a lot of things that people have asked me through the years about the love languages. Been amazing to see how God has used that original book. You know, it helps so many couples to learn how to connect with each other. But there have also been a lot of other folks who, well, I tried that, it didn't seem to help, you know, da da da da da. And I think this book is going to give information that's going to help them really zero in on how to effectively communicate love on an emotional level so that they're meeting what almost all of us agree is one of our deepest emotional needs.
And that is the need to feel loved by the significant people in our lives.
So I'm excited about this book, and I'm glad that we're going to be discussing it today.
Well, let's meet our guests, Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott, our psychologists and number one New York Times best-selling authors of numerous books, including Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts. Our featured resource today is that book that they've written with Dr. Chapman, The Love Language That Matters Most, How to Personalize Love So They Really Feel It. Just go to buildingrelationships.us.
Well, that's and Leslie, welcome back to Building Relationships. It's always good to be with you, Gary, and it's great to be back on this program. We sure love working together, Gary. And can you believe, by the way, Gary, that we're finally getting to tell people about this book we've been working on forever? I'm ready.
I am ready. Why don't we start with a little background on the two of you? Tell us how long you've been married. Tell us why you do what you do, because I know you both have been involved in marriage enrichment for years now.
So just share a little bit about your journey.
Well, what's been so fun is that our journeys have connected over time because we've been married about 40 years, 41 years to be exact, and we've been working together on marriage and strengthening marriages. Originally, our calling was to help couples prepare well for married life. Yeah, our very first book together was Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts. The very first sentence of that book says, we never had premarriage counseling, but we spent the first year of our marriage in therapy. And so we always have had a passion for helping couples launch lifelong love.
But it doesn't seem possible. We've been married for four decades at this point, but we have two boys we're super proud of, and they both got married this past year. I know. We're recently empty nesters, but we're thrilled for them to be launching their lifelong love.
So that's kind of special. And they're both in graduate school now.
So it's fun to have a front row seat to their future. Both of these boys said they would never be what mom and dad are psychologists. And guess what they're both doing? We're taking some great delight in that, aren't we? One of them is studying positive psychology, which I joke with him.
It's kind of like a degree in the fruit of the spirit because you study what goes right with people, whereas most Psychologists are dedicated to helping, you know, what when things go wrong. And so he's studying curiosity and meaning and all these incredible things. And then the other boy is in the UK and he's studying child psychiatry.
So anyway, that's our family. And then we have these two delightful girls, these women, these young ones. I know we have daughters now. Yeah. And it's so fun.
Les and I working together all these years. I'm a marriage and family therapist. He's a clinical psychologist. But Gary, it's really true that we have found ourselves in the same venues, on the same platforms, and shared this passion to help couples with marriages over all these decades. Yeah, the three of us have crisscrossed the country a lot.
And even when we're not speaking, that we've seen each other in airports. I've seen you spying the yogurt or the cherry pie in some shop. Up on the main fairway there. And so, anyway, it's so fun to be finally doing this project with you. It's just a delight.
Well, I want to find out from you, Gary. How did you team up with these two to get this new look at the love languages?
Well, you know, a long time I've been working with Moody Publishers on two or three different projects in the future. And it just takes time to, you know, you work on one thing and then another thing. But I've wanted to write something like this for a long time. And also, I teamed up with them because I knew them and I read their stuff and I knew their heart. And I felt like, you know, this is a couple that we can work together and they have insights that will help me.
Yeah, if I co-author a book, it's because I think the other people that I'm co-authoring with know more than I do about some of this.
So that's what motivated me. And I'm really excited about this book that's going to be released shortly. And I hope our listeners will get a copy. And I think they're going to find it really, really helpful. And I'm glad that we're going to share today some of the ideas that they'll find there.
Well, let me ask you, Leslie, Leslie, as you've done this traveling and you've seen Gary and the yogurt and the cherry pie, you'll have to tell me more about that off the air. You have probably seen how much this love language concept has meant to couples. Talk about that.
Well, that is the truth. I mean, it's so ubiquitous. You know, we live in downtown Seattle, and I'm sure you see it wherever you live, but the home of Amazon, right here in Seattle, we see trucks almost on a daily basis that say next day delivery is our love language. And they need to have the name Gary Chapman after the end of that because they're stealing that phrase. But it is so ubiquitous and has helped so many people.
