473 - Love Languages Might Be Bullsh*t
Revisiting the love languages
We’ve already revisited the love languages once back in episode 240, but today we’re taking a critical look at them to discuss whether or not they're actually as important as we make them out to be. We're going to go over some of the key assumptions behind the love languages and of course, look at what the research has to say. And finally, we discuss both the potential benefits and the possible pitfalls of relying too heavily on the love languages as a framework.
In this episode, we’re going over some pros of love languages and research behind them:
They get people to even start thinking about communicating more effectively and realizing they may need to adjust their love language/ask their partner to adjust theirs.
Nichole Egbert & Denise Polk (2006) Speaking the Language of Relational Maintenance: A Validity Test of Chapman's Five Love Languages, Communication Research Reports:
Found that love languages seem to match up with relationship maintenance behaviors that other researchers have identified.
Theorize that they may be the way that people communicate the intentions behind their behavior to a partner.
Mostova O, Stolarski M, Matthews G (2022) I love the way you love me: Responding to partner’s love language preferences boosts satisfaction in romantic heterosexual couples. PLOS Public LIbrary of Science ONE:
Found that matching on love languages is associated with higher relationship and sexual satisfaction.
On the other hand, we should be critical of the love languages and the man who came up with them, Dr. Gary Chapman. The research that supports this theory, while it exists, is still lacking. There are also some assumptions made with the model and they aren’t always right.
These assumptions mainly come from a literature review by Impett, E.A., Park, H.G., & Muise, A. (2024). Popular Psychology Through a Scientific Lens: Evaluating Love Languages From a Relationship Science Perspective. Current Directions in Psychological Science.
Assumption #1: Everyone has one primary love language.
Studies have consistently demonstrated that people tend to endorse all five love languages as meaningful ways of expressing love and feeling loved.
When people take tests in other formats than Chapman’s quiz, the results do not match up.
Assumption #2: There are 5 love languages.
Research on relationship maintenance that has used a similar approach has identified seven distinct relationship maintenance behaviors, some of which overlap with Chapman’s, but others that are not captured in the love languages, such as integrating a partner into one’s broader social network and developing effective strategies to manage conflict. It is plausible that Chapman’s oversight in recognizing these behaviors as meaningful expressions of love may stem from his reliance on a homogenous sample of couples who are all married, religious, and mixed gender and likely share traditional values.
Assumption #3: “Speaking” the same love language leads to greater relationship quality.
These authors argue that studies that have found that people report higher relationship satisfaction when their love languages match have not done enough to distinguish this and highlight it as the primary variable. They suspect that this could be the result of partners who express love regularly in any shape or form.
Recent research reveals that expressions of all love languages were positively associated with relationship satisfaction regardless of a person’s preference, with very little evidence of matching effects.
Dr. Gary Chapman’s evidence for his five love languages is also purely anecdotal and from his experience as a Christian pastor working with clients. His education is also in theology, anthropology, and adult education, and so much of his theory is also based on personal experience.
“[The love language theory] assumes that people don’t have the capacity to learn different ways to express love.”
-Julie Gottman
A few other critiques of the love languages we discuss during this episodes are:
Fluidity of love: we may all want all of the love languages. We may want some languages more than others during different seasons of life. Different relationships and different partners may make us acutely aware of what type of expressions of love we crave in that particular relationship.
They can encourage reductive thinking about what makes or breaks relationships
This framework can promote a kind of rigidity, or cause us to get caught up in labels.
Can be used as a means for making demands.
Regardless of whether or not you’ve had positive experiences with the love languages, it’s worth examining them objectively and critically so we’re not relying on them too heavily.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about love languages, and how they could be bullshit. That's right, folks, you heard us. Today, we're taking a critical look at the widely popular concept of the five love languages. Today, we'll be diving into some of the key assumptions behind the love languages, looking at what the research has to say, and we'll be discussing both the potential benefits and potential pitfalls of relying too heavily on this framework, even though it's one that we reference somewhat often.
If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers some of our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever fine books are sold.
Dedeker: A very brief primer in case you haven't been-
Jase: On the internet.
Emily: On the-
Dedeker: -on the internet-
Emily: -planet Earth.
Dedeker: -in any bookstore, in any relationship advice space ever, ever, ever, ever. Let's talk about what the five love languages are. The Five Love Languages was a book first published in 1992 by God doctor, Gary Chapman. Now, that's not his official title. His official title is Dr. Gary Chapman. We're the ones who attached God to it because he is also a pastor.
Emily: He's a God doctor.
Dedeker: Yes, he's a God doctor. If you want more of our in-depth take on the love languages, you can go listen to Multiamory Episode 240, titled Refreshing our Love Languages. Long story short, super popular book. We're talking 20 million copies sold.
Emily: Whoa, whoa.
Dedeker: 20 million, yes.
Emily: Is this man still alive? He is-
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: -a rich man.
Dedeker: Yes, he's still alive.
Emily: A very rich man, wow. Gracious.
Dedeker: Yes, and has spun off into workshops, and many, many different books, and many reprints of the books. An extremely, extremely popular concept. Basically, the five love languages theory, we'll call it, posits that individuals have distinct ways of expressing and receiving love, which can be categorized into five languages, five primary languages. Those languages are words of affirmation, or saying nice things, giving compliments to a partner, quality time, as in literally time spent together, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Those are the five love languages. I think you can't throw a rock without hitting somebody who knows about the love languages. This has very much permeated our cultural psyche.
