How do people express love

5 Different Ways to Show Love and Improve Your Relationship: Blog

News Posted On Jan 31, 2020

Have you ever questioned whether your partner still loves you? You’re not alone. You also might be speaking a different love language than your partner.

What are the love languages?

We all give and receive love in 5 different ways: words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time, and physical touch. These are called ‘love languages’ - a concept created by Dr. Gary Chapman through his long-time work as a marriage counsellor.

Words of affirmation

When words of affirmation is your love language, words build you up. You thrive on spoken affection, praise, encouragement, and compliments. Harsh words and criticism can bother you for a long time.

Acts of Service

Anything that your partner does willingly to ease your workload is a sign of love to you. You feel cared for when your partner vacuums before you get to it or makes you breakfast as a surprise. On the other hand, broken promises or laziness can make you feel unimportant.

Receiving gifts

When you speak this love language, a thoughtful gift shows to you that you are special. In contrast, generic gifts and forgotten special events have the opposite effect. This love language isn’t necessarily materialistic – it could be as simple as receiving your favourite snack after a bad day.

Quality time

To you, nothing says you’re loved like undivided attention. When your partner is truly present (and not looking at their phone), it makes you feel important. Failure to actively listen or long periods without one-on-one time can make you feel unloved.

Physical touch

Holding hands, kisses, hugs, and other touches are your preferred way to show and receive love. Appropriate touches convey warmth and safety, while physical neglect can drive a wedge between you and your partner.

How love languages can improve your relationships

Most of us have one or two preferred love languages – often different than our significant other's. If you express your love through your preferred love language, the chances are that it goes unnoticed by your partner.

Say that your love language is gifts, and you often surprise your partner with thoughtful gifts. How does it make you feel when they just have a quick look at your thoughtful present? Meanwhile, your partner hardly values gifts but appreciates acts of service. It would mean the world to them if you did chores around the house instead of buying gifts. Is your partner feeling loved?

Learning to speak your partner’s preferred language can drastically strengthen your relationship. You can do the free love languages test on the 5 love languages website. Love languages apply to non-romantic relationships as well, and the website includes tests for children and teens.

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7 Ways to Express Your Love

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“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” —Lao Tzu

Similar to other feelings, expressing love takes practice. However, feeling and displaying love can result in a huge shift in our lives. It’s important to remember that love comes in many forms. We can love our pets, our family members, our friends, and our significant others. Many people believe that love can solve many problems. As singers such as Perry Como, The Hollies, and Deon Jackson sang, “Love makes the world go round.” In essence, it’s a universal language.

Each of us probably has a different definition of love. In romantic love, there’s a magic that happens between two people. Psychologist Erich Fromm, in his classic book, The Art of Loving, writes about the magic of two strangers meeting, and suddenly the wall between them is let down, resulting in a sudden closeness and oneness. This “is one of the most exhilarating, most exciting experiences in life,” he says (p. 3).

Those who have experienced this feeling know that there’s a magical connection when you’re with the right person. It might seem as if the rest of the world is slipping away. The man or woman you’re with is your world for the time that you’re together, and everything just seems easier. While it might feel as if it’s a momentary or fleeting state of mind, the truth is, it is most often a long-term state of mind. As psychologist and author Melanie Greenberg (2013) says, there’s something special about the feeling of two hearts beating as one. In that moment, there’s a deep connection where you’re moved by how the other person is feeling and inspired to make him or her feel good. In general, there’s a deep sense of caring.

Whether you’re in a romantic relationship or not, now is a good time to honor the concept of love. My father-in-law, who was one of 12 children, often spoke of his mother’s love by saying, “The more she loved, the more her capacity to love. ” Love begets love and is indeed contagious.