And it's the kind of message that I think is only divinely given. I don't, I love Gary. Gary, I know you're smart, but you're not that smart. Yeah, there's also a sense of the sacred about this deep insight that Gary has shared with couples. And I don't think there's ever been a couple we worked with that hasn't intuitively and instantly felt their eyes of their heart open when you share this concept.
Yeah, and when we were tossing around this title of the love language that matters most, you know, how do you do kind of the next step in the five love language revolution? How do you, you know, 2.0, how do you take this deeper and further for people? We were tossing around titles and so forth. And I, less than I were at a restaurant here in our own city, and I had a little piece of paper on the table and it said the title, The Love Language That Matters Most, and the server. She saw that and she said, oh.
We love the love languages here at this restaurant. And I said, What do you mean? She said, Everybody has read this book here. I said, Really? And she said, But what is it?
I said, What's what? She said, What's the love language that matters most? I said, Oh, okay. She said, Is it mine? Mine's touch.
Is it touch? Is it touch? And I said, Well, uh, maybe. I said, The love language that matters most is the love language of the person in front of you. And she put her pad and pencil down on the paper.
She was dramatic. And she said, Oh my goodness, that's it. That's it. And I said, Gary, we got a title here. And I think that's one of the things, you know, about it is that sometimes people have read the original book and they're really thinking more about themselves than they are about the other person.
And this is my love language.
Now, you need to speak it, you know. And so they might speak the other person's language hoping they're going to return. You know, it's kind of a selfish approach to things. But even from the beginning, I had the idea, I wouldn't have put it this way, that the most important love language is the love language of the other person, your partner or the good close friend or whatever. This is going to help folks who really want to be effective in communicating their love.
Gary, the book is divided into three sections, the problem, the solution, and the tactics. My guess is the tactics, that's going to be the practical part of this. But let's look at some of the problems first. Why do you title that first chapter Lost in Translation? Because I think some folks have failed to connect emotionally with the other person.
For different reasons, but one is that often they're speaking the right language, but for the wrong reasons. I kind of alluded to this a little earlier. You know, they are communicating in that language. They took the quiz, you know, the free quiz that we have, where they just get the love language. And so they start speaking that language, you know, and they say, come back to me and say, you know, I've been speaking their language for three weeks, but they're not speaking my language.
And I say, Now let me make sure I understand you. You speak in their language. in order to stimulate them to speak your language? I said, that sounds more like manipulation. than it does love.
Oh, well, listen, we're all self-centered and just by nature. And so sometimes that's why the message doesn't get through, is because they get the sense. The other person gets the sense. You're just trying to manipulate me. You're doing these kind things to me or speaking my language because you want me to do something for you.
And so they miss, it's lost in translation. I think another reason is that they often neglect the second love language. And sometimes your primary love language and your secondary love language are very, very close.
So if you only speak the primary language and you don't speak the secondary language, you're still going to miss them. They're still going to wonder, you know, about, do you really love me? And so, you know, it's these kind of things that I think we're dealing with in that section. You know, a person says that they need all five love languages. I've heard that several times.
My spouse says they need all five love languages. And what I've found out is that that is typically as a person. Two kinds of people. One, they either felt loved growing up, their parents probably spoke all these languages, and they've always felt loved.
Now they're married, and their spouse is speaking all of them, and they feel loved. And so, any one of them, you know. But the other is people who grew up where they never felt loved. And so they don't know what makes them feel loved. In fact, they're not even sure what it feels like to feel loved.
But at any rate, there are reasons. You can be sincere and still miss the other person emotionally. And that's what we're trying to open up the book with, the reality that we need help in order to be really effective in communicating love in a way that's going to be super meaningful to the other person. All those reasons we talk about in this first chapter, and then Gary, of course, that leads to kind of the issue that we hear so many people stumbling upon. And that is, man, I'm speaking their love language.
I read the book. I heard Gary speak. I tune into the radio. I know what her love language is. And for some reason, it's just not connecting.