Jase: Don't test this, though. Don't go throwing rocks when there are people around. .
Dedeker: No, no, no, no, no.
Emily: No, no. We do not condone the rock throwing.
Dedeker: No. Throw something soft and squishy, like a Koosh ball.
Emily: Oh, lovely.
Dedeker: Do Koosh balls still exist?
Emily: Like a Squishmallow.
Dedeker: Like a Squishmallow, yes. Squishmallows are Gen Z's Koosh balls.
Emily: There you go.
Jase: I was thinking that actually Koosh balls are appropriate since this book came out in 1992.
Dedeker: Oh, you're right. Okay, at the Koosh-height.
Emily: Oh, perfect.
Jase: The height of Kooshiness, yes.
Emily: Amazing.
Jase: Oh my goodness. Love languages, we've talked about them on the show. I feel like we've always approached them with a little bit of skepticism, but today we're going to dive into that a little more. To start out, what if we just shared our own love languages.
Emily: Yes. My love language is definitely acts of service, or gifts. I just want to say, today, I was very busy. My partner, who's fairly new, did an amazing thing for me, which was, I was very hungry, I needed to cook, and he chopped all of the vegetables for my thing. That's a very time-consuming process. All of the garlic, and the veggies, and the onion, and it stung his eyes. It was such an act of service, and I felt very loved in that moment, so that was lovely.
Dedeker: Oh, I love that.
Emily: That's a contrast to my last relationship where acts of service was very much not a thing that I received, and that was definitely challenging because it is that kind of mismatch where they're giving you something that they think that you should want and love, and that will make you feel good. It just doesn't do a lot for you, and that is an interesting mismatch there. How about you two?
Dedeker: Oh, well, mine is often a tie. I think in the number one spot would be acts of service, for sure. An intimate partner, without asking is like, "I'll do the dishes," or, "I'll fold the laundry," or, "Oh, yes, I will go run that errand to the store so that you don't have to," or, "I'll go pick up medicine for you when you're sick." That sort of thing definitely gets me and makes me feel really loved. Probably followed by a close second of words of affirmation. I recently learned what a praise kink was, and it made the entirety of my life history make a lot of sense. That's in there too.
Emily: You like being praised?
Dedeker: I like being praised. Yes, I do.
Emily: Praise you like I should.
Dedeker: Yes, exactly, exactly.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: Yes, Fatboy Slim knew what was up.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Now we just play that Fatboy Slim song on repeat every day.
Emily: Exactly, at Dedeker.
Emily: How about you, Jase?
Jase: Yes, so mine has changed over the years, which maybe will come up as we discuss the love languages more generally. I remember when I very first took a love languages quiz was when I was in high school because my mom had read this book and was talking to me about it. Maybe it was early college, actually. I forget, but sometime around then, quite a while back. My mom had read the book and was thinking about it. When I took the quiz that time, physical touch was my number one.
Emily: Makes sense.
Jase: When I've done it later, it more leaned toward words of affirmation, but I feel like-
Emily: That also makes sense.
Jase: -since being with Dedeker, I found that I focus more on acts of service, both giving and receiving, though. It also being a way that I like to receive love. I think that it's evolved and changed over time, and maybe been influenced by the people in my life.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: Okay, fascinating.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: As a concept, and knowing about the love languages, how has that helped your relationships, or how has it shaped your relationship experiences?
Emily: Like I said, my last relationship, there was a big mismatch, and that was really difficult because I always wanted acts of service to be a thing that was a way of my partner showing me love, yet I felt like if I ever asked him to do anything for me, it was a big to-do. I really didn't want to ever ask for things because I felt like it was going to be met in a way that was like, "Ugh, okay," something along those lines, and that was really difficult. Whereas I think he wanted more words of affirmation and touch, for sure. That's a little bit harder for me. I got a lot of words of affirmation from him, and I was like, "Hah."
Dedeker: Really? Really?
Emily: Yes, it's fine. I appreciate it to a degree, it is nice, but there's a thing about showing love in your actions that matters more to me than your words. If the-
Dedeker: Sure.
Emily: -two don't line up, then to me, I'm like, "What is this? What are you even saying to me right now? It doesn't even matter because I don't feel it."
Dedeker: Yes, that makes sense.
Emily: I don't see it tangibly.
Jase: Yes. I think something about the five love languages that I do think has positively affected my relationships in the way I think about them, is more giving easier ways to think about the different ways of expressing love and to see them for what they are. As an example of that, when I was younger, and physical touch or words of affirmation would have been higher for me, I learned about the love languages and realized that my stepdad was very much big on acts of service, sometimes to the point of doing much more than you actually wanted him to or asked him to. If you wanted help with homework or something, he would end up spending hours coming back with 100 pages printed out about all this information about it, kind of going overboard sometimes with offering these acts of service.
I remember that when I learned about the love languages, it was for me a moment of realizing, "Oh, he's trying to show me that he loves me." That actually was profound. It let me see that as something that I hadn't before, where more often it was like this, "Oh gosh, now I feel bad that he did all this and I didn't mean for him to take all that time to do it," but instead got to appreciate it as, "Oh, that's an act of service. That means he loves me." I do think, just as a way to see that there are different ways of expressing love, it was really helpful for me in that way.
Emily: That's lovely.
Dedeker: That's making me connect the dots with some of your behavior also, in the ways that you do acts of service.