Here are seven ways to express your love:

Offer the gift of listening. Focus on others and hear what they’re really saying. Remember the 80/20 rule: Listen more, talk less. This allows others to share, and also gives you a chance to understand their feelings.
Say please and thank you. This is a simple act you can practice every day, but many of us often forget to do so. It can make a huge difference in our lives.
Tell your loved ones how much you love and appreciate them. A little love goes a long way. Many of us are guilty of taking people for granted, so it’s good to acknowledge those who’ve impacted our lives and those we could not live without.
Offer to help someone in need. There’s always someone who needs something. Often helping others is a way to make you feel good, too. The person you help could be a close friend, neighbor, senior citizen, or challenged individual.
Write a letter or send a card to someone you love and mail it. You’d be surprised by how much people appreciate this gesture. So many of us have gotten into the habit of exclusively sending e-mail, so it’s especially nice to receive a note in the mail.
Write your loved ones a poem of gratitude. For some people, writing a poem is easier than for others. You can start by making a list of the reasons you love these individuals. You can also reminiscence about how you met them and what you hope your future together will look like. Also, consider reading love poems by Sufi poet Rumi, Leonard Cohen, or others.
Practice the art of forgiveness. We often have little spats with loved ones, but as they say, “Pick your fights.” Try to release anger and frustration so that you can adopt a more positive attitude.

5 ways to express love (find out your type!)

Not all people speak the same language in love! This is an important thing, but we understand it, as a rule, already with experience. Others may be completely different from us: they show and express love in a completely different way

When a loved one shows his feelings in a way that we are not ready and accustomed to, this often pushes us to the wrong conclusion: we are not loved. It is the same with us: when our own behavior does not live up to their expectations, loved ones can lose faith in our feelings. This is why sincere communication and attention is so important in a relationship: how else will we know how it is better for us to show our love ourselves so that a loved one understands us?

So here are the 5 main love languages. Which one is yours?

1. Words

This is exactly what they say "women love with their ears". Words of love have an independent value: a person can shower his beloved or beloved with gifts, generously give attention, do not step aside - and still his partner will feel discomfort if the right words are not uttered (and even in the right amount: for some people It's not enough to hear "I love you" once - it should sound constantly). The behavior of such people can leave the impression of ingratitude: they do so much for them, but they demand some more words! In fact, they are not ungrateful at all, just a verbal expression of love is more accessible to them than any other.

2. Courtship

In contrast to the previous type, this is a way of expressing love based on the principle "actions speak for themselves." Why extra words? For adherents of this type, only actions matter. They literally cannot imagine life without courtship, and this does not mean romantic trips to a restaurant or beautiful gifts, but real actions: it is most natural for such a person to constantly try to help, do something for his partner, support him with an act. It is such a person who will hold an open umbrella over you, even if you quarreled and do not talk. Such people can be very demanding: in turn, they refuse to believe in your love until you start doing something, and flowers with sweets will not count.

3. Gifts

Yes, this is also a special type of love. A gift is not necessarily something expensive, it is generally far from always some kind of valuable item. This is literally a sign of attention - material evidence that you thought about your loved one (for example, in a store, passing by a counter with his favorite sweets). For many people, this is the material embodiment of the idea of giving and receiving: not only in a material sense, but also in a deeper sense. So receiving and giving represent a serious psychological need for them. Unfortunately for adherents of this type of love, they are often accused of greed and commercialism, while ignoring the fact that they themselves give with the same pleasure that they receive gifts.

4. Time spent together

Time is an amazing thing: we all have it equally, and at the same time too little, but we can never get rid of the memories of the time spent. For some people, time is the most important and valuable thing they can give you. And this is what they expect in return, so when you are with them, turn off the phone, do not listen to the radio that sounds in the background, do not look around. Your time - and your attention - should be entirely theirs. It is for such people that it is most problematic to understand introverts, who simply physically need to spend a lot of time alone. Refusing to share time with them seems like a betrayal to such people.

5. Physical contact

For adherents of this type, every little touch is a gift. Such people are very fond of walking hand in hand, which can be completely misunderstood and superficially interpreted as a demonstration of your relationship to the public. In fact, it is important for them just to feel the warmth of your hand. They always try to be as close to you as possible: to sit down so as to touch you, fall asleep in an embrace. Oddly enough, it is this love language, so natural, that is the most underestimated. Physical contact is kind of natural, so why focus on it? However, if your partner "speaks" this language, he will understand and deeply appreciate your love only when it is shown physically.

So, what for some is a trifle, for others it is a sincere manifestation of deep feelings. Fortunately, love really is like a language: we always have a chance to understand each other. So even if you and your loved one are completely different types, a heart-to-heart talk will help you better understand each other's expectations and attitudes. It may be easier to make your lover happy than you thought!

