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    The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
    The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
    The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
    Ebook233 pages3 hours

    The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts

    By Gary Chapman

    4/5

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    Read preview

    • Love Languages

    • Marriage

    • Communication

    • Relationships

    • Emotional Needs

    • Love Conquers All

    • Communication Breakdown

    • Communication Is Key

    • Love Triangle

    • Coming of Age

    • Friends to Lovers

    • Chosen One

    • Betrayal

    • Family Drama

    • Prophecy

    • Love

    • Communication in Relationships

    • Love & Relationships

    • Intimacy

    • Personal Growth

    About this ebook

    Over 20 million copies sold!

    A perennial New York Times bestseller for over a decade!

    Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge. How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life?

    In the #1 New York Times international bestseller The 5 Love Languages®, you’ll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner—starting today.

    The 5 Love Languages® is as practical as it is insightful. Updated to reflect the complexities of relationships today, this new edition reveals intrinsic truths and applies relevant, actionable wisdom in ways that work.

    Includes the Love Language assessment so you can discover your love language and that of your loved one.

    Editor's Note

    What’s your love language?…

    Chapman’s love languages are five simple keys that open the door to lasting happiness in any relationship. Identify your and your partner’s primary language today to ensure your feelings are clear and your love endures.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMoody Publishers
    Release dateJun 1, 2024
    ISBN9780802492401
    The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts
    Author

    Gary Chapman

    Gary Chapman--author, speaker, counselor--has a passion for people and for helping them form lasting relationships. He is the #1 bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages series and director of Marriage and Family Life Consultants, Inc. Gary travels the world presenting seminars, and his radio programs air on more than four hundred stations. For more information visit his website at www.5lovelanguages.com.

    Read more from Gary Chapman

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    Reviews for The 5 Love Languages

    4/5

    1,508 ratings84 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be highly recommended for anyone in a relationship. It provides practical information on how to love well, improve relationships, and understand each other's love languages. The book is insightful, powerful, and offers great advice. It emphasizes the importance of communication, self-improvement, and not giving up on relationships. While some reviewers may have disagreed with certain concepts, overall, the book is considered helpful and strongly recommended. It is also applicable to friendships and work relationships. The book is easy to understand and practical, making it a valuable resource for anyone seeking genuine help in their relationships.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      This was a very quick and easy read. Some of it seemed rather intuitive, but the insights around even these parts were enough for me to give this a very high rating and recommend this. (Plus, they have a quiz and I'm a sucker for those.)
    • 4/5
      My husband and I enjoyed reading this book together for our Christian book club at church. We feel that the information is good for those who do not intuitively know how to love their spouse in their own love language.
    • 4/5
      A very valuable insight into the fact that we all receive love in different ways. Why does one person really feel loved when bought a gift whereas others need to often hear the words 'I love you'? We are all different and this book helps us to identify what we like most of all - our preferred love language and what our partner most appreciates. Put into practice this can help build very strong relationships.
    • 4/5
      It's pop psychology at its best, light, deep and interesting at the same time. it's designed to make you slap your forehead. i love the concept of love languages. I'm going to incorporate it into my writing from now on. it made a lot of sense to me. And I love lists. ^_^
    • 5/5
      I learned more about my wife by reading this book than any other book out in print. Read this to help your marriage, save your marriage. This book will change you marriage for the best.
    • 4/5
      Great book on figuring out how best to relate to the differnt people in your life
    • 4/5
      Want to make a bad marriage good? A good marriage very good? A very good marriage great? Wanna go straight from bad to great? Read this book, preferably in tandem with your mate, absorb the information, and it most likely will net the results you want. I promise. This book is worth its salt.
    • 5/5
      This is a fabulous book that takes a look at the five love languages that every human being speaks. It's a wonderful read, and really helped me out a lot in my marriage!
    • 5/5
      You've got to read this book. It will open your eyes in terms of understanding your spouse. It is a quick, easy read with simple ideas that will make a profound difference in your relationship.
    • 4/5
      A very fine work on relationships, probably the best I have read. Chapman has discovered something striking and something very true, and the understanding of these Love Languages has explained a great deal in my own life. It is too early to understand completely how my own marriage will change because of this book, but it will change.
    • 3/5
      I like the idea behind this book, and like how it is written in a way that simplifies the subject matter. The book is easy to read and understand. I like the differentiation made between feeling in love, and actual love. It is simple, and won't cover every circumstance and situation, but is a good starting point in understanding how we each process things in different ways.
    • 3/5
      The ideas expressed in this book are pretty routine for marriage counseling these days. But his way of puting it all together in this book is easy and accesable. A must for all marraiges.
    • 5/5
      This should be required reading for all couples. Seriously, they should pass free copies out when you apply for a marriage license, sorta like the driver's license manual.