It's not filling up her love tank. You know, and we've experienced this in our own marriage.
So we certainly get it that it happens to other couples. I mean, you know for sure that my number one love language is words of affirmation. You know that. And as soon as I learned that, I became a walking Hallmark card. And I thought the whole point was just to encourage you.
And man, you can do it. And you got this challenge. You're going to slay that. You're going to. And I thought the whole idea of this love language was to encourage her.
You were my personal cheerleading squad. Yeah. And what I didn't realize is, you can speak for yourself, but I know it was putting pressure on you. Yeah. So the funny thing is, he was just doling this out with generosity and the biggest heart.
And I was getting deflated because that literally would create anxiety for me. It would just put pressure on me. Like, well, I didn't even want to do that thing you're saying I'm so good at. Do I really have to do it? You know, but then, but then when we started really getting into the dialects, I started, you know, I got the insight and so did you that there are other kinds of words of affirmation.
And the one that really strikes my soul is compliments. Yeah. I, you know, I love to hear the thing you already did was amazing or, you know, how, you know, how there's no pressure in that. There's no pressure in that. Or, you know, how the sweater I have on today makes my eyes sparkle.
It does, by the way. I was going to say that earlier. I was going to say that. And now you've taken it. And the truth is, that is.
So soul-filling for me that I'll probably wear the sweater for 20 days.
So it all comes down in so many ways to understanding not just their love language, but their dialect. And Chris, I don't know if you've noticed this, but Gary is from a particular part of the country where they have a little bit of a dialect. Have you noticed that about Gary? I have. He has that southern drawl, and it's just so easy and just as smooth as molasses.
But the whole idea, and I grew up in Boston, by the way, where we dropped our R's. I've corrected the way I speak, so I don't say PAC, I say Park. But, you know, we all have these dialects that we grow up with.
Well, the same is true in our love languages. And so what Gary and Leslie and I have done for the last several years now is to really understand those dialects and do some research on that so we can bring that to people that are really wanting to make sure they're speaking. You know, the happiest people on the planet are people that. Can speak each other's love language. They can put themselves in each other's shoes.
And as Gary was saying earlier, not just thinking about, oh, hey, you're supposed to speak my love language, but they're really focused on how to speak the others and get. Fluent in that love language. And so that's what this book is all about. That's why we wrote it. Does that make sense, Chris?
It does. And it makes sense because what you're trying to do is actually know the other person. If you go deeper, and I think that's what this point of this new book is: it's kind of like love languages on caffeine or steroids, where you really understand the other person even better.
Now, you've just used the words of affirmation. I love that example. Can we take one other love language and tell me a dialect? Take me deeper into this. Let's say physical touch.
Let's say the spouse has, we're talking about a married couple, the other spouse, their love language is physical touch. How do you go deeper with that?
Well, I know one example that comes to mind right away because Gary and I were in Nashville not very long ago for a speaking engagement. We were, I don't know how many people were in the room there, Gary, but maybe a thousand, something like that. And we were having people share their love languages. And one woman said, well, physical touch is my love language and he knows it, but he's not speaking it the right way. And she said it with a lot of flair and everybody was kind of laughing.
And she said, my dialect is definitely not playful touch. And he thinks that's what it is. And so he's always poking me and tickling me. And she says, I don't want any of that. I want comforting touch.
I want a smooth kind of pat on the back and a caress on the shoulder. And, you know, that's a dramatically different kind of dialect. And so does that make sense when it comes to physical touch? And by the way, in the book, we talked about the book. Talk about seven different kinds of physical touch.
And so I know that for some people, they just immediately think, oh, it's always romantic touch, but there's seven different, several different kinds of physical touch. And once you get a hold of that, man, then you can really focus in on what it is that fills up your partner's love tank. Yeah, there's all kinds of ways that people express love through touch. I mean, just think of one kind, like protective touch, you know, that kind that walks on the outside of the path or puts their arm around you or makes sure that you feel safe in any situation. There's so many different ways that touch conveys love, and you're right, it's just not romantic touch.
Yeah. Well, I think that's true of all the languages, and that's a big part of this book. It's not everything of this book, but that's a big part of it. Recognizing some of the dialects in each of these languages and helping you realize it's not enough just to speak their love language in a generic sense. What you want to do is to learn to speak it in the way that's most meaningful to them.