20 actions of love - Psychologos

Jan 01, 2010 4:34 pm

Love Actually movie

Talking about love in general is empty, only real things are close to me. In one wonderful film, the protagonist's voice behind the scenes says: "There is a lot of love in the world. I really like to visit airports. Nowhere is love more evident than when people meet after parting." joy, kisses... Love is a real miracle in our everyday life.

What does "love" mean to me? Before studying at UPP, my own bright and strong emotions, and the same emotions of another person, were my idea of love. And the power of love was measured in the desire to spend your time and affection on me by a loved one, and on my part to spend time and affection on him. Now I realize that I was talking more about my love language.

The concept of love has changed a lot for me since I weighed my values and goals. Now, for me, love is the result of daily work on oneself, passed through balanced decisions by an intelligent person and fulfilled by the whole body. The lover is a worker, a scientist and a dancer, united in one person and living beautifully for the benefit of another person.

Love is what I do. What do I do when I love? I will list the most important twenty points.

1) Love is time. A friend calls, we talk about everything and nothing, we discuss some poems, we talk about men, about acquaintances. We chat for an hour and a half or two. Usually, I'm terribly frugal in terms of time, but I decide to give this time to her. I know she really needs it. It is now vital for her to communicate with people, she distracts herself from those huge problems that have fallen on her with such chatter and a cheerful discussion of petty nonsense. I want to believe that this is a gift from my side for her. I could interrupt our communication, but I appreciate and value our relationship and spend this time on her so that she switches from bad thoughts to an easy and pleasant mood.

2) Love is attention. Made a Christmas present for my mom. She is very pleased.

3) Love is emotions and feelings. I feel emotional uplift next to the person I love. My emotional rise is visible and I "inspire" in my own way a similar state to people who are next to me, especially to the person who is loved by me. I inspire joy and energy. By the way, for me this is a small realization that my own emotions can also be a gift.

I understand that a lot of work awaits me. Ahead is the exercise "interesting person" and "sunshine".

4) Love is support in exciting situations. I meet a young man. In the first seconds of acquaintance, the guy first looks away, then makes an embarrassed face, lights up, is silent, stealthily throws interested glances at me. There is a pause. I don't love him. But out of empathy and benevolence, I ask an easy question to start a conversation. The guy immediately grabs the topic and begins to develop it. For me, there are no heavy pauses, I can be silent with another person with pleasure, as well as look into the eyes. Others did not study at Sinton and are not engaged in self-education, such moments are very difficult for them, I understand this. Therefore, imperceptibly for the other, I bring him into the situation of a familiar and measuredly ongoing conversation. In my opinion, such help is also love. But only without the inclusion of emotions.

5) Love is the ability to stop yourself. My younger brother (20 centimeters taller than me) did not make the bed. I'm going to clean up. He resists to the maximum: he shirks, shirks and continues his policy of "I'll take it away." I understand that I can’t physically force him, and if I can, then through a scandal, than I will destroy our friendly contact. I stop myself in a strong desire to yell at him. I decide to leave him alone for a while and let the situation take its course. My discipline is the exact opposite of his teenage looseness, having to accept his desire to be naughty and not obey me. Also love in my opinion.

6) Love is a look "eye to eye" (I'm not talking about an aggressive attack) and an attempt to understand another person: his feelings and emotions, his thoughts and desires. Recently, I have visited families with children twice and always practiced direct eye-to-eye gaze with the child. Immediate response in children. I was immediately "immersed" in their childhood stories, games, noisemakers, stories and events. With some serious enthusiasm and responsiveness, children share their secrets.

7) Love is empathy. I look at my mother and try to feel her feelings and emotions. It turns out, therefore, I really want to change her mood.

8) Love is prohibitions on stupidity in the behavior of close people, feedback, as it is fashionable to say now. Mom was deceived in money by a close friend whom she believed. She complains over and over again, very strongly and deeply worries about this topic. I do not support her in her desire to fill her life with this Event. I tell her that resentment is not something to be carried in the shower. She gets angry with me, says that she cannot control her emotions, but she pays less attention to what happened. (Looking at her, I understand well from whom I learned to feel what is happening so vividly and emotionally with my whole body, to experience it so colorfully and sincerely).

9) Love is care, cleaning, cooking in the house. I threw out the trash, cooked dinner, made tea. A wonderful feeling of caring.

