What fills your 'love tank'?

serendipity

Copied from an amazon.com review:

Author Gary Chapman in his book The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate believes everyone has a love tank, and that tank is filled by different love languages. These five languages are
1. Gifts,
2. Words of Affirmation,
3 Quality of Time,
4. Acts of Service,
5. Physical Touch.
Often, we tend to give love in the languages we are most fluent in, which usually ends up being the languages that fill up our love tank. This would be why a husband who does yard work, dishes, car maintenance, etc. (Acts of Service) is floored when his wife says "You never show me you love me. You never cuddle with me, or caress my hair, or make the first move for sex." (Physical Touch). Or, "Why don't you spend time with me? Why do you work so much?" (Quality Time). And, "Why don't you buy me flowers? Why don't you ever get me cards or balloons...just because?" (Gifts) Or "You never tell me what I mean to you. Why don't you ever share with me what I mean to you, or what my good qualities are?" (Words of Affirmation) But, if her language is primarily Acts of Service, she'll feel so loved and honored because her husband does so many things for her, and thus feels "full" in her love tank.

Chapman also says we tend to have two primary love languages.

I performed a post-mortem on my past relationships and found out that I didn't feel loved because each of the bf's spoke different love languages. My primary love languages are physical touch, and affirmations. The bf's came up short on affirmations- i.e. telling me how wonderful I was.

I used this model when talking to my teenage daughter as well. She decided that she needed Quality time and words of affirmation to feel loved. I've been good about affirmations, but needed to work a bit on spending time with her when SHE wanted (rather than when I wanted to.)

I thought Chapman's approach was pretty realistic. Do you agree with Chapman's premise? What makes you feel loved?

Spectre

3 and 5 work for me.

Super_Becka

What makes me feel loved?? Well, from that list, I'd have to say:

- Words of Affirmation

- Quality of Time

- Physical Touch

I like to be told that I'm loved and appreciated, I like to spend quality time with my guy and I like physical contact, and I don't just mean that sexually, I mean things like cuddling up for a movie, or walking hand-in-hand, just the little things, little touches throughout the day.

I don't need gifts to feel loved, I don't need my guy to do things for me all the time, and I don't need to be slathered with the three things that I just listed, either, I just need these three things every once in a while to make me feel good in a relationship.

My last relationship fell apart after my ex cheated on me, but above and beyond that, he never wanted to spend time with me, he never talked to me, he never wanted to be near me and touch me, and he certainly didn't give gifts or do special things for me, so in my opinion, whatever "language" he spoke in around me, it certainly wasn't a Love Language.

My current boyfriend, even though he's a stubborn JW in some ways, loves to spend time with me and be close to me and touch me, and he makes an effort to tell me how special I am to him and how much I mean to him and that he loves me, it's very nice. He also insists on doing nice things for me and giving me gifts, but I tell him not to do those things because it makes me uncomfortable because I usually can't reciprocate, but he's very good with "Words of Affirmation", "Quality of Time" and "Physical Touch" and it makes me feel very good.

I've never felt loved in a relationship before, but I do now because my boyfriend gives me the things that I need, it's nice.

-Becka :)

tetrapod.sapien

cool serendipity. never thought of it like this, but i like it.

3 & 5 fill it up for me as well. and though i can enjoy giving all five in return, i am probably best at giving back what i am fluent in. is that the basic premise?

ts

damselfly

I tend to need space and freedom combined with good quality of time spent together. With a #5 of course!

Dams

DigitalFokus

- Words of Affirmation

- Quality of Time

- Physical Touch

cognizant dissident

Words, it's all in the words baby!

And the touch!

Quality of time comes in third.

Rest of the stuff doesn't matter much to me. This is an eye-opening premise for me! My husband is a basic nice guy. He works so hard and does so much! Yet I still feel so unloved and ignored all the time. Because he never talks to me. And he only touches me when he wants sex, which is not nearly as often as I want it either. I have actually, seriously been considering leaving him because of this!

I think a lot of women need the words too! Back me up on this ladies out there! Is this not why we find tetrapod so hot! Because he has the winning way with the WORDS?

Cog

Sparkplug

Not a DAMN thing fills my love tank. I am sitting by the side of the road as if I were up on jacks with my love tank in hand and trying to hitch a ride.

DelTheFunkyHomosapien

Bloody hell Sparky thats pretty grim, but I've been there. 3 and 5. Not to sure about acts of service, sounds related to 5 if you ask me.

Billygoat

I've had this book for several years and never read it through completely. I've picked out chapters and used them at appropriate times. I think basic idea is that we have a tendency to only love others in our love language. But if they don't have the same love language, they don't appreciate our efforts; and vice versa. My love languages are mostly 3 and 5. And that's changed over time. It used to be 1 and 2, but as I got older, my language changed. Mozz's are 2 and 3, so at least we speak one common language. I find applying the principles of the book do work.

What fills your 'love tank'?

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