Dedeker: With the three of us, it's really been a helpful concept with our relationship in the ways that we encourage each other. I think, yes, like you're saying Jase, of almost opening your eyes to noticing, "Oh, this is a way that someone is expressing love, and maybe I'm not realizing it." The gifts is a big one for Emily, right?
Emily: I just like giving gifts. I really-
Dedeker: No, no, no, no.
Emily: -love giving gifts.
Dedeker: You're really good at it also.
Emily: Thank you.
Dedeker: It took me a couple years to realize that. I grew up in a family where gift-giving wasn't a big part of the way people showed love. If anything, gift-giving was always very practical. Even to this day, it's straight up like, "What do you want? Just tell me what you want, I'll buy it." Like, "Submit me a list. I will buy it, if it's within this budget." There's no real sense of surprise or things like that, at least very rarely. I think, Emily, you always are really good at picking gifts and presenting them really nicely.
For me, it not only helped me recognize that in you, but I also started to recognize it in other people that were close to me, where I realized, "Oh, this is part of their love language as well." What that means is I need to step up the way that I receive that-
Emily: Oh, lovely.
Dedeker: -really make sure that when they give me a gift, I really appreciate it and express a lot of appreciation for it, and especially notice the little details, like the way that they wrapped it, or ask them about how they chose this gift or things like that. Then for me, also realizing like, "Okay, I need to step up my gift-giving as well," that I can definitely default to the much more pragmatic version of gift-giving.
Knowing that this is even a thing that has impact on people helps. I think it's helped my relationships. We're talking a lot about the love languages. I know we teased that maybe it was bullshit, maybe we're going to be critical, but before we get to that, I want to first lay out what is the evidence that is in favor of the five love languages? What are the reasons why we think this is a legitimate concept that is helpful to people?
The first thing I want to talk about is this concept of face validity. They covered this in a New York Times article somewhat recently that was about the five love languages as well. This concept of face validity refers to basically the degree to which a test appears to measure what it is supposed to measure according to its outward appearance or face. Now, an easy example of this might be that, let's say I want to run a research study where I am testing how well people can pass a multiplication test while they're underwater, let's say. I need to come up with a good test of multiplication.
I present to you a test that has a bunch of what's 8 X 3? What's 9 X 2? What's 1 X 3, or whatever. I can ask you, "Does this look like a good multiplication test?" You can say, "Yes, that looks like it's a good--"
Jase: "There was multiplying on it. Yes."
Dedeker: "Yes, that looks like a good multiplication test." I didn't have to go get that empirically proven that this is what a good multiplication test is, it's just from its face, "Yes, that seems like that would probably test how well someone could multiply while they're underwater." You've got to add the water, right?
Jase: Sure.
Dedeker: What about multiamory tools, things like RADAR or Triforce, there are pieces of them that are based in research, but we haven't gone to get them peer-reviewed yet. Maybe someday. I think the reason why RADAR has been so popular is people can look at it on the surface and say, "Yes, from its outward appearance, this is probably a good way to run a check-in with a partner where you're covering a number of topics." Basically, what it looks like and says on the tin, that's probably what it is under the tin.
This is one of the reasons why this can be so popular, is that it just makes sense based on our human experience, of knowing that certain actions land on us in a more significant way than others from a partner, or maybe having the human experience of, "I said this thing that I thought was really loving to my partner, and that's totally not how it landed on them." Or, "I tried to make it up to my partner after we fought by giving them gifts, and that wasn't the thing that they wanted." There's something about this concept of there being different love languages that matches just with general human experience, it seems.
Jase: I think related to that, and this applies also to the multiamory tools as well, is not just does it look like it's going to do what it does, but when you try it out, does it seem like it works? It's that sense of like, "Yes, okay. I learned about the love languages. I said this different thing, my partner received it well. Cool. Yes, okay, that seemed to work." Or, "I did a RADAR, and we did get to talk about some stuff." I think there's also a little bit of not just that it seems like it makes sense, but then when it's applied, it's like, "Okay, yes, there's something here."
Again, not being empirically studied and challenged in the same way that a well-done scientific study would do, but it's like, "Yes, there's something here." Which is why we're here talking about the five love languages at all, because there's something enough here that we all know about it, and talk about it, and think about it.
Dedeker: Like I was saying earlier, clearly there's something here about even just putting this lens on relationship that inspired me to think a little bit harder about the ways that I connect with people, and thinking a little bit harder about, "Am I connecting with this person in the way that actually makes them feel loved as opposed to what I think is going to make them feel loved?"
Putting this lens on has gotten me to think about, "Do I need to ask my partner for something? Do I need to step up and be asking for a particular act of service in order to feel loved, or to ask for some particular verbal validation in order to feel loved?" This concept lets you drop in this particular lens that does seem to spur people into some kind of action to help shift their relationship in a more positive direction.
Emily: Now, there have been people out there who actually did do some studying of the love languages and try to validate them in some way. Nichole Egbert and Denise Polk did a study called Speaking the Language of Relational Maintenance: A Validity Test of Chapman's Five Love Languages, in Communication Research Reports in 2006. They found that the love languages seem to match up with relationship maintenance behaviors that other researchers have identified. They theorized that the love languages may be the way that people communicate the intentions behind their behavior to a partner.