And I think it's fascinating. It's a fascinating study, but it's not so much the study that excites me. What really excites me is it's going to make a difference in the lives of people when they get the concept and they discover each other's, not only their primary love language, but the dialect, or maybe more than one, that really, really speaks deeply to them. Yeah. We're talking about the new book, The Love Language That Matters Most, How to Personalize Love So They Really Feel It.
It's our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us. Gary and the Parrots are with us today, Dr. Gary Chapman and Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott. And Les, you know, I've heard Gary talk about the love tank for decades now.
That concept also is really a part of the place where we don't speak that love and where people feel depleted, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. And, you know, it's such a simple But meaningful metaphor because it's so easy to just kind of touch base with your partner and figure out, hey, how's your love tank doing? And but what we've done in this book is take it a step further and really looked at some of the things that are most people don't really understand the characteristics of their love tank. And first of all, it needs to have the right fuel.
That's kind of obvious, right? That's fundamental to this whole concept of love language. Absolutely. But we also need to understand it can change quickly. A love tank is rarely static.
It's going up or it's going down. And as Gary might say in his part of the world, it can change faster than melting butter on a hot biscuit. Have you ever seen it? I'm getting hungry already. But it really can.
And anybody that's been married for more than a minute goes, Yeah, I can identify with that because it felt like we were doing fine just five minutes ago. What just happened here? And suddenly their love tank is just drained. That's right. The good news is it can suddenly fill as well.
So that can be happy, you know, when you know the power of this. Right. But we do talk about in the book, we talk about how it can drain faster than it fills and that magic ratio from, you know, John Gottman's research on so powerful because sometimes we make the mistake of thinking, you know, one hard knock, that's not so bad, but it takes a lot of extra love. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite concepts is the fact that we all have love leaks. You know, they're just things that just drain that tank nearly instantly.
Yeah, right. What's an example of a love leak? I mean, when you're a words of affirmation girl, there can be just that critical comment and it's like.
Okay, I'm cringing. You can stop now. You don't have to go any further. No illustration. Exactly, exactly, exactly.
And the other thing is, and this was interesting, I remember, Gary, when we were going back and forth with concepts and so forth, and we'd get on the Zoom and talk on the weekends, and so we were writing this book together and realized, you know, something? These love tanks come in different sizes, and that was kind of a new insight to us as we began to think about tank size for a person. And there's small love tanks and there's large love tanks, and it has to do with capacity.
Some people, if you have a small love tank, it fills quickly, but also empties just as fast. Whereas people with a large tank, man, they can live for a long time on a compliment. We all can, but relative to others, there's some people that just wow, that's I'm good. I'm good for a long time, you know. And so it's that kind of thing.
We have different sensitivities, and we have, you know, the whole concept is you read through the book, is that you're going to just take these fundamental concepts that Gary came up with in the original book, and we just go deeper with more texture and more nuance and more practicality in so many ways. Yeah, Gary's already talked about the profound effect it has on us if we were either loved especially well in our story growing up. Right. You know, in our family that created us, or if we experienced especially a lot of neglect, and that shapes our love tank, just like it shapes our love language capacity. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Gary, what is the number one problem in being able to speak the love languages or becoming multilingual, speaking the primary and the secondary?
Well, I think one thing is effort. Yeah, it's a choice. Do I want to live with the person who has an empty love tank? That's no fun. And as Christians, of course, we're called, and we have the biblical example of Jesus who said, I did not come to be served, I came to serve.
And if we follow his model, then our attitude is: I want to do everything I can to enrich your life. If it's a marriage or even other people that we encounter, I want to enrich your life.
So it's choosing an attitude of love. That's the first step. And then as Christians, we have outside help. I mean, God will help us if we're saying to God, Lord, I want to show your love to my spouse or whatever the relationship is.
So it's choosing an attitude, whereas by nature, we are self-centered. And we choose a selfish attitude. And that's why, in many marriages, for example, when it comes near the end and they're getting ready to divorce. The one one or more of the of the individuals have the attitude. I'm out of here because I'm not happy.