      Before I read this book, I thought love is love, right? Not necessarily. Some people feel most loved when their significant other uses positive words of affirmation, some feel that the amount of quality time equals how much they are loved, while others believe that the amount of gifts, acts of service, and physical touches represents how loved they are. Once a person learns which of these "love languages" is their significant other's primary love language, and vice versa, they have the key to a more emotionally satisfying relationship.

      I am very impressed with Gary Chapman's theory. I received this book as a bridal shower gift, and I certainly will be giving other copies as gifts in the future.
    • 4/5
      My husband and I read this book before we got married (STRONGLY recommended by a Chaplain). I read it first and wrote notes in the margin for my husband, and then he read it and added his thoughts too. The theory makes sense and is useful, even if it is one of many different perspectives on relationships.
    • 4/5
      What's the deal with having to choose a PRIMARY love language? I like them all, I think my primary love language is all 5 categories. I'm either very easy to please or very high maintenance--I haven't decided which.
    • 4/5
      The 5 languages of love by which we communicate our love for each other, but some of us speak one language and some another. We need to find the language our loved speaks in and learn that way of communication as a second language.
    • 4/5
      It's pop psychology at its best, light, deep and interesting at the same time. it's designed to make you slap your forehead. i love the concept of love languages. I'm going to incorporate it into my writing from now on. it made a lot of sense to me. And I love lists. ^_^
    • 5/5
      I read The Five Love Languages before I got married, and really liked it. Now that I've been married 5 years I decided to read it again, and appreciated it a LOT more. Being in love, you never think you'll feel in need of getting your 'love bucket' filled more than it already is, but once marriage becomes more 'routine', it's more obvious how important it is to speak each other's love language.

      I find the concept of this book fascinating - that it's possible to express love for another person in so many different ways, that some of the ways aren't even recognizable for what they are to the other person. I think I've got my own and my husband's love language pretty much sorted out, and I don't think any of us find our 'love bucket' lacking, but it's a good thing to be aware of.
    • 5/5
      Not only is this a great book to help any man or women get closer to their spouse but the principles here can be applied to your children and friends as well; all people not just Christians but all people can learn to be better people from this book
    • 4/5
      I've heard people talk about this book and their own love languages for years and always kind of rolled my eyes. I've encountered so many times in the past few weeks that I finally decided to get a copy and read it myself...fully expecting...nothing. My apologies Mr Chapman! Hands down the best book on marriage I've ever encountered and has utterly changed my perspective on all I once thought wrong with my vews on marriage. People often use the term "life changing" far too easily...this book truly is.
    • 5/5
      Gary Chapman understands how to simply explain different ways in which we show love, how we feel most loved and opens up insight on other people's preferences. It's a must for couples who want to deepen their relationship and understand each others differences.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book. If you are having marrital problems, seek a counselor, but if you want to learn how to communicate more effectively, this is a good place to start.
    • 3/5
      Like most relationship books, how helpful this is depends on how many you've already read. All common sense gets redundant after a while. The premise is true enough, except for the fact that there are more than five basic needs out there. My boyfriend found a 'love language' in the book to fit him perfectly, but although my own need is just as straightforward, you can't contort any of the given five to fit it. And there's no way I'm unique there. The religion angle was significantly more low key than I was expecting. Again, that perspective depends on what you've already read. The case study examples really got repetitive, but I'm not sure what would have been a better way to do it. Some of his advice definitely only works for certain personality types and -- probably more important -- certain subcultures, but he's pretty up front about that too.
    • 5/5
      This was so helpful! Can’t wait to talk to my partner about this, I really feel like it can improve our relationship, even if things aren’t bad!
    • 5/5
      Although I am single, I can utilize the information given in this book to blossom my work relationships, friendships, and other relationships! It is imperative that I am fluent in all five love languages!
    • 5/5
      Very good book, it helps to understand relationships between people.
    • 5/5
      A must read for all couples. Very informative!
    • 5/5
      Great insight, practical applications, written with much care and so much love.
    • 5/5
      Very insightful and well worth the read. Knowing your spouse's love language can really help. Recommend.
    • 5/5
      This book made me realize that love is work, not granted.... thank you