Jase: Another study from Mostova, Stolarski, and Matthews in 2022 called I Love the Way You Love Me: Responding to Partner's Love Language Preferences Boosts Satisfaction in Romantic Heterosexual Couples. Boy, they said their whole abstract in the title right there.
Emily: There you go.
Jase: That was from the Public Library of Science. They found that matching on love languages is associated with higher relationship and sexual satisfaction from the studies that they did.
Emily: Okay, matching them
Jase: Yes, if you match, if you line up.
Emily: Exactly. Which makes sense.
Jase: Right. Which makes sense. It is interesting that there have been a couple studies that have supported it to a certain extent that there's some validity to this. That it's not like it's the opposite of true, which I think matches up with that face validity that Dedeker was talking about before of like, "Yes, there's something here. Something about this makes sense enough that it holds up when you look at it." Now we're going to get into the other side. We're going to take off our friendly hats and we're going to put on our bullshit detector hats.
Dedeker: Okay, we're going to take off our friendly Mario and Luigi hats and we're going to put on our Waluigi hats.
Jase: Oh, and Wario hats.
Emily: There you go. Yes.
Jase: All right. I love that. We're also going to take a quick break to say that if you enjoy this content and you appreciate it, then please help us keep this going and these episodes coming out for everyone in the world to listen to for free every week. The best way to do that is to become one of our patrons at patreon.com/multiamory. There, for example, in the private community tier, you get access to all the private channels in our Discord server and our exclusive Facebook group so that you can connect with other people who listen to this show and be part of an amazing support network there. Also, take a moment to check out our sponsors. If any seem interesting to you, use our promo codes or our links. They're in our episode description. Using those does directly help support this show.
Dedeker: All right. It is Waluigi time. We're going to go Waluigi on these five love languages.
Jase: Okay. All right. What do we got?
Dedeker: Maybe this is all BS.
Emily: Maybe. Yes.
Dedeker: Maybe 20 million copies sold, everyone in their dating profile listing their love languages, everyone you've ever met, including your mom, knowing what their love language is, maybe we've all been hoodwinked. Maybe there's nothing to this.
Emily: Okay. Dang.
Dedeker: Okay? There's a lot of reasons that suggest that this concept may not have any legs to stand on as it were. First, we're going to go to the research. In particular, I found this literature review by Impett, Park, and Muise, this is from 2024, quite recent, titled Popular Psychology Through a Scientific Lens: Evaluating Love Languages From a Relationship Science Perspective. This was published in Current Directions in Psychological Science.
In this literature review, they were looking at the three main assumptions of the love language model. Assumption number one is that everyone has one primary love language. Assumption number two is that there are five love languages. Assumption number three is that speaking the same love language leads to greater relationship quality. We're going to take those in turn.
Looking at assumption number one, that everybody has one primary love language. Many, many studies have consistently demonstrated that people tend to endorse all five love languages as meaningful ways of expressing love and feeling loved, and not only that, they found that when people take tests about what their love language is, in a format other than Gary Chapman's quiz--
As it is right now, you can go to 5lovelanguages.com, you can take the quiz, it's very fun. It'll help you determine what your primary love language is, but they found that when they would create a similar test but it was in a different format, like it was on a Likert scale, for instance, people's results would not match up. For example, comparisons across studies show that the number of people categorized as having gifts as their primary love language was pretty low, as low as 0% to 4% of the sample when they were using the forced choice measure, which is the measure that the original Chapman quiz uses. When they tested people on more of a continuous scale, as high as over 50% of the sample tested as gifts being their primary love language.
Jase: Woah.
Dedeker: Basically, when you're not presenting black and white situations, which is the way that the original quiz does, when there's more breathing room, and people are able to give their answers on more of a scale, then the results come out differently, which makes us suggest that there's something going on here, where if we're giving two tests that allegedly measure the same thing but we're getting different results.
This suggests that people may not have just one language, and the one they think that is theirs, especially if they did it based on the Chapman quiz, may not actually be accurate.
Jase: This is something we'll probably get into a little bit more later when we talk about some commentaries on in, but the way that the quiz is set up is it's almost like it's asking the question, which of these would you be more okay with not having?
Dedeker: Interesting.
Jase: Rather than which one actually is the most meaningful to you.
Emily: Taking something away.
Jase: Right, that's the whole forced choice thing, where it's-- They're often presented as, would you like this or this, and you could never have the other kind of scenarios like that. Maybe not quite that extreme. I could see why people might put gifts lower where they're like, "Well, I guess if I had to choose, I'd rather have a partner who's nice to me than one who gives me gifts."
Dedeker: Sure, yes.
Jase: That's a very different response than, "Would I feel loved if I received a surprise gift?"
Dedeker: Right.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: If it didn't come with the caveat of, "Oh, and your partner is going to call you names," or, "They're never going to touch you."
Dedeker: Sure.
Jase: Right? Or, "They're never going to do the dishes," or something like that. They're like, "I wouldn't trade that for gifts." I guess.
Emily: Do the two of you think that you have ones that are lower on the scale, and do you have any that you think, "Okay, if I never receive this again, I'd be okay"?
Dedeker: It's a real mind fuck, honestly, when I start to think about it in that way.
Emily: Oh, yes?
Dedeker: Because, for instance, I don't think that I would rate very high with physical touch as a love language, and yet, there's a couple things at play. One of them being that Jase all the time is like, "You're super touchy. What are you talking about?"
Emily: I know you said that in previous relationships and that it's kind of shifted over time that you've been more touchy-feely.