You're not making me happy. The selfishness.
So love is the opposite. And the good news is we choose our attitude. We don't choose our emotions. We choose our attitude. And the attitude then leads us to learn the kind of things we're talking about so that we can meet this need of emotional need for love, which is not all the needs that we have, but it's certainly one of the biggest needs that we have, especially in a marriage and family relationships.
Thanks for joining us today for the Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman podcast. He's the New York Times best-selling author of "The 5 Love Languages" . You'll find more simple ways to strengthen your relationships at buildingrelationships.us. There you'll see a link to our featured resource today.
It's the new book, The Love Language That Matters Most, How to Personalize Love So They Really Feel It. Go to buildingrelationships.us or visit fivelovelanguages.com. Let's talk about personality and how that influences the way we give and receive love. through "The 5 Love Languages" , does personality influence us? Boy, I love this question because, Gary, we've spent so much time talking about this, haven't we?
In fact, I believe you told me at one point, this is the number one question you get. When you're speaking on "The 5 Love Languages" , is that I remember that correctly? Yeah, yeah, that's one of the most common things that I hear is how does personality relate to the love languages? And so, Gary, you know, said to Leslie and me, Hey, this is your business. You understand personality, you assess personality, and so forth.
Let's look into this. How does it shape it?
Well, of course, personality shapes everything we do in interpersonal relationships, so it's got to impact how we speak another person's love language. For example, Chris, are you an introvert or an extrovert? I'm at heart an introvert, though I play an extrovert on the radio. I was going to say, Chris, you talk an awful lot for an introvert. But yeah, you do that for a living.
But kind of when it's at default, you're an introvert, is what you're saying. In other words, you draw your energy from regrouping on your own and having that quiet time and where you don't have to exert yourself. And being in an interpersonal relationship can sometimes drain you, or a party, or a social setting. Is that accurate? Yeah, absolutely.
So, when it comes to speaking, and by the way, Chris, what is your number one love language?
Now you put me on the spot. I've got to go deeper. I think it's probably words of affirmation, though physical touch is really important to me as well.
Well, let's just take words of affirmation. And by the way, of course, everybody can have more than one primary love language. And by the way, one of the things we highlight in this book is how you really need to tune into your foreign love language, especially if somebody in your life has that as their primary love language.
So we can come back to that maybe, but let's stay on personality here for a second. When you say, hey, I'm an introvert and words of affirmation, my love language, well, let's say you're at church and the church wants to recognize you for something you did. You had a great campaign for the last missions project or something, and the church wants to acknowledge you. Probably the last thing you want is to be brought up to the front. Of the church and have everybody clap for you and put the spotlight on you because you're an introvert.
You still like the words of affirmation, but hey, can we just do this over lunch, you know, where it's not so public? In writing. Yeah, even better. Yeah. So, as you kind of layer personality on top of "The 5 Love Languages" , it becomes a little bit like 3D chess, but we've made it so easy for you in this book to understand that.
And by the way, Gary, maybe we should say a word about "The 5 Love Languages" premium assessment because this really customizes it and makes it so applicable to you specifically, right? Yeah, absolutely.
And I'm really, really excited about it. And it parallels the book. And it's been out there for a few months now. We've had a lot of people take the quiz. It's a premium assessment.
Which you get a 15-page report. And one of them is dealing with what we've been talking about, and that is the dialect or dialects for you that are most important for you. It identifies them for you. And then the other deals with personality and what your personality is, and how this affects the speaking of the love language of the other person.
So now you have to pay for this one. The other one's free, okay? 160 million people have taken the free quiz. You have to pay for this one, but it's worth it. I'll guarantee you.
It will really help you discover those two things, especially. Yeah, and that free quiz takes about less than a minute. This one takes a little bit longer, but the payoff is incredible. And of course, one of the things in the premium assessment is it looks at your personality and makes it, as we like to say, you put the cookies on the bottom shelf, make it easy to access. But wow, once you get the understanding of your personality as it relates to your love language and that of your partner, you're cooking with gas, as they like to say.
