There are five emotional love languages — five ways that people speak and understand emotional love. Therefore, after reading this, discover love language of your partner and begin to explore it.
1. WORDS OF AFFIRMATION
Many couples or partners in a relationship have never learned the tremendous power of verbally affirming each other.
Your partner’s love language could be words of affirmation, which means that they’d love to hear you compliment them regularly, send notes or cards telling them how strong, beautiful, pretty and amazing they are, and generally just gassing them up.
Verbal compliments, or words of appreciation, are powerful communicators of love. They are best expressed in simple, straight forward statements of affirmation, such as:
“That dress looks incredible on you”
“You always make me laugh”
“I love your hair today”
“You look sharp in that suit”
“I really like how you’re always on time to pick me up at work”
“You can always make me laugh”
“I love you”
The deepest human need is the need to feel appreciated. Words of affirmation will meet that need in many individuals. On the other side, negative or insulting comments can hurt this person and take longer to forgive than others. If there is a need to criticize them, it should be done in a gentle manner.
2. QUALITY TIME
For some others, time and attention is all they crave. The need to always be around you at every opportunity they get. They just want to have face-to-face conversations with you, spend time alone with you, go on long walks, trips and vacations and basically just get to do things together with you.
By “quality time,” I mean giving someone your undivided attention. It means taking a walk, just the two of you, or going out to eat and looking at each other and talking.
Time is a precious commodity. We all have multiple demands on our time, yet each of us has the exact same hours in a day. We can make the most of those hours by committing some of them to our spouse. If your mate’s primary love language is quality time, she simply wants you, being with her, spending time.
Every time you cancel a date, postpone time together or aren’t present during your time together, it can be hurtful to your partner. They are not really happy if their partner spends more time with friends than with them.
3. RECEIVING GIFTS
Almost everything ever written on the subject of love indicates that at the heart of love is the spirit of giving. All five love languages challenge us to give to our spouse, but for some, receiving gifts, visible symbols of love, speaks the loudest.
A gift is something you can hold in your hand and say, “Look, he was thinking of me,” or, “She remembered me.” You must be thinking of someone to give him or her a gift. The gift itself is a symbol of that thought. It doesn’t matter whether it costs money. What is important is that you thought of him or her. And it is not the thought implanted only in the mind that counts but the thought expressed in actually securing the gift and giving it as the expression of love.
If your spouse’s primary love language is receiving gifts, you can become a proficient gift giver. In fact, it is one of the easiest love languages to learn.
This love language isn’t necessarily materialistic. It just means that a meaningful or thoughtful gift makes them feel appreciated and loved. Try not to forget special days such as anniversaries and birthdays. They don’t like that.
4. ACTS OF SERVICE
By acts of service, I mean doing things you know your spouse would like you to do. You seek to please her by serving her, to express your love for her by doing things for her.
Consider actions such as cooking a meal, setting a table, emptying the dishwasher — they are all acts of service. They require thought, planning, time, effort and energy. If done with a positive spirit, they are indeed expressions of love.
If your spouse’s love language is acts of service, then “actions speak louder than words.” Selfishness and ignoring their requests no matter how little hurts them.
5. PHYSICAL TOUCH
We have long known that physical touch is a way of communicating emotional love. Partners like this are very hands on. They’re always willing to cuddle, hug, kiss, and generally just continuously be in physical contact with your body
Physical touch is also a powerful vehicle for communicating marital love. For some individuals, physical touch is their primary love language. Without it, they feel unloved. With it, their emotional tank is filled, and they feel secure in the love of their spouse.
Touching each other when you leave the house and again when you return may involve only a brief kiss or hug but will speak volumes to your spouse.
Once you discover that physical touch is the primary love language of your spouse, you are limited only by your imagination on ways to express love.
Physical neglect and abuse should be avoided with this kind of partner. It kills them on the inside. However, on physical touch, if you aren’t married you must be guided otherwise…
Olakunle Isaac 
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