The Date with Confidence Podcast - An Alternative Perspective On The 5 Love Languages

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Date With Confidence podcast, a place to come for dating advice, support and stories that will either fill you with hope or relief that your dating experience wasn't as bad as it could have been. With practical episodes that will provide you with easy to implement tips to help you feel confident AF on your next date, alongside lighthearted catch ups where your host Rebecca, that's me by the way, shares her own experience dating after four years of the single life. You are guaranteed to end each episode feeling less alone in your dating struggles, empowered to never settle again and confident that the best is yet to come. And if it all falls to shit there's a special first season dedicated to breakups. You are welcome my

Starting point is 00:00:40 friend. Subscribe, review and share with your single friends. I am a big fan and have been a big fan of the love languages for quite some time now and if you are a student of the confidence course you'll know that it's something that I talk about a lot in module four I think it is when it comes to like self-care and improving yourself love and stuff I am a fan of the love languages. I think they're a great tool to help you improve your relationship. I think they're a great tool to help you improve your relationship with yourself. And when I first learned about the love languages, parts of my life started to make sense. So the whole premise is this idea that we give and receive love in five types of way. So physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service and gifts. and my like childhood and understand why there were times where I didn't necessarily feel loved I could see that the people who loved me like family members were showing me their love in the

Starting point is 00:01:53 way that felt good to them but that wasn't necessarily my top love languages so I didn't always receive love from them in the way that it was intended. For example, I was quite often bought gifts or given money. And I know that that was certain family members ways of showing me their love, supporting me, caring for me. But my top two love languages are physical touch and quality time. So if I wasn't getting a lot of time with people, the people that I love, then I wouldn't necessarily feel loved. So this is something that I like to have conversations with people about. This is something that I, when entering into a relationship or when I'm dating someone, when I'm getting to know them, I am interested in knowing what their love languages

Starting point is 00:02:46 are to ensure that I am showing up for them in the way that they need to feel loved or cared for. Likewise, I like to share my love languages with the person that I'm seeing, which FYI are quality time and physical touch, which I think I might have actually said a second ago, so that they understand how to show me that they care about me. Because it's all very well dating someone who just buys you loads of presents all the time, but if I'm not getting the cuddles or the hand holding or the leg stroking or the kisses on the forehead, if I'm not getting those physical touches or the quality time where it's just the two of us and the focus is on us and spending time together, then you could buy me all the presents in the world. I'm not going to feel like you actually love me or you actually care for me. So I had

Starting point is 00:03:43 this conversation with the guy that I'm seeing at the moment I was talking to him about this the other week when I went to stay and I'd asked him about it before I was like I really want to know what your love languages are and he was like no it's bullshit and I was like but I really want to know because I'm curious like I don't know how to how to best show my affection towards you obviously I can behave in the way that I like to receive affection but I want to make sure that I'm also hitting your love language as well because I personally feel like that creates a deeper connection and it shows that like thoughtfulness around like okay I'm actually taking into consideration what is going to work for you. So I asked him again, like, I just want to know what your love

Starting point is 00:04:30 languages are. And he was just like, I actually think this is bullshit. Like, how can you decide that there are just five ways to show affection? He was like, I found an article where it says there's actually seven types of love language. And I was like, yeah, but for the purpose of this conversation, I don't care about the seven. I want to know what these five are um but it led to as I said quite an interesting debate and I'm very much a big picture bird's eye view grey thinker I don't see things as black or white for the majority of the time. There are certain things that are very much black or white, right or wrong to me, obviously. But I'm also very open to other people's perspectives, other people's opinions,

Starting point is 00:05:18 and alternative perspectives. Like I'm open to hearing other people's points of view and I believe that there are grey areas sometimes so I was interested to hear his perspective and what his thoughts were were that relying on these five love languages can actually be more damaging to a relationship because if you focus too much on the top two and neglect the other important areas then whilst you might be showing your love in certain ways like we all require a combination of the love languages at some point so if all you ever do for example if all he ever did was hug me and spend quality time with me but then if I needed a drink he didn't make it for me or if he was cooking dinner he wouldn't make it for me or he never told me I look good or he never complimented my outfit or never told me that I felt attractive then that would cause an issue