I mean, there's so many personality dynamics that are at play. You know, just even think about: are you someone who is deliberate or are you someone who is more carefree? Because how you would like to give or receive love might be very spontaneous or you'd rather have it very thoughtfully planned, right? There are just so many dynamics that are wrapped around really understanding how to speak your. loved ones love language fluently.
Yeah. A good example of that is the couple where he was very curious and he was spontaneous and so he knew his wife's language was quality time.
So he said on a Friday night at dinner, he said, honey, how about tomorrow? Let you and I go up to, this is in North Carolina, go up to the state park and let's take a walk and a little hike together. And she said, Honey I've already got to m tomorrow planned. She's not a person that's going to do things on the spuniest moment. She's far more organized.
And so understanding the personality differences, because he was thinking he was doing something really good to speak love to her, but really he was putting pressure on her to give up her plans for the day. That's it. That's it right there. To be able to know the other person well. But here's the other part of this that I love that comes out in the book, and that is you emphasize consistency, practice, and effort over becoming a master of the love languages.
This is not about getting everything perfect.
So, Gary, why do you make that distinction?
Well, I think because none of us are perfect. And so we're not challenging people to do something they cannot do. What we're saying is, let's just be consistent. Let's get the information and then let's be consistent in trying to grow. I talk about a growing marriage.
I've never talked about a perfect marriage. But we either have a growing marriage or we have a marriage that's going in the opposite direction. We're either getting better or we're getting worse. It never stands still. And what we're hoping and what all of us have been working for all these years is to help couples have a growing marriage.
So we're not trying to put a lot of pressure on somebody. We're just trying to give information that makes what they want to do, what they choose to do, much more effective.
So in that illustration, Les and Leslie, of the man who had the spur of the moment he thought he was doing it, he's not a failure in that. He uses this overstepping with his wife. He uses that to give him more information so he can move toward her, right? That's exactly right. I love that because we're practicing.
We're learning. We're growing. And Gary is exactly right. It's not about perfect at all. It's about persistence.
It's about leaning in. And yeah, okay, I just learned something more. She loves shared activity, but what she loves is to have it planned and anticipate it in advance. And we'll, you know, look forward to it together.
So now he's got more information and he's... loving better and able to adjust to it roll with it right it's not just like oh well man i've tried to love you and now you've ruined it you know but to be able to adjust and go okay i i got i have some understanding i have some patience and grace for that i i like the phrase it's not about perfection it's about presence as long as you still stay present with the person you you don't have to be perfect and that's where grace comes into play grace goes a long way nobody Arrives. Nobody woke up this morning and went, well, guess what? I'm perfect at speaking the love languages consistently 100% of the time. Nobody, even Gary Chapman, is not perfect at the love languages.
Don't say it. That can't be true. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. So it's always in process.
We're a work in process. And I just, I like those opportunities in a relationship where we each have the opportunity to share that kind of grace because that's what makes us stronger. I think one of the strengths of this new book is you taking us deeper into the love languages and helping us understand them more.
So we've talked about words of affirmation and physical touch. Let's go to gifts. Less, how do we go deeper in gifts? Because I think of, you know, for my wife, I'll get her a dozen roses. That's it.
I've checked it off the list. There's more, right? Oh, absolutely. And in fact, this one, this happens to be my foreign love language. This is the one I am least inclined to speak and least inclined to appreciate from somebody else.
And it doesn't mean I don't value it. Of course, I do. But man, I learned so much about myself and the people that I love as we began to study this love language, receiving gifts. And as you know from what we talked about earlier, each of these love languages in this new book, The Love Language That Matters Most. We hone in on the dialects of each love language.
Now, there happens to be four dialects of receiving gifts. And one of the reasons I like talking about this is this is now, I feel like I have confidence in giving gifts to anybody in my life that really kind of land in the way that I want them to. And it has to do with thinking through. First of all, do you appreciate a gift that is heartfelt? or practical.
And I know for a fact, Leslie loves heartfelt gifts. Amen. She will take a handmade card over an umbrella any day of the week. And we live in Seattle. I was going to say it in Seattle, she needs more than one umbrella.
So that's a pretty helpful distinction in and of itself, a heartfelt gift over a practical gift. And then the other kind of continuum to think about is, is the person that you're trying to love, do they appreciate a simple gift or an extravagant gift?