Dedeker: Yes. The second piece being that I get a lot of touch, I get a lot of access to touch right now. Maybe enough access to touch that I don't notice it as a specific standout thing. If I didn't have that, would I want it more? Would I be really aware of the fact that I'm not getting enough and therefore it would rise higher through the ranks as something that would really land on me with a lot of impact?
Emily: I will say, yes, when I was in Hong Kong and didn't have a lot of physical touch for a while or when I'm on contracts away from a significant other, that when the wig people would put a wig on me, just that little tiny bit of touch was so profound just because they've been away from me for so long. I do think that, yes, the absence of any of these would potentially probably not be great for a relationship, unless maybe you're a couple that just does never give gifts, for instance, but that is interesting. I'm shocked at this 50% of the sample puts gifts number one.
Dedeker: In this particular-
Emily: In this particular one. Yes.
Dedeker: -study that they were referencing. Yes.
Emily: That's fascinating.
Dedeker: Let's look at assumption number two, which is that there are five love languages. It's funny because The New York Times coverage of this, the headline of that article was The Sixth Love Language Doesn't Exist and it was a little bit lambasting. I suppose the meme of like, "Oh, my love language is tacos." "My love language is head massages."
Jase: Sure.
Dedeker: All that stuff. Of course, there's a lot of different research about relationship maintenance strategies that identifies a lot of different behaviors that people engage in outside of just these love languages. The research shows that of the relationship maintenance behaviors that are identified, there's some overlap with the love languages theory, but there's a lot that aren't included in the love languages model. An example here is integrating a partner into one's broader social network. That could be a means of the way you show love to somebody, or show a certain level of commitment to somebody.
Jase: That's certainly one that a lot of people express not feeling loved because their partner won't incorporate them into their social network, or be seen with them or things like that, especially in non-monogamy or queer relationships where maybe someone feels like they need to hide that. A lot of people feel very not loved by it. It makes sense that that would also be a way to show love.
Emily: That's right.
Dedeker: Yes, that's true. Your partner could be giving you every single of these five love languages, but you're still like, "Dude, I don't want to be hidden anymore."
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Right. Yes.
Dedeker: That's painful. Some researchers have pointed out that the fact that some of these behaviors aren't included could be because of the fact that God Dr. Gary Chapman was mostly working with married couples who are religious, who were heterosexual, who maybe shared traditional values, and so you have a very homogenous sample. You're going to get a particular set of results that might leave out other strategies that other people engage in.
Jase: Because the study were, again people who were heterosexual, married, and religious, it also means that certain values like supporting a partner's autonomy or their own separate personal goals outside of the relationship, things that have been associated with relationship satisfaction in other studies, were not even considered or not even brought up at all, because that tends to not be as much of a value or at least not something talked about within that population, within that group, versus other couples who might have different values, maybe same-sex couple or non-monogamous people, or even just people who are less bought into this one story of how marriage should work.
Dedeker: This last assumption, that speaking the same love language leads to greater relationship quality. That was the findings of the study that we talked about earlier, the 2022 study, that people who match on their love languages, that's associated with higher relationship satisfaction and higher sexual satisfaction. Now, the authors who wrote this literature review, they argued that the studies that find this, they are not doing enough to distinguish, is it about the matching love language or is about people being in a relationship where love is being expressed regularly in any shape or form.
Emily: Woah.
Dedeker: It's less about the fact that they're matched and more the fact that they're connecting and loving each other proactively at all.
Emily: That's really interesting.
Dedeker: Yes.
Jase: Yes.
Emily: I do think there is something to be said for the mismatch versus the match. That makes sense that perhaps there's something to be said for a partner who has no interest in moving towards you in that way of love language, whatever it may be. If you've expressed to them, "Hey, I would really like it if you helped around the house more because that shows me that you care about me and that you care about my well-being," or, "I would really appreciate it if once in a while you told me what you liked about me in this particular way and give me some affirmation there." If they're not willing to move towards you and take your bid, then yes, there's probably a larger issue at play there.
Jase: Yes. I think this is something worth getting into a little deeper here. A lot of this is related to the fact that the whole theory came about just based on this one Christian pastor who is not a psychologist, even though he has doctor in front of his name, his experience working with clients, which in this case clients means your parishioners in your church where you work as a pastor. I really want to clarify this and that's part of why we call him God Dr. Gary Chapman, is to emphasize that he's not a doctor in anything that would study this.
Emily: He's God's doctor, Jase.
Jase: He's a doctor of theology. He's qualified to prescribe God medicines and love languages. No, I mean, it is worth mentioning because when you put doctor in front of someone's name, we tend to take that person more seriously. For example, my dad and my stepmom are both doctors. They are in very different fields. I might trust one--
Dedeker: Yes, I know which one I'm going to call for a prescription for sure. It's one and not the other.
Emily: It's not your dad.
Jase: Right. Exactly. Those are not equivalent things. Just being a doctor. Doctor of theology, in this case, I personally think it is a little bit unethical and misleading for him to put the word doctor on his authorship of this book in particular.
Dedeker: Okay, but Jase, if you had your doctorate--
Jase: It'd be on everything.
Dedeker: Exactly. Exactly.
Jase: It's fine. It's fine.
Emily: I get the misleading part because his education is in anthropology and adult education and God.
Jase: His actual doctorate is in theology.
