The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate (Unabridged)

How do you discover your spouse s and your own love language? Chapman s short questionnaires are one of several ways to find out. Throughout the book, he also includes application questions that can be answered more extensively in the beautifully detailed companion leather journal (an exclusive Amazon.com set). Each section of the journal corresponds with a chapter from the book, offering opportunities for deeper reflection on your marriage.

Although some readers may find choosing to love a spouse that they no longer even like hoping the feelings of affection will follow later a difficult concept to swallow, Chapman promises that the results will be worth the effort. "Love is a choice," says Chapman. "And either partner can start the process today." --Cindy Crosby. This text refers to the Amazon.com Exclusive Journal & Paperback Book Set.

Product Description
A New York Times Bestseller
A CBA Bestseller

Are you and your spouse speaking the same language? Dr. Gary Chapman reveals how different people express love in different ways. What speaks volumes to you may be meaningless to your spouse. But here, at last, is the key to understanding each other's needs. Learn the right language, and soon you'll know the profound satisfaction of being able to express your love and - feeling truly loved in return.

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 Gifts, Words of Affirmation, Quality of Time, Acts of Service, and 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.

This may not sound like a big deal, but considering the divorce rate is 50% (as one relationship instance), and so many seem to be unhappy with their primary relationships, the concept of love languages may very well be a signficant factor in understanding self and others, and in relationship growth. Perhaps relationships get rocky or arrive at an impasse because individuals are speaking a different love language than what fills up the "love tank" of the object of their affection...and a result, the recipient doesn't feel loved. It's not that they feel empty and unfufilled because love isn't being given, but because the language "spoken" is not something that registers to the recipient as a form of love.

Chapman further theorizes that we usually have 2 main love languages that fill up our tank. He also says that if a person has a hard time identifying their main love languages, they've either been on empty for so long and are out of touch with their needs, or they have been so filled up by their spouse, that all 5 languages tend to speak to them equally.

A story in the book that illustrates the love tank theory is the "burnt toast syndrome". A woman was sick in bed. Her husband would always bring her burnt toast to her when she was ailing. She was so hurt and offended by this repeated insensitivity and ignorance, that she finally burst into tears one day, and asked him why he did that...and didn't he care? She was floored to hear him say "I'm sorry honey. I had no idea. Burnt toast is my favorite, and I gave you what I would consider my favorite breakfast...burnt toast."

Chapman writes: "When your spouse's emotional love tank is full and he feels secure in your love, the whole world looks right and your spouse will move out to reach his highest potential in life. But when the love tank is empty and he feels used but not loved, the whole world looks dark and he will likely never reach his potential for good in the world."

I recommend this book highly. It could very well be a relationship saver!


Learn to Speak Your Partner's Love Language   February 9, 2004
Rebecca Johnson (Washington State)
145 out of 160 found this review helpful

Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love. ~Gary Chapman

It is amazing how you will just have learned a lesson and then read it in a book, however, there are many lessons you don't want to learn five years from now. This book is filled with ideas on how you can immediately transform your relationship from a cold grave to a peaceful island resort. Perhaps you want to change your life into an amazing adventure or you want to calm the storms.

Gary Chapman presents five love languages. One of these languages may be your primary love language, but he takes it further and explores the dialects of love. I think that many of us want all five languages, but there are various ways each can be expressed.

Gary explains the five languages in detail and finally you will understand why some people don't respond to your gifts and others go wild with happy kitten joy. When you meet someone who shares your primary language it can feel like you have entered a magical country where everyone is speaking your language.

For some individuals, "words of encouragement" will be much higher on their list than "the show of love through gifts" or "acts of service."

I had trouble deciding which language was my favorite, but I know I get a bit happy when I receive gifts. However, I noticed that I never complain about not receiving gifts. Gary actually made it easier to figure out when he started to talk about what you complain about most. I normally say: "You are not listening to me."

While I enjoy gifts, I'm never demanding in this area. So then I considered "Quality Time." Bingo, I was very concerned about "Quality Conversation." There is definitely "bliss" in "sympathetic dialogue." This is actually a rare thing indeed. When you talk to people, most of the time they are more worried about what they are going to say next and when you find someone who actually listens to what you are saying and responds in a way that makes you feel understood, that is bliss.

