Tell me exactly what I did wrong.

[Lillieperl]

Dom, you've got it partly right.

YOUR Love Language is the way you habitually express love and generally people make the assumption that others' LL's are the same as theirs. The idea with this book is that you can learn your partner's LL, which may be different from yours.

From the Gary Chapman website:

Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse may be as different as Chinese from English. No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other.

So he's saying that you both express your love in your Love Language AND want love expressed in the same language.


From amazon:

A seasoned marriage counselor says people feel most loved in a marriage in one of five ways: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Though we have a primary love language [Lil: My bf's is Acts of Service], we can learn a second language so that our spouse's needs are met.

From an amazon review:

Often, we tend to give love in the languages we are most fluent in, which usually ends up being the languages that fill up our love tank. This would be why a husband who does yard work, dishes, car maintenance, etc. (Acts of Service) is floored when his wife says "You never show me you love me. You never cuddle with me, or caress my hair, or make the first move for sex." (Physical Touch). Or, "Why don't you spend time with me? Why do you work so much?" (Quality Time)... (etc., etc...) ...But, if her language is primarily Acts of Service, she'll feel so loved and honored because her husband does so many things for her, and thus feels "full" in her love tank.

[SouthernGirl]

Yeah, Lil, WHY are you not posting in the SEXSTARVEDSINNERSLIVINGINSIN.COM board with your problems?

*cracks self up*

Where was I?

No, you didn't do anything wrong. But Don, expressing himself in his usual adroit way, does have a point. It's impossible to keep things from leaking into our voices, and no matter how politely you phrased it it he will have "heard" that you did wish for him to come over the same day. Thus, you have a disconnect between what was said and what was "heard" which gave him an excuse to be grumpy.

Straightforward, as for example Mojo's reply, has the benefit of at least making him feel like an a$$, whether he admits it or not.

[sgctxok]

Actually, you did just fine and very good.

He set that conversation to go that way. I think you did a wonderful job in both conversations. Because now you've shown him how to please you, you've been honest, you've kept a peaceful tone, and you weren't demanding.

The only thing is, you, like a lot of us, are selling yourself short. Settling.

I've seen you on the boards. You're scary intelligent. Well read. Compassionate. Passionate. You're awesome and you can get awesome.

[Lillieperl]

Thanks, sg. [Lil blows kiss.] Your words mean a lot. You're right that he did set up the convo to go that way.



SouthernGirl, you crack me up, too! Actually we don't live together as such. We live in our own houses and spend time together, often spending the night, but not always. And we're not having sex, so we might not even be sinners!

Bf has his own house, his mom's apartment, and now that he's bought that property next to me, he's got a cabin there, which he is busy furnishing... plus, he runs to his mom's real house to get stuff. TOO MANY houses! Like the typical 7, he's spread really thin... and [Lil waves at Mojo] Mojo, by having so many "homes," he's not at home anywhere, thus is "homeless"! Ta-da! Just like you.

[SouthernGirl]

Thanks, sg. [Lil blows kiss.] Your words mean a lot. You're right that he did set up the convo to go that way.



SouthernGirl, you crack me up, too! Actually we don't live together as such. We live in our own houses and spend time together, often spending the night, but not always. And we're not having sex, so we might not even be sinners!

Bf has his own house, his mom's apartment, and now that he's bought that property next to me, he's got a cabin there, which he is busy furnishing... plus, he runs to his mom's real house to get stuff. TOO MANY houses! Like the typical 7, he's spread really thin... and [Lil waves at Mojo] Mojo, by having so many "homes," he's not at home anywhere, thus is "homeless"! Ta-da! Just like you.

Wow, in that case, we need a whole new category.

The LIVINGINSIN part will have to go if you have different houses. I was going to suggest SEXSTARVEDFORNICATORS.ORG but if you're not having sex at all you don't qualify as fornicators and don't get to post on their board. Sorry.

I really have to think about this.

Wait, I know! You're dating, thus being sex-starved is not an option because you're not supposed to have sex at all!

Here you were thinking you were sex starved, and you're not! Everything is peachy!

(((((Lil)))))

I must admit my thoughts ran along the lines of "she can do so much better than that idiot" but I ain't sayin' nuthin.

<------ SG, picture of admirable restraint and silence.

[Lillieperl]

Yeah... I probably can... I must be One Sick Puppy...

[Dom R]

Dom, you've got it partly right.
....
From the Gary Chapman website:

Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse may be as different as Chinese from English. No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other.

So he's saying that you both express your love in your Love Language AND want love expressed in the same language.

nope, _you_ still dont get it, Lillie you're misunderstanding Chapman.

Using the "you speak english, they speak chinese" metaphor that you quoted, and extending it:

If you want your spouse to understand that you love them, in a meaningful way to THEM, you will learn how to say "i love you" in chinese.

However,
chinese is only describing the way that they need to HEAR "i love you".
It is not automatically the way that they express "i love you" to others. Nor is it "supposed" to be.

If they love YOU, they're suppose to learn how to say "i love you" in english, because that's the language that is most meaningful to _you_. If it was someone else (ie a child, or parent of theirs), they may need to learn a different language entirely.


He emphasises that, if you want to fully say "i love you" to another person, you need to learn THEIR language, to say it TO them.

It's not about learning their language, so that you can interpret how they say "i love you".

On the contrary;
for purposes of having people telling YOU that 'they love you'; it's important for you to learn which "language" means the most to you, and then _teach them your language_, so that it will then feel more meaningful to you.

the most important concept of the entire book, is that each spouse is supposed to learn the other person's "Love language", and speak it to them.(ie: find out how they like it, and then give it to them how they like it)
It is most definately not, "each spouse is supposed to learn how to interpret the other person's 'language', and learn to like it the way they say it".


Besides which, as I tried to mention in my prior post... The way you like to hear /i love you/, may NOT be the same way you express that feeling to others.
Some people go by "do under others as you would like them to do to you". but some people do not.

Hypothetical example: A mothering type, may feel the most comfortable doing "acts of service" for those she loves. HOWEVER... she may feel most loved, when she receives jewelry, and uncomfortable if others do "acts of service" to her, because she feels that it's "her job" to do that sort of thing, and they are userping her role.

[Lillieperl]

Reading comprehension seems to be a bit of a problem for you. When you reply to a post, it's often clear that you didn't read it correctly. I'm not surprised you're reading Chapman wrong. It's okay. Doesn't mean you're a bad person.

[MJontheMend]

This may be totally off the wall but GP is somebody who I would say was very intuitive and he is somebody with a knack for picking up actual languages. My LL is definitely physical touch and therefore I generally like the fact that he is inclined to pet me. However, the other day he told me that he is not at all a touchy/feely person and he wasn't nearly as touchy/feely with other women in his life as he is with me. So pretty much my mission in the dating realm is to turn nice boys into bad boys for sexual physical touch purposes and bad boys into cuddle toys for romantic physical touch purposes. Which is why both mothers and Armed Forces Recruiters should warn men to stay away from the likes of me.


LP, maybe Dom is right and your BF prefers jewelery as a love language. I personally think any Tom Selleck look-a-like would be even better all blinged out.

[Dom R]

You replied to my post, less than 10 minutes after I wrote it.

Did you even read it, lillie?
Or did you just stop after I wrote, "you're misunderstanding chapman" ?

The interpretation you are suggesting for Chapman's book, is self-contradictory. I can go into more details, if you can actually have an open mind ,about the possibility that you are wrong.