Dedeker: Okay. Of course, we have to advocate for ourselves because we're just three chuckleheads who did go to college-
Jase: For sure. For sure.
Emily: Oh, 100%.
Dedeker: -but in very different fields, right?
Jase: Right.
Dedeker: Maybe everything we say is BS. Maybe you should stop listening to the podcast. Just switch it off right now.
Jase: I'm just saying, if we get our honorary doctorates in theology and then we start putting doctor in front of all our Multiamory tools we make-
Dedeker: Sure.
Emily: That is misleading.
Jase: -you should call us out on misleading and misrepresenting ourselves in our qualifications there.
Emily: Oh, that's a good point, yes.
Dedeker: Okay.
Emily: We're not fooling anyone that we're doctors of relationships. We're just people.
Dedeker: Does it apply to all doctorates, if I got my doctorate in duck farming-
Emily: Duck farming?
Dedeker: -would you still be mad at me if I put the word doctor on the cover of any future book?
Emily: A little.
Jase: Unless it were about ducks, yes.
Dedeker: Okay. Dr. Duck Farmer DD, that's me.
Jase: Yes, Dedeker Winston DDF. I assume doctor of duck farmer is DDF, is the abbreviation for that.
Dedeker: Yes, DDF. You got it. Yes. I am down to duck. I mean-
Jase: Boy, oh, boy.
Emily: Do do does duck duck.
Dedeker: Do do does--
Dedeker: All right, I'm going to bring us back.
Jase: Oh, yes.
Dedeker: I'm going to bring us back in. The actual love languages book itself, when you read between the lines, I do think some of the ways in which Chapman helps people identify their primary love language has been a little questionable.
Jase: Right. To go back to the forced choice thing that we talked about before, in the quiz, it's not like you could never get this or never get this, which is it? They're all phrased in the sense of, it's more meaningful to me when-- and then two options. You have to pick one of the two. It's like, it's more meaningful to me when I receive a gift or my partner holds me or hugs me or something. I can see people going, "Well, gifts are cool, but that seems selfish. Meaningful would be being held."
It sets you up in this weird comparing them, having to choose them, but then in his stories from the book, he does go much more extreme in terms of, they're a total jerk to you in one way and they're good to you in this other way. Which do you prefer? Before we continue, we're going to take a moment to tell you about some sponsors of this show who help support us in producing this show every week and putting it out there into the world. If you'd rather not hear ads, you can also become one of our patrons at the ad-free episode tier at multiamory.com/join. You can also be part of our amazing communities.
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Dedeker: Yes, I want to share just a couple stories of examples from the book. One of them was highlighted by one of my favorite YouTubers, Big Joel, who did a whole video about-- The video is titled Love Languages: A Philosophical Horror. Go check that out if you're interested. He shares this story from the book about this client named Bob where Chapman asks him, "Okay, Bob. If your wife was giving you as much sex as you wanted and quality sex also, but she would criticize you and demean you in front of other people, how would you feel? Would you still feel loved?" Bob says, "No, I wouldn't feel loved. I think I'd feel really bad." Chapman's like, "Wow. I think we unlocked that your love language is words of affirmation."
Big Joel makes the point of, "This is untenable. This is absurd. This is bizarre." He's just being a normal human being where it doesn't matter how good the sex is, they don't want to be demeaned in front of other people in a non-kinky way, right?
Jase: Sure.
Dedeker: They don't want someone who's mean to them. This is hard to not do to bring in your own personal experience and extrapolate that as a generalization. It's hard when you're in this field because, of course, we share our personal experiences on the show all the time and the connecting the dots moments that we've made with past relationships and stuff like that. I don't think it's a bad thing, but there's one particular story that he shares that I did raise my eyebrow at. I'm going to read just this little excerpt. This is an excerpt actually from The New York Times article where Gary Chapman is sharing, I guess, his lightbulb moment that happened in his own relationship.
It says, He and Ms. Chapman would get into heated arguments over small things. Ms. Chapman, for example, never closed drawers and cabinet doors which bugged him. Ms. Chapman expected him to do his fair share of chores around the house, which Dr. Chapman did not do. "We knew nothing about resolving conflict," he added, "I would tell her how nice she looked, how much I appreciated everything she did, and I would tell her over and over, "I love you, I love you, I love you,"" He said. "But one night she said to me, "You keep saying I love you, but if you love me, why don't you help me?""
Now, Chapman took that as, "Oh, we speak different love languages. My love language is words and hers is acts of service." I read that story and I said, "You were a dude in the '60s not pulling your fucking weight around the house."
Emily: True. True.
Dedeker: Of course, that's what she wanted. Of course, she was tearing her hair out because you weren't picking up your fair share. I don't think that's a love languages issue.
Jase: Right. I don't think not helping around the house is equivalent to leaving closet doors and cabinet doors open sometimes.
Dedeker: That's funny. He doesn't extrapolate that to a love language, that his love language is having drawers closed, which might be one of mine, now that I think about it.
Emily: Why did he even add that in there honestly?
Dedeker: Maybe to make him look less bad.
Jase: Yes, it is a weird detail. Yes, maybe that's it. I had a complaint too. I had a complaint too. Don't worry.
Emily: Also, I didn't like this thing about her, but, "She said that I didn't help around the house."
Dedeker: Right. I'm glad that he made that connection.
Emily: Sure.
Dedeker: It seems like him having this insight helped their relationship and has helped a lot of people in their relationship. It is these examples where I'm like, "The basis that you're using to extrapolate is, I don't know, maybe you need to check your work one more time."