So, I was very happy to have discovered my primary love language and I also figured out why people in my life don't always respond to gifts in the way I think they would. Some do and they will be getting more boxes of homemade cookies, for sure. ;)

Gary does bring out various aspects of love that make you realize that love is not just a happy feeling of infatuation. It was interesting to read about how long the initial bliss stage lasts in most relationships and then to read about the decline and divorce rates for first, second and third marriages.

There are examples in this book that present great hope for marriages that have grown cold or are on the rocks. Even one partner can read this book and change their relationship.

There is a study guide at the end of the book and the questions can be used at home or in a class setting.

"The Five Love Languages" is an essential book for marriage counselors, couples and anyone who wants to figure out how their partner responds to various forms of love.

~The Rebecca Review


Save Your Money For Your GAS Tank!   May 20, 2006
L. Shirley (fountain valley, ca United States)
132 out of 265 found this review helpful

This review refers to "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman...

It seems every time I turn around these days, everyone I know is reading and telling me about the newest and latest self-help book or guru to hit the stands. I surf my TV channels late at night and hear a man giving a seminar telling people how to be kind to others. And people are plunking down the bucks for the books, and paying hundreds, even thousands to attend a "workshop" to learn how to be nice. GIVE ME A BREAK!

So this was the latest a friend told me about. How to find the love language that your partner speaks. Learn that language and save your marriage. Okay I will admit that the idea of taking the time to learn your partner's likes and dislikes and making your best effort, even going out of your way to please them is a good thing, especially if you are trying to rekindle the feeling you had when you first fell in love. But let's not take it to the point of being obsessed with trying to please your partner. You are your own person after all, and to completely change yourself for someone else does not make sense to me.

The five languages Chapman refers to are "Words of Affirmation", "Quality Time", "Receiving Gifts", "Acts of Service", and "Physical Touch". These are the primary languages your spouse speaks. Your mission, is to figure out which of those you need to do more of to make your significant other happy and fall back in love with you. Oh and he also says that these 5 basics have NUMEROUS dialects or variations. Oy Vey. Making lists of your observations is the way to discover them. Once you discover these languages, which may be completely foreign to you, you will be able to fill up your "love tank"( a cutesy term, he admittedly heard from a Dr Ross Campbell, a psychiatrist).

I read the entire book, so I could review it. But I have to say there were times, I was simply bored by the repetitive examples that hardly seemed like real people speaking, sometimes were laughable, and at times, I was outraged: A man feels loved by his wife because "she is an excellent cook, she keeps my clothes washed and ironed. She is wonderful with the children. I know she loves me". This falls under the Acts of Service language. When a man does things around the house, washing dishes, or vacuuming, the point is made that he is doing it for his wife and he is such a great guy. Hellooo..she works too!, Isn't he doing it because it simply needs to be done!

In another story, a woman is being mentally and verbally abused by her husband. But she still "loves" him.All her friends see what is going on and tell her to "get out". It's bad for her. But Chapman tells her to tell her husband that she will try to do better, and she makes lists of ways SHE can improve, so that her husband will like her better. And not only that but he uses Jesus as an example to this religious woman.

There are some valid points to this book. I think we all have a little bit of each of the languages in us. However I think they could have been told in a magazine article. This book must have generated some great income for Gary Chapman. I notice he has other books for sale on the same topic. Love languages for Children, Teenagers, etc. Anything that is in this book can be applied to any group of people. As a matter of fact, there is a chapter in this one that is specifically written for the love languages of children, which I actually thought made more sense then the rest. But why should you have to buy separate books for each person in your life? One chapter on each would have been sufficient! Chapman then goes on to solicit more business, by saying that he wished he could give this book to every married couple, but becuase he can't, that we should give it to everyone we know. Yeah, that'll rake in some more bucks!

At the end of the book there are two profile "tests"(one for men and one for women), kind of like something out of "Cosmo", to see which love language catagory you fall into.