10) Love is when I pick up things and completely pay attention to them, they are now expensive and beautiful. Taking care of things becomes easy and pleasant. I have long understood that it is much easier to love things than people, they do not resist and it is clear that it is useful for them.

11) In my opinion, the tool of love is a focus on the interests of another person. It is difficult for me to concentrate on another person, but it is given. I look at my friend A and begin to "torture" about his future life. "How do you plan to live the next 30 years?" The guy has eyes like tea saucers. "I never thought about it! I'll have to think about it." I try to feel into him, into his movements. He moves as if on hinges, spins, spins, the situation is difficult for him. We sit at a table, I'm opposite. I lean back, reduce my presence and pressure on him, give him the opportunity to take up more space. The guy calms down a little. And the question is not simple. In response, I hear: "Well, I don't know ..." I see that he is interested and the question hooked him. I continue with another question: "How much time do you need to answer this question?" I get a strong surprise in response, but also a bold and interested look. Prior to this, he played in shyness. Great. It starts spinning again and answers: "It's like an exam with you ... well, it takes six months to decide." I catch myself on excessive pressure on him, but I support "Excellent, you will answer in six months, agreed." I understand that I passed it on. I stop myself and ask him: "What jokes do you know?" Joins the topic and tells jokes. In the end, I hope that I gave him a topic for reflection. She posed questions. If I am not mistaken in it, I will think. Or maybe it won't. But to heaven with sticks ...

12) Love is a choice between intervening or not intervening. The most difficult question for me is to give advice or not to give, climb with my own control centers or give me the opportunity to decide for myself. My brother is dating a girl who, in my opinion, is not promising. Forbid him to meet (if possible) or allow him to make mistakes? The price of a mistake is a potential divorce and a "broken trough" with alimony and a fatherless child, on the other hand, the price of a mistake is to cross out his independence and relationships, to take away the right to make a mistake. I choose to speak and warn. And then let him decide and act. I still don’t know the right answer. So it turns out that love is, first of all, thinking with your head, and not with feelings? And if you love, then you develop your ability to think, not to feel?

13) Love is giving up jealousy. Insanely difficult, but possible. Another person has the right to create other beautiful relationships in this life. It is important to choose a person who knows how to create, and not use the freedom provided for the sake of his egoism and lust. Love is the ability to see a person's potential and support him.

14) Love is a daily violence against one's unnecessary desires. I want to yell at my flatmates because they threw the boots in the hallway, yell at people on the subway so that they don’t get in the way and don’t push, get angry at my friend because ... there is always a reason.

15) Love is work on oneself, so that those around me feel very, very good with me, it is easy to communicate, it is convenient to live, it is pleasant to realize oneself. I ask myself a question, but with a woman like me, I myself would begin to communicate? And what kind of person would be interested in talking? Oh, this is not an easy job to drag a hippopotamus out of the swamp.

16) Love is a matter of life, it is a list of values, it is a list of goals every day. Daily orientation on the ground.

17) Love is the courage to declare one's plans and values to another person. Because nothing excites people as much as the values that they have or do not exist. It is the courage to disagree with the opinion of another person, even if he does not agree and this will jeopardize the relationship.

18) Love is "speaking softly about sharp things". Good advice from Olga Paratnova: the tougher thing you have to say to people, the softer your voice should be. This is a concern for the other person to hear what may be more important to him than to me. This was when I told my friend that she behaves like a car owner. Whoever comes to visit her stuffs food, not paying attention to the lack of hunger in this person.

19) Love is the courage to communicate with unpleasant people, and not hide in your little world from communicating with these people with reproaches for the imperfection of those around you.

20) Love is the search for a compromise between my desires and the desires of other people. If you want, then we will go to the White Sea, and I will wear dresses to a restaurant in my hometown.

Are there acts of love that I am proud of?

Oddly enough, I am very proud of my quiet act when I gave my young man the idea to write to me :) under the dorm windows on the pavement: "Good morning, my love!" I am proud, because for him this romantic act became a source of pride and joy. He enjoyed the glory that fell on him. True, later I was somehow not very pleased to be in the center of close attention of the hostel, but it was a Beautiful Event.

The ability to love

Guest, June 26, 2012, 12:40 pm

Absolutely agree with every point of the article!!! Love is exactly what is everywhere, every day and with everyone! Apparently, she always felt it, but she could not put it into concrete theses. And I also realized that I can LITTLE love! We must try! Gotta love! Thanks to the post author!