    Book preview

    The 5 Love Languages - Gary Chapman

    What Happens to Love After the Wedding?

    At 30,000 feet, somewhere between Buffalo and Dallas, he put his magazine in his seat pocket, turned in my direction, and asked, What kind of work do you do?

    I do marriage counseling and lead marriage enrichment seminars, I said matter-of-factly.

    I’ve been wanting to ask someone this for a long time, he said. What happens to the love after you get married?

    Relinquishing my hopes of getting a nap, I asked, What do you mean?

    Well, he said, I’ve been married three times, and each time, it was wonderful before we got married, but somehow after the wedding it all fell apart. All the love I thought I had for her and the love she seemed to have for me evaporated. I am a fairly intelligent person. I operate a successful business, but I don’t understand it.

    How long were you married? I asked.

    The first one lasted about ten years. The second time, we were married three years, and the last one, almost six years.

    Did your love evaporate immediately after the wedding, or was it a gradual loss? I inquired.

    "Well, the second one went wrong from the very beginning. I don’t know what happened. I really thought we loved each other, but the honeymoon was a disaster, and we never recovered. We only dated six months. It was a whirlwind romance. It was really exciting! But after the marriage, it was a battle from the beginning.

    In my first marriage, we had three or four good years before the baby came. After the baby was born, I felt like she gave her attention to the baby and I no longer mattered. It was as if her one goal in life was to have a baby, and after the baby, she no longer needed me.

    Did you tell her that? I asked.

    "Yes, I told her. She said I was crazy. She said I did not understand the stress of being a twenty-four-hour nurse. She said I should be more understanding and help her more. I really tried, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. After that, we just grew further apart. After a while, there was no love left, just deadness. Both of us agreed that the marriage was over.

    "My last marriage? I really thought that one would be different. I had been divorced for three years. We dated each other for two years. I really thought we knew what we were doing, and I thought that perhaps for the first time I really knew what it meant to love someone. I genuinely felt that she loved me.

    "After the wedding, I don’t think I changed. I continued to express love to her as I had before marriage. I told her how beautiful she was. I told her how much I loved her. I told her how proud I was to be her husband. But a few months after marriage, she started complaining; about petty things at first—like my not taking the garbage out or not hanging up my clothes. Later, she went to attacking my character, telling me she didn’t feel she could trust me, accusing me of not being faithful to her. She became a totally negative person. Before marriage, she was never negative. She was one of the most positive people I have ever met—that’s one of the things that attracted me to her. She never complained about anything. Everything I did was wonderful, but once we were married, it seemed I could do nothing right. I honestly don’t know what happened. Eventually, I lost my love for her and began to resent her. She obviously had no love for me. We agreed there was no benefit to our living together any longer, so we split.

