The Case for the Five Love Languages

If you haven’t heard about the hot-off-the-press study by Emily Impett et al. that debunks the basic principles upon which Gary Chapman's wildly popular book The Five Love Languages is based, believe me, you will. After all, challenging long-standing beliefs and conventional wisdom is the stuff sexy, newsworthy media is all about.

In short, the authors found that many of the book's basic tenets are flawed and that applying its principles will not lead to increased relationship satisfaction.

Not so fast

After four decades of specializing in work with couples, however, my clinical experience belies these findings and suggests that many relationships are completely transformed when people grasp and apply the main tenets of Chapman's book. Furthermore, I feel certain that the new study's authors have missed the point, and, hence, the value, of The Five Love Languages.

Impett and her colleagues have many concerns about Chapman’s decades-old concept of love. Here are their top 3 criticisms:

1. There are only five love languages: The researchers believe that there are more than five ways that people feel loved and that the book's claim can limit the way couples conceptualize love.
2. Everyone has only one primary and one secondary love language: The researchers feel that people are forced into choosing one or two love languages when most have highly diverse ways of feeling loved.
3. Speaking each other’s language leads to more relationship satisfaction: The researchers worry that people have a false belief that if they find someone who shares their love language, their relationship will be happier and healthier.

After many years of helping thousands of couples have healthier and happier relationships, I believe that the authors' concerns have been cultivated in ivory-tower Petri dishes rather than in the real world of couples therapy.

Here’s why:

Real-world value

First, the beauty of The Five Love Languages is that it teaches couples that everyone feels loved differently. What touches one person’s heart has no meaning at all to another. And the problem is, people don’t know this. People tend to show love in the way they like to receive it and are then surprised when their efforts aren’t appreciated.

So, understanding that your partner feels connected to you in unique and idiosyncratic ways is a simple but powerful idea. Many people actually think their partners are faking it when they hear their partners’ love languages. It’s hard for them to believe that their spouses are actually oriented differently and that their needs are just as legitimate.

Having a deeper understanding of what makes our partners feel loved—and then doing it—is at the core of magical relationships.

Second, are there more than five ways to feel loved? Of course there are. I talk to couples about this all the time. But offering people simple categories to start thinking about their own and their partner’s love languages is a great start. When seasoned therapists integrate The Five Love Languages into their work with couples, do they “force” them to pick their primary love language and downplay the importance of other ways to feel loved? They do not. That would be absurd.

I have found that while many people enjoy experiencing love via all the love languages, they tend to favor one or two of them and feel short-changed when their partners fail to “speak" those languages. Demonstration of secondary love languages often falls into the take-it-or-leave category: nice, but not absolutely necessary.

The most misunderstood principle

The third criticism is the most misguided, in my opinion. It states that there is no correlation between having similar love languages and relationship satisfaction. This notion is based on a major misunderstanding of Chapman’s work. Unfortunately, Impett and her team are not alone in their misinterpretations; many couples fail to grasp an element that I believe is key to understanding the power of love languages: It goes without saying that people will not be happier if they find a mate who shares their love languages. For example, even if two people share touch as a primary love language, one might yearn for frequent sexual encounters, while the other simply desires affectionate touch—hugs and cuddling. The differences in these needs can easily lead to the same challenges as in couples with different love languages.

Research suggests that people in long-term, happy marriages are no more similar than those who divorce. But the one thing that is different in couples who love each other and stay together is that they learn how to deal with their differences!

And that brings me back full circle to the value of understanding the love languages. I hear countless people talk about how they like to express love to their partners, often in ways that have little to do with their partners’ preferences. A caller to an NPR radio show discussing Impett’s research said, "I like to show love to people by cooking them things, bringing it to them, making special meals…" and so on. But what if the receiver of her acts of service values independence and sees her “gifts” as an intrusion?

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Once people truly understand what makes their partner’s hearts soar and begin taking action—whether they understand, agree with, or like it, or not (that's the important part)—that is when relationships flourish. And they flourish because this sort of intelligent “giving” tends to be reciprocal. One good deed begets another…and another…and another.

When Chapman was contacted for his comments on Impett’s research, he confidently said, “20 million people couldn’t all be wrong.” Twenty million readers, he meant. And from one professional in the trenches with couples, I couldn’t agree more.

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