Guest, August 01, 2012, 00:12

I would add one more point, that love is death, not everyone can die for another person without experiencing feelings of love for him. I agree with a little less than half of the points, because. finding love in everything you do is absurd, in which case the meaning of love is immediately lost. From the point of view of psychology - Love is the highest degree of feelings. And you say love is rubbish, throw it away... Love is not a toy.

Irina, 08 November 2015, 06:00 pm

You can't die for someone else, this time. Secondly, to die, that is, to commit suicide for the sake of another, is cruel. And there is no love here.

Guest, August 12, 2012, 11:09 am

Hello! For a site on psychology, a very simple article, philistine, I would call it. Thank you!

replies

Guest, November 27, 2013, 11:47 am

In any case, it's a reason to think. Do you do that?

Guest, January 03, 2015, 20:49

Yes, you are right, but no matter how trite it may sound, everything ingenious is simple.

Guest, January 02, 2013, 09:26

I agree with Oksana - the article is rather weak, unprofessional. In my opinion, it would not be worth including it in the list of quality articles. In my opinion, there are many articles about love here that are much more concise, but capacious. And here the theses are very controversial, some of them rather relate to falling in love.

Surovtseva Ksenia, May 10, 2013, 09:05

Hello. After reading the article, I have a question. If love is a volitional act, then it turns out that absolutely any person can be loved. But the author called her brother's girlfriend "unpromising." So it turns out that some people are better suited for love, some are worse? And how to determine a person worthy of putting love into him?

Guest, October 23, 2013, 01:39 AM

After that, I stopped reading the article! The author wanted to destroy their relationship only because she did not like the girl and did not live up to HER hopes! She imagines herself to be a "Megapsychologist" who has the right to decide who is worthy of her "dear brother" and who is not.

Guest, 04 February 2014, 22:41

scenario. The way the author of the comment used to act in life.

Guest, September 30, 2013, 10:01 pm

Hello! Love is all over the world, without love life has no meaning, love is beautiful everywhere. Love for Allah is the most beautiful love. Thanks to the author.

Guest, October 29, 2013, 00:38

Everything is super true!

Guest, November 28, 2013, 00:07

Everything is super!!! Thank you.

Author: О.К., February 06, 2014, 04:24 PM

Hello, Xenia. Thanks for the comment. Ksenia, unpromising, only means that they had different desires and goals, and not bad or good. I saw that there were the beginnings of serious conflicts in their relationship, they could not solve them due to their young age, so their relationship would most likely have died. He was also not promising for her, as he wanted other relationships, not the ones that she offered. Actually, a few years later, my assumptions were fully confirmed by life: they broke up due to the fact that she did not wait for him from the army. They parted on their own initiative. Love, in my opinion (IMHO), habitually volitional action. For example, there are women who behave like warm and kind mothers. They do this without straining, but at first they had to strain and accustom themselves to the actions of love (wash the diapers after the baby!). Although many from the outside think that it "appeared by itself." In my opinion, love does not depend on whether a person is good or bad. Love depends on who loves, not who is loved. And the question of whom to love and how to love does not have an unambiguous answer ... But I ask myself this question with a certain frequency ... Your author of the article is O.K.

Irina , October 25, 2015, 9:30 pm

The girl simply and intelligibly explained, told, informed the readers - learn to love, work on yourself! Above yourself, and not above the "victim" of your love. What a man, such is his love. Thank you. Now I know how to do all this and I know how much depends on the one who loves. And it is very good that the article is on the website of psychology, it is here that seekers will quickly find it.

Guest, May 22, 2019, 2:24 pm

Wonderful article! I subscribe to every word! Not so long ago, I myself came to understand love and I can say that only with such an attitude to life and love can a person become happy)

Guest, August 19, 2022, 06:19 PM

Of course I agree with all of the above, but I am now in a quarrel with a girl because of non-compliance with several and the most important factors of love. I could not remain silent this morning, I shouted just like that, misunderstood her and it turned out to be a scandal. I regret that I did this, but this is not the first time, and she does not believe me, she wants to find another. I went to the article to reflect on my behavior and try to correct myself, be more restrained and think before saying anything.

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