Sorry, I know I have gone on, but I am just appalled at how these "self-help" books are marketed and making anyone who has an opinion, rich. Every once in a while I do come across one that makes absolute sense if you follow the guidelines, but for the most part I'll stick with the Golden Rule, and I'll speak English, thank you......Laurie




BEST GIFT I HAVE EVER RECEIVED, CHANGED MY ENTIRE LIFE   October 4, 1999
74 out of 78 found this review helpful

It is so simple and easy to understand. After I read it, I couldn't understand why I hadn't realized these concepts before. I wish I could give a copy of this book to every man, woman, and child. What a wonderful world we would have if we all understood the "Five Love Languages" and spoke them to all we meet everyday!! The family is a great place to start. My family and I regularly ask eachother "How full is the 'love tank?'". When things are tough at school, work or life in general, we now ask eachother freely "What can I do to make your love tank full?" Sometimes only the passing of time will cure a family problem (example: problems at work), but our family's committment to express to eachother the variety of dialects between quality time, words of affirmation, and physical touch (which seem to be the most needed of the 5 languages in our particular household when outside problems occur) can make the hardest of times go by so much easier and faster. How I wish everyone would read this book!!!


A good theory gone bad   April 15, 2006
cogitation (Minnesota)
65 out of 72 found this review helpful

I was drawn to this book because the foundation of Dr. Chapman's Five Languages is very simple yet profoundly important. But that being said, this foundation is also little more than common sense. It doesn't take a psychology degree to know that we each have our own values and priorities, and different personal triggers for happiness. My hope for this book was that it would build on my and my husband's Average Jane/Joe common sense and help us understand and practice it more deeply after 10 years of marriage. Unfortunately, what starts off as a great vehicle never quite surpasses 20 miles an hour. This book did a good job of reminding me to recognize and honor differences, but it didn't teach me anything new.

The paragraph above would have prompted me to give this book 3 stars ("It was OK"). But the two paragraphs below tempted me to give it 1 star ("Hated it"). In the end I'm compromising at 2 stars. There are two things about this book that really bothered me.

One: Dr. Chapman seems to live in Disneyland. The contrived Hallmark card image on the book's cover is a good indication that its contents are idealistic rather than realistic. He believes that we can get over years of troubles and pain through exercises that include watching ducks on a lake together, or saying, "Thanks in advance for mowing the lawn," instead of "I want you to mow the lawn." Is there wisdom to his suggestions? Most certainly. Do they fall short in the real world? Most certainly. One after another, he introduces us to couples who have come to him after decades of misery and threats of divorce, and within just a few months they're walking off into the sunset (presumably the one on the cover) to live Happily Ever After without cracking a sweat. The more of these couples I read about, the more I felt like I was watching "The Cosby Show" where life's problems are easily solved and everyone plays their part effortlessly because the writer scripted it that way. Dr. Chapman consistently sidesteps the real world where humans are complex and life is inevitably complicated.

Two: At nearly the end of the book I became outright enraged, prompting me to write this, my first ever Amazon review. A woman comes to Dr. Chapman and tells him that her husband dismisses her, belittles and insults her, and tells her outright that he hates her. Dr. Chapman asks what her husband's primary language is, and she says it's Physical Touch. He then advises her to have sex with her husband. She protests, saying that sex makes her feel degraded and used as an object because she knows she isn't respected or cared for as a human being. Dr. Chapman persists, telling her (quotes shortened but not taken out of context), "Your response is normal. That's why loving someone who doesn't love you is unnatural and difficult. You need to rely on your faith in God to do this. Read Jesus' sermon on loving your enemies and then ask God to help you practice the teachings of Jesus." The woman again protests, saying it would be hypocritical of her to sleep with a man who hates her and whom she may well hate in return. Dr. Chapman persists again, saying, "If you claim to have feelings you don't have, that's hypocritical. But if you express an act that is designed for the other person's pleasure, it's simply a choice. Your action isn't born of emotional bonding, it's born of doing something for his benefit. That's what Jesus meant." WHAT?! Jesus wants women to pleasure men for their benefit without regard to emotional bonding?! I'm sorry, I thought that Jesus taught us the opposite. From there, Dr. Chapman tells her that if she gives her husband sex six times in the next month, chances are he'll give her the Thursday evening Scrabble game she wants. I could hardly absorb this justification as I was reading. Dr. Chapman's end conclusion is that his plan is a "miracle" anyone of us can practice in our own marriage.

For many little reasons, and for the one huge reason of the paragraph above, I am dumbfounded that this book has averaged a 5 star rating from more than 300 readers. I find myself deeply dismayed that people are incorporating into their belief systems advice which is so unrealistic, oversimplified, and even outright degrading at times.

Again, the foundation of this book is a good one, and it's good to be reminded that we need to see and care about others instead of only ourselves. If only Dr. Chapman would build on this positive in a realistic and respectful way.