Some people are embarrassed by an extravagant gift. I didn't understand this until we got into the research on this, but some people just, I just want the gift to be simple. I don't need much at all.
Now, of course, there's other people that are like, are you kidding? Spend as much money as you can find to bless me. But understanding that continuum. And so I know that Leslie. She likes a simple gift more than an extravagant gift.
Would she like jewelry? Maybe, but she's just as good with something that is, you know, like flowers or something that's really homemade or even a poem. As a matter of fact, to underscore this, for our 25th wedding anniversary, you bought me the most beautiful tennis bracelet. Oh, yeah. It was gorgeous.
I loved it. But in walking around the very first day I had it on, it slipped off my wrist. We spent like an hour and a half trying to find it and retrieve it. And I looked at you and said, I love you and this is a beautiful gift. Go return it right now.
I can't take the present. She was handicapped there. Right. But you kind of see how that works. Gary, this has really kind of opened your eyes, I think, in a new way to receiving gifts as well, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, when we first got married, of course, I knew nothing about love languages, but my dad always told me buy the woman gifts, you know.
So I bought Carolyn all kind of gifts, I mean, just on a regular basis. And everything I bought She took it back and exchanged it. And one day I said, You know, honey, maybe it would just be better to cut out the middleman and you just go buy something you like. Because gifts was not our primary language anyway. But yeah, but I think this whole thing, I remember the account of a guy who gave his wife practical gifts, you know, coffee makers and all kinds of things like that on certain days each year.
But finally, he got this picture one day. That he was going to have a man do actually a photograph of her, a portrait of his wife. And so he did. And then he took her out to dinner that night, and when the dinner was all over, the waiter brought out this covered portrait. and said, this is a gift from your husband.
And she opened it up and she's I can't believe this. I can't believe that. You did this for me? You know, it was meant more than that one fanciful gift, you know, meant a whole lot more, a sentimental gift, really, meant a whole lot more than all those practical kind of gifts he had been giving her.
So it makes a big difference what dialect you speak.
So there's four dialects to receiving gifts. Fanciful gifts. You know, that is things like jewelry or a big concert or something like that. Or maybe having your portrait. painted that counts to me.
That's extravagant and heartfelt. And then there's sentimental gifts. Those are the ones that you like, Leslie. And then functional gifts. I think if I were to choose, that would probably the dialect I speak in this.
I like a new iPhone or, I don't know, something. I was going to say a new power tool, but I am not a power tool guy.
So you did buy a power drill. It got pretty excited about it. It wasn't a gift for me, but I wish I had. And then finally, there's sensible gifts, like an umbrella, like a cookbook, like you know, whatever. And so, understanding that, even if this is not your primary love language, it'll help you, especially when it comes to those birthdays and holiday gift times.
One of the things I love about what this project, the three of us, have worked on together, is that. We're really expanding how we see our love languages too, because we're relying on your primary, yes, but also we're letting everyone know what's secondary, in what order, how much you lean into each of these.
So, of course, we have opportunities to love the people in our lives all year long with gifts, whether or not it's their primary, their secondary, or further down. And wow, does this really help us to lean in to those occasions and just charm them? Yeah, it's so true. Hey, Chris, can we talk about acts of service before we wrap this whole thing? Absolutely.
This is my love language, and I think people need to know how to love me more effectively. Is this interview about me? Should I be taking notes? Yes, get up the notebook.
So, but no, I just, as another example of how we get into these dialects, because acts of service. For me, Leslie always thought that just kind of meant doing things that were showing care. And that's certainly an important thing. But when we got into this and really uncovered the dialects of acts of service, she realized that it was saving time that really filled up my love tank. That is what rocks your world.
And I can go stand in a long line at the post office and spare you that egregious experience. Your love tank is overflowing. Anything that gives me back time, I feel like, oh, you love me so much because I value having my time to get other things done or whatever. But I used to pour myself into the caring acts, as you mentioned. And I would just, you know, if you had to work late and I was going to bed, I would turn down your side of the bed and, you know, just, you didn't even notice.
No, I didn't notice. But I do notice when you save me time.