Jase: I think where I get concerned about it, this is again where it's like I think there's some useful stuff with the love languages if they help open up, "Oh, yes. Wow. That is a different way of understanding love and that this gesture I maybe didn't appreciate is loving." This story makes me worry because I want to know what happened next. Is it, "I realize we're speaking different love languages and I need to pull my weight around the house and do more chores," or was it, "I realize we speak different love languages. Honey, you should just know when I say I love you, that's me telling you I love you in my way. When you do all the work around the house, that's you telling me you love me in your way. See?"
Dedeker: Was it, "Oh, we speak different love languages. You know what, honey? I think I need to go lock myself in my office and write a best-selling book."
Emily: Write a book. That's what I thought.
Dedeker: "You keep running the house and taking care of the children and doing everything."
Emily: 100%. "Lightbulb moment. Look at how freaking smart I am. Oh my goodness."
Jase: Yes, I could see some situations where, yes, depending then what you do with that information might not be the best and it might not be the healthiest and most helpful for that relationship. That could even be something you do to yourself. It could be that, "Oh, I read this book and now I understand I just need to appreciate my partner for the physical touch that she gives me because that's her love language and not worry so much that she never says anything nice to me or about me."
Dedeker: Right.
Emily: Yes, for sure. Also, one of our favorites, Dr. Julie Gottman, said that this theory of love languages assumes that people don't have the capacity to learn different ways to express love. That's interesting. I think what she's saying essentially is that there is maybe a rigidity in the idea of the love language that you have one, this person has another, and neither of the two shall meet, or you're probably still going to just exist within those spheres, and you have to learn how to deal with those differences and maybe learn how to move in one direction for your partner or the other, but that maybe you're never going to fully get there, that you're just learning how to deal with the difference.
Dedeker: Yes, that makes sense. Although watch out, Julie Gottman, maybe we're coming for you next. Who knows?
Emily: Oh, geez.
Dedeker: I think the Gottmans would be harder to tear down because they do actual research.
Jase: They actually do research, yes.
Emily: Yes, that's true.
Dedeker: Not that you're perfect. There's plenty I could criticize.
Emily: They're actual doctors, but yes, in this field.
Jase: They're actual doctors in the field that they're publishing books about.
Emily: Exactly, yes.
Dedeker: Although, I don't know, listeners, if you want us to do a takedown of the Gottmans, let us know. I guess the irony is that we talk about the Gottmans in a positive light so often-
Emily: Generally, yes.
Dedeker: -in the book also. The one time they would actually pay attention to us is when we would do the takedown episode and then-
Emily: That's true.
Dedeker: -we'll be enemies forever. Maybe that's not a good idea.
Jase: Yes. We are occasionally critical of them on our episodes, and when we talk about them, we're a little critical, but I think for the most part, they're sound enough and offer so much useful stuff and helpful stuff. I wouldn't feel comfortable doing a full-on takedown.
Emily: No.
Jase: Honestly, I don't even think we're doing a takedown of God Dr. Gary Chapman right now.
Emily: There's some useful information here, absolutely.
Jase: Right. It's helped us in our lives. I'm not saying this is a horrible thing that's ruining people's lives or anything like that, or it's totally false and there's nothing here, but let's be a little critical.
Emily: Yes. Let's be critical of everything that they have to say in addition to realizing that as we grow and as we age, just like Jase said, you may have different love languages in different times of your life. I think that gifts was really important when I was younger and it's still important to me. It's still something that I really enjoy giving for other people, but I've got to say, the older I get and the more shit I have, the less I'm like, "I want more shit." You know what I mean?
Dedeker: Wait, hold on. By shit, you mean stuff, material possessions?
Emily: Yes, stuff.
Jase: Yes, stuff.
Dedeker: Oh, wow.
Emily: Yes, Dedeker. I just moved too, and so I think when you move--
Jase: You're very aware of your amount of shit, yes.
Dedeker: You're aware of the amount of shit--
Emily: Oh my God. Yes. You are aware of things at different points in your life. I have so many clothes, I have so much stuff, and I know moving into a studio apartment is going to be probably a little bit difficult just because of all that shit that I have. While gifts are lovely, maybe I don't need them as much as I felt like I once did. Do they bring me as much joy as they once did? Whereas acts of service, holy shit. Also, my plate is full constantly, and if somebody helps me with that, now, that is a fucking act of love.
Dedeker: Okay. This is really good information for future, how to love Emily right now.
Emily: Listen, you have given me great gifts, both of you. I really appreciate it and I love giving you all things too, but something that I think that I've learned from the two of you is that you are able to let things go really well without a lot of emotion. I think that that is extremely beneficial and a good thing to do. Not with a lot of sentimentality, and that's--
Dedeker: Interesting.
Emily: Yes, that's sexy.
Jase: You mean things like stuff, items-
Emily: Yes, stuff.
Jase: -not things like emotional things.
Emily: No, no, no.
Dedeker: No, we hang on to emotional shit.
Jase: For sure.
Emily: Trust me, all of us do.
Dedeker: Fists clenched.
Emily: Physical, material possessions, I feel like you can let go of things. I've heard Dedeker be like, "No, it doesn't bring me joy. Bye." Just let it go. Even things that I've gotten her or that I'm like, "Do you want this?" She's like, "No." It's impressive.