    That was a year ago. So my question is, What happens to love after the wedding? Is my experience common? Is that why we have so many divorces in our country? I can’t believe that it happened to me three times. And those who don’t divorce, do they learn to live with the emptiness, or does love really stay alive in some marriages? If so, how?

    The questions my friend seated in 5A was asking are the questions that thousands of married and divorced persons are asking today. Some are asking friends, some are asking counselors and clergy, and some are asking themselves. Sometimes the answers are couched in psychological research jargon that is almost incomprehensible. Sometimes they are couched in humor and folklore. Most of the jokes and pithy sayings contain some truth, but they are like offering an aspirin to a person with cancer.

    The desire for romantic love in marriage is deeply rooted in our psychological makeup. Books abound on the subject. Television and radio talk shows deal with it. The Internet is full of advice. So are our parents and friends and churches. Keeping love alive in our marriages is serious business.

    With all the help available from media experts, why is it that so few couples seem to have found the secret to keeping love alive after the wedding? Why is it that a couple can attend a communication workshop, hear wonderful ideas on how to enhance communication, return home, and find themselves totally unable to implement the communication patterns demonstrated? How is it that we read something online on 101 Ways to Express Love to Your Spouse, select two or three ways that seem especially helpful, try them, and our spouse doesn’t even acknowledge our effort? We give up on the other 98 ways and go back to life as usual.

    THE TRUTH WE’RE MISSING 

    The answer to those questions is the purpose of this book. It is not that the books and articles already published are not helpful. The problem is that we have overlooked one fundamental truth: People speak different love languages.

    My academic training is in the area of anthropology. Therefore, I have studied in the area of linguistics, which identifies a number of major language groups: Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Arabic, Greek, German, French, and so on. Most of us grow up learning the language of our parents and siblings, which becomes our primary or native tongue. Later, we may learn additional languages—but usually with much more effort. These become our secondary languages. We speak and understand best our native language. We feel most comfortable speaking that language. The more we use a secondary language, the more comfortable we become conversing in it. If we speak only our primary language and encounter someone else who speaks only his or her primary language, which is different from ours, our communication will be limited. We must rely on pointing, grunting, drawing pictures, or acting out our ideas. We can communicate, but it is awkward. Language differences are part and parcel of human culture. If we are to communicate effectively across cultural lines, we must learn the language of those with whom we wish to communicate.

    In the area of love, it is similar. Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse may be as different as Chinese from English. No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other. My friend on the plane was speaking the language of affirming words to his third wife when he said, I told her how beautiful she was. I told her I loved her. I told her how proud I was to be her husband. He was speaking love, and he was sincere, but she did not understand his language. Perhaps she was looking for love in his behavior and didn’t see it. Being sincere is not enough. We must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love.

    My conclusion after many years of marriage counseling is that there are five emotional love languages—five ways that people speak and understand emotional love. In the field of linguistics, a language may have numerous dialects or variations. Similarly, within the five basic emotional love languages, there are many dialects. The number of ways to express love within a love language is limited only by one’s imagination. The important thing is to speak the love language of your spouse.

    Seldom do a husband and wife have the same primary emotional love language. We tend to speak our primary love language, and we become confused when our spouse does not understand what we are communicating. We are expressing our love, but the message does not come through because we are speaking what, to them, is a foreign language. Therein lies the fundamental problem, and it is the purpose of this book to offer a solution. That is why I dare to write another book on love. Once we discover the five basic love languages and understand our own primary love language, as well as the primary love language of our spouse, we will then have the needed information to apply the ideas in the books and articles.

    Once you identify and learn to speak your spouse’s primary love language, I believe that you will have discovered the key to a long-lasting, loving marriage. Love need not evaporate after the wedding, but in order to keep it alive, most of us will have to put forth the effort to learn a secondary love language. We cannot rely on our native tongue if our spouse does not understand it. If we want them to feel the love we are trying to communicate, we must express it in their primary love language.