So, Chris, that's just another example of how these dialects. Can change the way we speak the other person's love language. And that's why we call it the love language that matters most. That person in front of you, when they have you speaking their love language in their dialect. Love doesn't get much sweeter than that.
Yeah. I'm catching the vision for what it is as you take us deeper.
Now, how do I know I'm making progress? Gary, how is it, is it all in the response of the other person you're trying to love? Or is there a test that I can take for if I'm progressing or not? I don't know about a progressing test, but once you have the information in this book and in that premier assessment we talked about, you're going to have the ammunition to know how to communicate, how to deliver your love to that person. And I think you tell this by just their whole personality response.
I mean, you'll see smiles. You'll see the twinkle in their eye. And depending on their language, they'll probably give you feedback, you know.
So I think it's not hard to know if you're doing it. But the other thing is, I think there's a place periodically to say to your spouse, honey, on a scale of 0 to 10, how full is your love tank this week? And whatever they say, if it's less than 10, you say, well, this particular week, what would be the most important thing I could do to communicate my love to you?
Now you know exactly in that particular week, and it may not be their primary love language that week because circumstances sometimes affect what we would like in that particular week.
So talking about it with your spouse, bringing up the subject, using the term periodically so that both of you are aware that we want to meet each other's emotional need for love. That's a huge step in having a healthy marriage. Hey Gary, I encountered in counseling a little while ago a woman, Leslie and I were working with this couple, and she was so frustrated. She said, and I love that idea on the scale one ten. Leslie and I do that all the time.
How full is your love tank right now? But for her, for whatever reason, she said, well, if I have to tell you how full my love tank is, then you don't really love me because you should know how full my love tank is. And I wanted to stop and pray for the man right there. You know, that's a tall order. But what he realized is he didn't have to ask her anymore because he would just say, Hey, I get the sense your love tank isn't full right now.
And you watch. It's going to change. And sure enough, he mastered this idea of speaking her dialect within her love language. And you could just tell the countenance in her. He didn't have to ask.
So sometimes those personality factors even play into how you ask how full the love tank is. That's true. I love that. You know, the whole work of loving is goes back to that word presence and persistence. And, you know, if your spouse thinks that she feels most loved when you don't ask her, you can even say, if you're clueless, I'd like to read your mind right now.
You tell me how close I'm getting. I like it.
So you don't fail. Yeah. You know what I love most about this conversation and this new book is there are so many calls, Gary, that you've received when we do a Dear Gary broadcast, you know, voicemails that you get who say, I try her language is this, his language is this. It doesn't work for me. And the reason why that is, is laid out in the book.
And rather than becoming disgruntled about that and frustrated, oh, I've tried everything, this book helps you say, okay, there must be a dialect that I haven't learned yet. And I'm going to. To do that, I'm going to get on that horse and ride toward her or his heart, right, Gary? Yeah, absolutely.
That's the whole purpose of this book. And I'm hoping that many, many people who are familiar with the love language concept will realize, boy, I need to plug into this additional insight here because it's going to really help them. When they take into account the dialects and they take into account the personality of their spouse, it's going to make them much more effective in meeting each other's emotional needs for love.
Well, Dr. Aless and Leslie Parrott, thank you for putting the time in. I can tell that you've really enjoyed your time with Dr. Chapman working on this book. Thank you for doing that and for what's come out of it.
The best part of writing this book with Gary is when we get together, we know we're going to have dessert because he doesn't have a meal without. Do you have dessert for breakfast also, Gary? Because once in a while. No, we've had actually a lot of fun doing this project together and designing this new premium assessment for five love languages. And these two things, the new book, The Love Language That Matters Most, and the Five Love Language Premium Assessment, I am so confident that these two things are going to help couples take their love life to a new level.
And that's exciting.
Well, we hope today's conversation has encouraged you. And if you want to find out more about this new resource, go to buildingrelationships.us. You'll see the book, The Love Language That Matters Most, and there's also that premium assessment that Les just talked about. Go to buildingrelationships.us. And next week, The Courage, Faith, and Hope of Johnny Erickson Tata.
Don't miss a conversation about life's chaos and amazing grace in one week. Before we go, let me thank our production team Steve Wick and Janice Vacking. 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.
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