Discover your partner's Love Language...it will pay dividends in your relationship!

​This is my first blog post, and one that I feel is super important.  It's about something that's easy to discover and will go a LONG way to helping your relationship.  Love Language!  My husband and I were married almost five years before we even heard of the concept of love language...but once we discovered it, we were shocked at the opportunities it provided and the conflicts it avoided.  First let me start off by saying, do NOT guess what your partner's love language is.  If we had done that, we would have BOTH been wrong.  Take the test to find out what yours is...and have your spouse/partner take it and find out what theirs is.  
So, why is this important?  Because, IMO, if you start speaking your partner's love language and "filling their love tank", it will strengthen your relationship, resolve conflicts (and may even prevent them), and both you and your partner will be happier!  Think of a love tank like a gas tank for your car...except this is a gas tank for your relationship.  When your love tank is full, you feel loved, it's easier to overlook differences, you will feel more connected and be happier with one other.  
We all have a need to be loved!  When your love tank is on empty, we aren't feeling that love and it will create problems.  This may not be anyone's fault, you probably don't know what makes your partner feel loved, you may not even realize what makes you feel loved! There are 5 Love Languages and they are: Receiving Gifts, Words of Affirmation, Physical Touch, Acts of Service, and Quality Time.  
Now my husband thought that acts of service was his way of showing me love and he could not understand why, when he did things for me I wasn't gushing all over him.  For me, acts of service are nice...but, the way I feel loved is with words of affirmation and receiving gifts.  Now, I am not materialistic and he would have NEVER in a million years guessed that receiving gifts was my primary love language.  But it is!  Honestly, it surprised me at first too...but once you look at the way to speak that love language it made total sense to me, it's not really about the actual gift, it's about the thought and time and planning and surprise of the gift.  On the other hand, my husband's secondary language is words of affirmation.  For him, not getting praise for doing all those acts of service was killing him, he wanted to be recognized and appreciated.  And even though I appreciated the acts, I wasn't affirming him or giving him what he needed.  We weren't filling each other's love tanks.  So, both our love tanks were feeling empty simply because we were unaware of how the other person received love.  Sounds crazy, right?  But it was a simple class we took that introduced us to this concept and changed the way that we interact...it's seriously life changing!  
The test takes about 10 minutes and is super simple to answer.  If you click on the link above (or here) it will take you to the test.  Take it!  Make your partner take it!  Start to speak each your partner's love language and see what happens.  You'll be happier and have less conflicts when you have a full love tank!  
​Happy Dating!