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Holiday Relationship Tip 9

The 5 Love Languages

Gary Chapman wrote this book over 20 years ago but the concepts still make a lot of sense. He likened the way we receive and give love to languages. For example, if I was speaking English but my primary language was French, Italian, German, or Spanish it would make it harder to communicate. Not impossible, but harder. He identified 5 main love languages we all use: quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, and physical touch. Even if you haven’t read the book you can reflect on how best you think you give love and how best you like to receive love. 

When Crystal and I read the book years ago, we both valued quality time and words of affirmation but for me, for receiving love it was physical touch, giving, and acts of service. For Crystal, it was receiving and giving gifts. Her conclusion: “Keep doing the acts of service but how about a few more gifts.” She grew up poor on a farm and is appreciative of any kind of gift she might get – a coffee or a favorite treat. For her part she is always giving – from our garden, baking, quilts, art projects – you name it and she is attentive to what people might appreciate.

This has been helpful information throughout our marriage but here is a point worth mentioning. Giving gifts is not my primary love language so it doesn’t come naturally to me. And even after 20 years of knowing what her primary love language is I still have to really pay attention and look to find ways to show my love by giving gifts. They don’t have to be big; something as simple as a coffee is appreciated because it wasn’t asked for – it was a gift.

Relationship Tip 9

Have a chat with your partner about what the two of you might surmise are your primary love languages – both for giving and receiving love. And then during the remaining days of the 12 days of Christmas gift your partner in their love language (not yours).

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: gary chapman, love languages, Marriage, marriage counselling, relationship tip, relationships

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The last part of Chapter 6 The Imago; the Search for Original Connecting deals with what happens between partners when they are locked in the power struggle. Our brain has a negativity bias. This makes sense if you think of our history as humans. For thousands of years, our primal brain was on the lookout […]

Chap. 6 (con’t): 3 Stages of Relationships

In intimate relationships, we call the 3 stages: Romantic love, The Power Struggle, and Adaptation/Resolution. The first 2 are covered in the rest of this chapter and the adaptation/resolution stage will be examined in Chapter 7. Here is something I never knew before.  “All relationships, like life, go through stages. Intimate relationships and other significant […]

Chapter 6 con’t: An Imago Match

Let’s continue our discussion with the Imago Match, from last’s week’s blog. Here is an interesting question for you. “What leads us to choose that one person (or maybe two or three or four) to spend our lives with out of the countless others we could have chosen?” (p.129) Not a bad question really! Why […]

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That's how he likes to think of himself - a coach. John Sullivan won't fix your relationship. He gives you the tools to help you build permanent and lasting connections and a deeper intimacy with those in your life.

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