    YOUR TURN

    How does your spouse respond when you try to show affection?

    Keeping the Love Tank Full

    Love is the most important word in the English language—and the most confusing. Both secular and religious thinkers agree that love plays a central role in life. Love has a prominent role in thousands of books, songs, magazines, and movies. Numerous philosophical and theological systems have made a prominent place for love.

    Psychologists have concluded that the need to feel loved is a primary human emotional need. For love, we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, and endure untold hardships. Without love, mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, deserts unbearable, and hardship our lot in life.

    If we can agree that the word love permeates human society, both historically and in the present, we must also agree that it is a most confusing word. We use it in a thousand ways. We say, I love hot dogs, and in the next breath, I love my mother. We speak of loving activities: swimming, skiing, hunting. We love objects: food, cars, houses. We love animals: dogs, cats, even pet snails. We love nature: trees, grass, flowers, and weather. We love people: mother, father, son, daughter, parents, wives, husbands, friends. We even fall in love with love.

    If all that is not confusing enough, we also use the word love to explain behavior. I did it because I love her. That explanation is given for all kinds of actions. A politician is involved in an adulterous relationship, and he calls it love. The preacher, on the other hand, calls it sin. The wife of an alcoholic picks up the pieces after her husband’s latest episode. She calls it love, but the psychologist calls it codependency. The parent indulges all the child’s wishes, calling it love. The family therapist would call it irresponsible parenting. What is loving behavior?

    The purpose of this book is not to eliminate all confusion surrounding the word love but to focus on that kind of love that is essential to our emotional health. Child psychologists affirm that every child has certain basic emotional needs that must be met if he is to be emotionally stable. Among those emotional needs, none is more basic than the need for love and affection, the need to sense that he or she belongs and is wanted. With an adequate supply of affection, the child will likely develop into a responsible adult. Without that love, he or she will be emotionally and socially challenged.

    I liked the metaphor the first time I heard it: Inside every child is an ‘emotional tank’ waiting to be filled with love. When a child really feels loved, he will develop normally, but when the love tank is empty, the child will misbehave. Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty ‘love tank.’ I was listening to Dr. Ross Campbell, a psychiatrist who specialized in the treatment of children and adolescents.

    As I listened, I thought of the hundreds of parents who had paraded the misdeeds of their children through my office. I had never visualized an empty love tank inside those children, but I had certainly seen the results of it. Their misbehavior was a misguided search for the love they did not feel. They were seeking love in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.

    I remember Ashley, who at thirteen years of age was being treated for a sexually transmitted disease. Her parents were crushed. They were angry with Ashley. They were upset with the school, which they blamed for teaching her about sex. Why would she do this? they asked.

    In my conversation with Ashley, she told me of her parents’ divorce when she was six years old. I thought my father left because he didn’t love me, she said. When my mother remarried when I was ten, I felt she now had someone to love her, but I still had no one to love me. I wanted so much to be loved. I met this boy at school. He was older than me, but he liked me. I couldn’t believe it. He was kind to me, and in a while I really felt he loved me. I didn’t want to have sex, but I wanted to be loved.

    Ashley’s love tank had been empty for many years. Her mother and stepfather had provided for her physical needs but had not realized the deep emotional struggle raging inside her. They certainly loved Ashley, and they thought that she felt their love. Not until it was almost too late did they discover that they were not speaking Ashley’s primary love language.

    The emotional need for love, however, is not simply a childhood phenomenon. That need follows us into adulthood and into marriage. The in-love experience temporarily meets that need, but it is inevitably a quick fix and, as we shall learn later, has a limited and predictable life span. After we come down from the high of the in-love obsession, the emotional need for love resurfaces because it is fundamental to our nature. It is at the center of our emotional desires. We needed love before we fell in love, and we will need it as long as we live.

    The need to feel loved by one’s spouse is at the heart of marital desires. A man said

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