Some of us may remain at the space of what we grow up to understand love to be. Many people equate love with angry burst at their partners because they see their parents go at each other’s throat often. Some have come to understand love to mean something you offer from a distance as most have only seen their father be available when he requires his own need to be catered to. For such people, they don’t see being the one who have to make sacrifice as important, for them, sacrifice is something that is expected of the other party, so when they feel overwhelmed by their significant other wanting attention and care, they up and leave. When they see their children struggling with health and emotions, they disappear. These kinds of adult grow up thinking it’s not up to them to be the one who give love.
On the other hand, there are those who have come to accept that love is about just getting money from their spouse, it’s about how much their partner is willing to spend on them. When he’s broke and unable to provide they feel unloved and unwanted. In addition, there are ones whose love language is to spend money, just concentrate on buying and spending in their relationship so much that if their love interest rejects their gift it becomes a pain to cure, for them lent can buy love is a mantra to live by, they feel like the rejection of their monetary gift is a rejection of themselves, this sometimes can be hard for them to understand especially if their partners love language is quality attention or physical presence or touch. So they might find it hard to be present, without inserting a gift that can be weighed in its financial cost.
History of how most people have come to accept what love means to them is often steeped in their upbringing. Mostly from watching their parents show affection either by way of giving, listening, being available be it emotionally or physically, or just by doing, helping around the house or just getting things down together. As children, we pick these nit bits about how to respond or how not to answer to love. So as adults because we’ve seen our parents go through their own circle of what love is, we in turn demand that our partners do same with us, we look to them to continue the circle of love we have come to grow up with, we become blind to our own partners unique demand, we let our past prejudice us into believing the others don’t care for wanting a different kind of expression from what we are willing to offer. So we fight. We reign in the chaos to affirm our authority, and insist our knowledge of how love should be given or received is better than what our love interest think or feel.
Photograp by @NAC
What we don’t look at trying is create our own pattern. We often don’t see how sometimes our love language might not be wholesome and how it may not even be serving us as a person how much more serving our lover. It’s why therapy helps and open communication is important, as this allows both party to see through each others experience and help the couple forge a new way to make sure our language is better understood, reconstruct if need be, and solidified when necessary. Sometimes, all that is required of each other is to adjust expectations, shift focus to what the other person is doing right and give less attention to what the person might be getting wrong.
Working around a different love language from what we are used to accepting can be frustrating for some people, taking time to accept that our own love language is abusive can be inundating for a lot of couples. It’s like tearing the very foundation of their existence, for some it feels like you’re questioning their being and their essence. Some will fight to keep the status quo, many we withdraw from receiving love or showing love, while some others will put in the work to refine themselves and find a middle ground just to make things work.
This is were emotional maturity comes in. Many grow from their experience, and use their past love to form a different language with the person they are with. It could be making a whole 180 degree turn from what they are used to. This could mean being present in the now, showing up for special events, writing a love letter, taking a walk around the park with your lover, holding and touching your partner, giving a helping around the house, listening to them, making effort to make them
happy, buying gifts or just saying I LOVE YOU. The list is endless.
Photo by @NAC
However, not many people will be able to recognize when to stop hanging on to a different love language they grow up seeing and accept to form a new one. This shouldn’t discourage us from trying to show love anyways, caring about people whose love language doesn’t match ours is allowed except when their love language hurts us and those who are reliant on us. Like having a partner who leaves home whenever things get hard leaving you to handle your pain alone, or one who refuses to show concern about your emotional needs and deliberately starve you of communication and not caring about your happiness. We must know when to try and make things better, when fixing something shows signs of positive response and when making things right is dead in itself because the other person has chosen a path to hurting us badly. We must try to understand each other, make effort to learn one another’s love language, put in the work to tweak ours too to fit the others style and need, but what we must not do is remain with someone whose love language endangers us or others dear to us. Much as we must try to be supportive and understanding of others people’s interest, we must be able to glean from other’s experience in deciding what is a healthy love language to stick around for, or the one not to bother fixing.
- [x] When we learn to unlearn and relearn our own love language, it opens our mind into understanding others and showing them love in ways that fits them perfectly. We must remember some people love in all of the signs they see and have experienced, while some just love in one singular way. Knowing is multiple love language is the style of your partner will help you in exploring what ways to keep them happy and satisfied.
For more stories you can follow me on medium adaezenwakwo5
