Tessa's Reviews > The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate

Before I start in on the reasons why I didn't like this book, let me mention the good parts of it. As someone who just got married, I value ideas about how to strengthen a lifelong relationship, and the book did have some good ideas. It's always good to be reminded that I should be looking for little things I can do to make my spouse happy, that even if I'm happy with everything in a relationship I should be checking in with my spouse to make sure he's happy too, etc.

I've always thought personality quizzes were fun and this book has a certain appeal because of that. There is something fun about trying to discover your "love language" and your spouse's, and see what that says about you both. Just to establish, the 5 Love Languages in the book are Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, and Receiving Gifts. I can see how in certain instances, thinking about the love languages could strengthen communication in a relationship. For instance, if one spouse really communicates most strongly with physical touch but that doesn't come naturally to the other partner, they might feel unloved until the other partner learns to show love through physical touch.

Finally I appreciated how the book suggested mindful, practical ways to maintain a relationship over time. It talks a lot about the "in love" experience at the start of a relationship and how that's different than developing a lifelong, sustaining love. It reminded me of a quote from an Adrienne Rich poem: "I choose to love this time for once / with all my intelligence." To me, loving with intelligence means that once those crazy feelings of infatuation at the beginning of a relationship subside, and you and that other person start to see each other's flaws, to learn about them as an individual and not an ideal you've built up in your own head, you still choose to love them (or, if you see that they are abusive or mistreating you, etc., you choose to end that relationship and love someone else who respects you).

I think in a lot of our TV shows, books, and movies, there are two kinds of relationships: the young lovers who emerge victorious at the end of a romantic comedy, perfectly in love and just starting out with their lives, or the middle-aged married couple who nag each other and take it for granted that romance and sex are off the table permanently. It's kind of a sad pattern that I definitely don't want to be true in my own marriage. So to circle back to the book, I did appreciate that it was very practical about how to consciously nurture the love in a relationship; it doesn't assume that once the honeymoon is over, things will fall apart.

But I still gave this book a 1-star rating. Even though it brought Adrienne Rich to mind, Gary Chapman is no Adrienne Rich. It's kind of a bumbling mess written by someone with maybe a slight Jesus complex. I noticed that even though platonic love is discussed, every example of a romantic couple in the book is a heterosexual couple and the book presumes, consistently, that the only form of acceptable romantic love is between a man and a woman in a Christian marriage. It was also openly against open or polyamorous relationships. I understand because I am not interested in that for myself--but I wouldn't judge someone who wants a non-monogamous relationship, because it's all a matter of personal choice. I didn't like that the book assumes so much or that Chapman feels he can tell people what's best for them.

I also think too much emphasis is placed on finding your one true love language. Yes, I did just say personality tests are fun, but while reading the book I really connected with several of the love languages described almost equally. It's nice when my spouse compliments me, but it's also nice to hold hands with my spouse, or when he does the dishes for me, or gives me a gift, or when we spend quality time together; I can't really differentiate between the niceness of those different things. Yet the book really insists everyone has one love language and maybe one secondary love language. It smacks of someone trying to sell me something and I don't like that. It's also kind of creepy and weird to read about all these troubled couples who host Chapman in their homes for the night while he's traveling for seminars, just to beg him for marital advice. Reminds me of televangelists who prey on their flock. I'm wary of self-help books to begin with, I only read this one because I've heard good things about it, but it reinforced my view; I don't need to be sold on the idea of love or preached to about it.

My biggest problem, which came close to the end of the book, is one example Chapman gave of how the miraculous love languages work. A woman came to Chapman who was so sick of her marriage, she was on the cusp of leaving, because her husband didn't care about her at all anymore. All her friends were telling her to get out. She said she hated him and asked Chapman, "can you love someone you hate?" Which of course he decided to meditate on by reading the Bible. OK, I can dig it; the Bible has some good quotes and advice even if you're not religious. In fact I have no problem with the words of Jesus Chapman chose to share with this woman--love thy neighbor, treat others as you want to be treated, if you give a measure it will be returned to you until your cup runneth over, etc (I'm paraphrasing because, lazy).

OK so that's all fine. But then Chapman is all, "what's your husband's love language?" and she says "physical touch" and he's like "well you need to touch him and have sex with him more" and she says "but I don't want to" and he says "well yeah that will be hard but just think of Jesus" I AM NOT KIDDING. I laughed as my valuation of the book instantly crumbled before me into sad, atheist dust. It's not directly expressed in the book, but this lady basically hints that her husband is verbally, if not physically, abusive and at the very least totally negligent and uncaring. Well of course the suggestion works and he starts to come around and love her back in her own "love language" but any respect I had for the book disappeared at that point.

Also, even though as I've said I'm all for choosing love and loving with intelligence, some of the suggestions Chapman has are just laughable. For instance, every day you should ask your spouse "how full is your 'love tank' on a scale of 1 to 10?" and then if it's less than 10, you're supposed to do something to "fill their love tank." I'm sorry but I just can't with that childlike, pandering language. You can choose to love mindfully without teetering over into this totally clinical, almost bureaucratic method.

FINALLY, and this review is so long now I know nobody is reading at this point but oh well, all of the advice is totally directed at middle-aged couples who have basically fallen out of love, so a lot of it was not applicable to me. Also, a lot of the advice is the really basic flavor (listen to each other, give your spouse undivided attention, give your spouse little gifts or notes to remind them how much you love them) you could get anywhere, that honestly should just be common sense by the time you're married. And finally finally finally, the "love languages" are nice and all, but I can see so many instances where troubles can arise in a marriage that the love languages couldn't fix. For instance, disagreeing about money/family/politics, if one partner is downright abusive or uncaring or habitually cheating, if a partner withdraws to the point where they won't do anything to help fix the relationship despite how strongly you're speaking their "love language." The end. Phew.