Starting point is 00:06:26 but then I couldn't really blame him for that because I would have told him these are the two things that are most important for me so it's almost like you neglect the other three if that makes sense and I to a certain extent agree with him what his argument was is that we should be putting 20% effort into all five of the love languages so we should be complimenting our partners on a daily basis trying to make time for that or making that quality time doing the physical touching the the small gestures the small intimate like non-sexual forms of contact the acts of service like making a cup of tea for our partner all those kind of little things and then gifts although he's like completely not into gifts at all so he was like don't ever buy me anything um but and i and i can see

Starting point is 00:07:18 i can see where he's coming from and i think this alternative perspective is a reminder to us to not neglect the love languages that aren't as important to ourselves and to our partner. But maybe for me, I still think some kind of prioritization to the top two to your partner's top two is still important so I think it's good to know what your love languages are personally I still believe that I still believe that it can be very beneficial to a relationship and to find out what your partner's love languages are but then to also make sure that we're being kind and considerate and doing things regularly to please them and not to please them from a place of oh you've got to keep your partner pleased but because you want to make a positive impact on your life on

Starting point is 00:08:11 their lives like you want to do nice things for someone that you care about likewise in the confidence course I talk about the love languages and how I use the love languages for myself. So for me, knowing that my top two are physical touch and quality time, I make quality time for myself. So whether that's taking myself out on a date, whether that's having an evening in my room journaling with candles lit, or soaking in the bath for an hour, whether it's things like moisturising from head to toe, doing my skincare routine, giving myself a little massage here and there. I make sure that I do those things for myself regularly and I also do other things for myself like I'm regularly complimenting myself, I'm regularly telling myself nice things about me. I do things for myself like today for example I tidied my room room that was an act of service for myself because it was stressing me

Starting point is 00:09:05 out likewise I buy stuff for myself that's not as important for me to feel relaxed or calm or like I love myself the gifts aren't as important as the quality time with myself that's why I like a lot of alone time because I need that time to just be with me um but I think remembering this and and yeah I think trying to deliver the five love languages to yourself and to your partner can be really beneficial not losing sight of the importance of all five of them while still acknowledging and understanding what the person's top two are I still think it can be really beneficial but I wanted to offer this alternative perspective just in case it's something that actually hit home for you and I think with any

Starting point is 00:09:57 tools like this any tools like the love languages if it is something that resonates with you if it's something that makes sense if it's something that you like the sound of, then absolutely use it to enhance your relationship, either with a partner or with yourself. But if you listen to it and you think that's a load of bollocks, then don't do it. Don't take any notice of it. Like you don't have to implement something into your relationship if it is not something that you necessarily agree with unless it's something that's important to your partner obviously if the two of you think it's a load of bollocks then don't try and force it into your relationship if there is one part of you if there is one person in the partnership who says actually this is really important to me then I feel like the other person

Starting point is 00:10:46 should make some kind of effort to acknowledge that and to honor that and that doesn't mean that they need to have the love languages shoved down their throat or whatever but it is something that I think is worth just being aware of for the sake of your partner so let me know how this landed let me know if this was interesting for you do you agree do you think that love languages are a load of crap or do you think that they actually enhance your relationship I'd love to know what your love languages are so send me a message on Instagram you can message me on my personal Instagram at Rebecca Lucy H or you can come over to the date with Confidence podcast Instagram, which is at Date With Confidence podcast. Don't forget you can contribute to the Date With Confidence podcast when you go to datewithconfidencepodcast.com slash contribute. Don't forget to check the

Starting point is 00:11:35 show notes for resources that will help enhance your love life. And I will see you in the next one. Thanks so much for listening to the Date With Confidence podcast. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe, rate and review and share it with your single friends. Thank you.

The Date with Confidence Podcast - An Alternative Perspective On The 5 Love Languages

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