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There is no way around it: Emotions and specifically feelings have a significant impact, in fact have a central and essential role, on the quality of our relationships with those entrusted to our care, for better or worse. Marriages become symptomatic when one or both partners do not feel emotionally supported, validated or connected with their spouse.

A common complaint and frustration I often hear in my work as a counselor with couples is "I wish that he/she (most often "he") would open up and share more what he/she is feeling"; or "He/she just doesn't get it/try to understand me". A typical response (again, most often from the "he") is "What? …I already told you what I thought/felt"; or a hapless "I just don't get what you are trying to say".

Why this common pattern of frustration between married (and pre-marriage) couples? Stepping beyond the original source of the disorder and frustration that entered the marital relationship back in the Garden [1], there is often a failure to mutually give and receive, i.e., communicate, in the love language of your partner.

Our Sensory Communications

To explain a bit, each person is equipped with five senses, i.e., sensory receivers and senders, which allow one to encounter and interact with reality outside ones self. By way of simple analogy, one cannot receive the "message" of another if they are not tuned into the proper frequency and channel.

• Frequency (AM/FM/Shortwave …) is akin to one's primary communication mode, i.e., love language, for sending and receiving verbal and non-verbal communications and expressions of love (i.e., words, presence, gifts, acts of service, touch).

• Channel is akin to the specific form, or dialect, which one communicates and expresses, that is "speaks" and receives love from another (example, love making is only one dialect in the love language of physical touch).

The key to keeping a happy and satisfied spouse (hint for you spouses!) is by learning and generously choosing to communicate in your partner's primary love language. [2]

The Five Love Languages

These are the five primary love languages common amongst spouses:

1. Words of Affirmation ~ Verbal compliments, words of appreciation
2. Quality Time ~ Undivided attention, sympathetic dialogue, shared activities
3. Receiving Gifts ~ Gifts as visual symbols of love, gift of presence, intangible gift of self
4. Acts of Service ~ Doing things that please the other
5. Physical Touch ~ Touch as a vehicle for communicating love

An example may help to make this love language stuff concrete.

Though both are ways to communicating, how many wives would prefer a bouquet of flowers (receiving gifts) over having the car washed (acts of service) as an expression of caring and appreciation from their husband? Similarly, how many husbands would prefer words of acknowledgement and admiration (words of affirmation) for a job well done over a prolonged though loving gaze (quality time) from their wife?

Your Spouse's Emotional Love Tank

In his book, "The Five Love Languages", Gary Chapman proposes that each person has an "emotional love tank" that needs ongoing replenishment to keep the feelings and passion, i.e., the fuel, of love alive in a marriage relationship. He likewise contests that "The key to a long-lasting, loving marriage is to identify and learn to speak your spouse's primary love language".  [3]

The equation and challenge for spouses is simple: Learn to identify and choose to communicate generously in your partner's primary love language, and things tend to bode well. To ignore or neglect, and like a barometer predicting a weather system, the emotional forecast becomes overcast to gloomy. Simple but true. Love is a choice, not a manipulation, as communication of feelings and genuine caring requires effort.

Empathy can be emotional and/or intellectual. In their book, "The Language of Love", authors Smalley and Trent develop the emotional word picture communication technique that "uses a story or object to activate simultaneously the emotions and intellect of a person. In so doing, it causes the person to experience our words, not just hear them." in service of better equipping couples to enhance their emotional and intellectual empathy. [4]

To neglect to replenish your spouse's "love tank" is to put at peril the long-term quality and welfare of the marriage.

Pope Encourages Believer's To Tune Into God's Love Language for Us

During his 2006 visit to Munich Pope Benedict XVI stated that in Western societies "There is not only a physical deafness ... there is also a 'hardness of hearing' where God is concerned, and this is something from which we particularly suffer in our own time. …Put simply, we are no longer able to hear God -- there are too many different frequencies filling our ears."

God desires an intimate relationship with us also - "Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. …There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him." (Pope Benedict XVI's Inauguration Mass homily)

A lesson from the lives of the saints that I am still learning is this: It is only after I have quieted the clamoring and clutter of my own thoughts and daily activities, that I am able to hear the "still small voice" [5] of God speaking to me and distinct from the chatter of my own internal and external frequencies. "We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence." (Mother Teresa)

The lack of exclusive time and selectivity of inputs can significantly determine if opportunities for intimate connection are being facilitated, crowded out or simply lost.

It's a Matter of Time, Place and Technique

Nurturing a satisfying closeness with your spouse can hinge on the practical matters of making time, developing technique and creative planning. Here at The Retreat Center at St. John's, we are offering married couples a date night opportunity for an evening of intimate dialogue by giving each other the gift of time and self – Tables for Two. This evening of candlelight dinner and uninterrupted conversation provides an opportunity for couples to enrich and deepen their relationship with one another through a structured time of dialogue, lead by a skilled facilitator.

The "Tables for Two" evening is specifically geared to enfold three of the love languages as described -- words of affirmation (verbal), quality time (undivided attention and conversation), and receiving gifts (symbols of love and gift of presence). Consider giving each other the gift of time and presence this upcoming Valentines.

David Grobbel, L.M.S.W.
Marriage Preparation Coordinator
The Retreat Center at St. John’s

1 Genesis, Chapter 3.

2. Chapman, Gary, The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate (Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 1992).

2. The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, Ch. 2.

3. The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, p. 17.

4. Smalley, Gary and Trent, John Ph.D., The Language of Love, p. 17. (Focus on the Family Publishing, 1988, 1991).

5. 1 Kings, Chapter 19: 11-3 (RSV)