Dedeker: I hope that's never hurt your feelings.
Emily: No, I think it's impressive. I think it's cool.
Jase: I think the key thing when it comes to letting go of gifts or things like that, and I don't know if it was gifts that she got rid of or what, is that eventually getting rid of something isn't the same as going, "Oh, cool, thanks. Oh, let me put it in my round file here in the garbage can."
Emily: Oh, for sure.
Jase: It's not being unappreciative of a gift, but it's like, "No, I loved this gift and it was great for a couple of years and now for whatever reason, it doesn't spark joy because maybe it doesn't fit me as well or I just don't need this thing anymore in my life." They're like, "Wow, this thing was great. I appreciate it and can let it go."
Emily: Yes, totally. I gave an expensive Apple watch to a partner. He never wore it. He ended up giving it to his little sister. Fine. That's fine. Part of me was like, "Well, I wish I could have taken it back and gotten you something else instead of just it ended up in a drawer for like a year and you wore it a couple of times and then didn't really give a shit about it even though I had hoped that it was something that you would really like and that could help you in some way."
Dedeker: You know what? I appreciate you pointing that out because that's true that I've never identified as being a gifts person, but if I've given somebody something and I see that they're not using it or it's just sitting in a drawer, yes, I feel that, right?
Emily: Totally.
Dedeker: Yes, it feels hurtful.
Emily: Yes, it was hurtful, especially that being a thing for me. I don't know. More of the story is maybe experiences are better gifts sometimes.
Dedeker: Depends on the person.
Jase: Now we're getting off track into the gifts-giving advice.
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: One of the ways that I see this whole model sometimes having some built-in drawbacks is that it can encourage some reductive thinking about what actually makes or breaks a relationship. This is actually relevant in my most recent breakup just a few months ago, that as things are spiraling towards the end, my ex's take on what the main issues were in our relationship, he reduced it to a love languages issue. I was like-
Emily: Oh, really?
Dedeker: -"No, no. I think there's a lot more than just that." If anything, I actually felt like we were both pretty good at hitting all five love languages. I think that like so many other relationship concepts, whether this is attachment theory or things like that, that there can be a rigidity to it, people can get over-attached to a label, it can be a means for making demands. It can be something that you can weaponize and you know we're always telling y'all don't weaponize this shit. My takeaway here was honestly, I'll probably still keep using the love language as a concept. I'm probably never-- I mean I don't do this already. I very rarely turn to it as, "Ooh, this is the key that's going to unlock-
Jase: The answer, yes.
Dedeker: -all your relationship conflict." It's like, if you can use this for good and it helps you show up better for your partners and helps you better be able to ask for what it is that makes you feel loved, then it's great. If it's something that you're weaponizing against somebody, maybe not so great.
Jase: Maybe not so great. Interesting.
Emily: Maybe don't do that.
Jase: This actually reminds me of an episode we did where we talked a little bit about one of God Dr. Gary Chapman's other books, which was The Five Apology Languages.
Emily: The apology.
Dedeker: Oh, that was a long time ago.
Emily: Yes. We did one a long, long time ago about that, like seven years ago or something like that, but in Episode 280, which was still four years ago or something like that, we did an episode about apologizing just in general, about giving and receiving apologies. We talked a little bit about The Five Apology Languages, but basically what all the research was showing and the guest that we had on to talk about that, Dr. Schumann, was all basically saying a good apology has all the pieces, whether you identify those as five pieces, or I think her system it was more like three.
However you describe it, it's like a good apology should have all of these pieces, and if one is lacking, a person might notice that. I get some of those vibes from the five love languages too, where I think sometimes people can identify, "Well, my love language is this thing I'm longing for," when maybe what's really happening is that's the one they're not getting.
Again, it all depends on the situation and depends on what you're working with, but I'm just thinking again about my mom first reading that and her talking to me about the five love languages, and looking back, I'm like, "Yes, there were a couple of those that you were really not getting, where you're probably getting some others," and those are the ones, of course, she identified as like, "Oh, these ones seem to be my love languages when I take the quiz." Also, maybe for myself, where that first time I did it was physical touch and I'm like, "Yes, I'm also a high school or a college student-
Emily: Totally.
Jase: -who's really horny all the time probably."
Emily: A pubescent boy.
Dedeker: Also, and a boy.
Jase: A boy, right, sure.
Dedeker: A high school boy who's probably not getting a lot of opportunities for touch.
Emily: Even if you are, you just want more all the time.
Jase: Sure. My point being that I could see there being an aspect like the apology languages where really what this book should be saying is, these are the five love languages. Try to learn how to do all of them instead of focusing on find your one and your partner's one and just accept that that's an indelible personality trait of you.
Emily: Well, all of us out there should strive to give every love language to our partner at some point or another. Try to make it all-encompassing because relationships need a lot of different facets, not just one thing. They are complex as you and me and all of us are. Now, our question of the week, which will be on our Instagram stories is, do you think love languages are an important tool or just bullshit? I'm really interested to hear what all of you out there think because I'm sure some people really cling to the love languages and they're very adamant that, "Yes, they matter so much and they've taught me a lot." I think that's great and it's wonderful if they do teach you things.
Jase: I just want to say, my story at the beginning, they were very profound for me in improving my relationship with my stepdad when I was younger. I don't want anyone to come away thinking that we're just completely shitting on the love languages. It's like, yes, they may have brought you a lot of help as well.