Title: The 5 Love LanguagesAuthor: Gary Chapman
Series: The 5 Love Languages #1
First Published: January 1, 1990
Publisher: Northfield Publishing
Pages: 206
Genre: Christian, Non-Fiction, Self-Help
Format: Ebook
Source: Prime Reading
Rating:
Synopsis:
Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge. How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life?
In the #1 New York Times international bestseller The 5 Love Languages, you’ll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner—starting today.
The 5 Love Languages is as practical as it is insightful. Updated to reflect the complexities of relationships today, this new edition reveals intrinsic truths and applies relevant, actionable wisdom in ways that work.
Includes the Couple's Personal Profile assessment so you can discover your love language and that of your loved one.
Review
The Five Love Languages is one of those books that is so pervasive, so simple in its practicality. It’s always one of the first recommendations from therapists about relationships and it’s easy to see why. I turned to this book myself during my own marital struggles after hearing about the book from a class years before. While it wasn’t a magical solution to my problems, it provided some insight that made me think about myself and my relationships, which is a start.
Through his work as a marriage counselor, Chapman identified a basic outline of different love styles. Though each love style is clearly defined it is not restrictive, and there can be overlap. The book comes with personal stories, a checklist, and a quiz, which is available online for free. While the quiz can be helpful, one of my issues of course is the fact that there is a quiz at all. People are aware that they are taking a quiz, the selections obviously sway toward a particular style, so it’s easy to skew. It’s a little too simplistic, but I get why a personality quiz is used.
This book I think is a good jumping-off point for couples to start thinking about their relationship in a way that is easily digestible. While some of the advice given in the book sounds obvious it isn’t so for everyone. Chapman’s advice is only effective if both parties are willing participants, and its usefulness is only what each person takes away from it. It’s simple: people love differently, and when couples have mismatched love styles they may find that they’re not getting the type of affection that they need to feel emotionally satisfied, even in what would otherwise be a loving relationship. I can relate to this, having been in relationships where my partner was perfectly satisfied, while I found myself feeling like I was running on fumes.
It is notable that this book is dated and that Chapman is religious, so his writing is peppered with Christian perspectives which can definitely be offensive to modern sensibilities. Though the perspective is “traditional” it’s not entirely overbearing, the central ideas about relationships are the same regardless. Ultimately it is up to the person seeking help to decide what they want to do with the advice received.
Since reading this book I have applied Chapman’s advice to my own love life, and it has been helpful in some ways. I can comfortably recommend this book for any couple, both those that have just started dating to those that have been together a while and are going through a rough patch.
Quote
“Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Gary Chapman
Married more than 45 years to Karolyn, Dr. Gary Chapman is just the man to turn to for help on improving or healing our most important relationships. His own life experiences, plus over forty years of pastoring and marriage counseling, led him to publish his first book in the Love Language series, The 5 Love Languages®: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. Millions of readers credit this continual #1 New York Times bestseller with saving their marriages by showing them simple and practical ways to communicate their love to their partner.
Chapman speaks to thousands of couples nationwide through his weekend marriage conferences. He hosts a nationally syndicated radio program, Love Language Minute, and a Saturday morning program, Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, that air on more than 400 stations. Dr. Chapman also serves as senior associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Dr. Chapman holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in anthropology from Wheaton College and Wake Forest University, respectively, MRE and Ph.D. degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and has completed postgraduate work at the University of North Carolina and Duke University.
Dr. Chapman and his wife have two adult children and two grandchildren and currently live in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
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