Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
Charles and Dan are just two guys talking about relationships, masculinity, and authenticity. Join them as they discuss books and media, as well as their (sometimes messy) personal stories, to encourage men to join the fight for their mental, physical, and emotional health--because a world of healthy, resilient men is a thriving and more secure world for everyone.
Mindfully Masculine: Personal Growth and Mental Health for Men
An Introduction to "The 5 Love Languages for Men"
Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast! In this episode, Charles and Dan dive into the world of Gary Chapman's "The 5 Love Languages for Men." After a brief hiatus due to the Memorial Day holiday and some personal hurdles, the duo returns to explore the foundational concepts of this popular book.
Charles and Dan reconnect, sharing personal updates and setting the stage for the discussion on "The 5 Love Languages for Men." They start with a humorous and relatable conversation about learning new languages and the challenges that come with it.
The episode then dives deep into the essence of Gary Chapman's philosophy on love languages, discussing the primary audience for the book and its relevance to married men. There’s also a touch of humor on Chapman's seemingly binary view of relationships (married or single).
Addressing some of the common criticisms of the love languages concept, including the lack of scientific basis and potential oversimplification of human emotions, Charles and Dan weigh in on these criticisms, providing their perspectives and insights.
The discussion moves to the importance of understanding and speaking your partner's love language to enhance relationship satisfaction. Real-life examples and anecdotes illustrate the impact of effectively using love languages in a relationship, along with tips on how to identify and adapt to your partner's love language for a healthier and more fulfilling relationship.
Exploring the metaphor of the "love tank," the hosts explain how regular positive interactions can build a reservoir of goodwill in a relationship. They emphasize the significance of maintaining a full love tank, especially during challenging times.
They also acknowledge that love languages can evolve over time and stress the importance of periodically revisiting and reassessing them. For deeper relationship issues, they discuss the potential need for professional guidance beyond just reading self-help books.
Looking ahead, the hosts preview the upcoming episodes, each dedicated to one of the five love languages, and encourage listeners to take the love languages quiz to better understand their own and their partner's primary love languages.
Key Takeaways: Understanding and speaking your partner's love language is crucial for a strong and healthy relationship. Love languages are not static and can change over time, necessitating ongoing attention and adaptation. Building a reservoir of positive interactions (love tank) helps sustain a relationship through tough times. For serious relationship challenges, professional help may be necessary beyond just reading self-help books.
Join Charles and Dan as they embark on this insightful journey through "The 5 Love Languages for Men." Whether you're in a relationship or single, there's something valuable for everyone in this episode.
Be sure to subscribe to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast on your preferred podcast app, and check us out on YouTube for full video episodes. Let us know your thoughts and experiences with love languages in the comments. Enjoy the episode!
Tags: #LoveLanguages #GaryChapman #RelationshipAdvice #Men #Podcast #MindfullyMasculine #SelfHelp #Marriage #LoveTank #PersonalDevelopment
Welcome to the Mindfully Masculine Podcast. This is Charles Okay. So after an unexpected unannounced week off due to the Memorial Day holiday and some work stuff I had to get into and this cold that I caught and am still fighting, we are back and this is our first episode on the five love languages for men by Gary Chapman Love Languages for Men by Gary Chapman. We'll kick off this introduction with just some base level knowledge of what the book and his philosophy is about, as well as some of the main criticisms about the love languages. So please subscribe to the podcast on your chosen podcast app and you can check us out on YouTube for full video episodes and please enjoy and let us know what you think. Thanks, good morning, charles.
Charles:How are you? I'm doing very well, dan. Thank you. How are you? I am excellent, thank you. How's your? I guess today's friday. So how has your week's almost over? How's it been?
Dan:it's been good. It's been good. I've been consistent with my learning eastern armenian every morning on my walks. Okay, pimsleur courses highly recommend them. Yeah, it's an app. It's got a lot of good pronunciations for uh and it come through the previous chapters. In the current chapters, a lot of refresher. There's flash cards, a lot of really good interactive exercises like the gamify it, and I've realized the challenge I had going through college trying to learn German and Italian, which was I was too embarrassed to actually say and repeat the words. Even though we'd go to a lab and you'd have these little headphones and you could even have a cubicle by yourself, I was still too embarrassed. And that is the biggest difference on my walk by myself. I'm just a crazy guy who's talking to himself.
Charles:Who's?
Dan:muttering to himself, but so is everybody else when they're walking on the trail next to me.
Charles:Lake Mary is an interesting area. I never talk to myself while I'm walking, and neither does anybody I pass.
Dan:That's fair. That's fair. So maybe I'm the weird one, but it's only a first second and so I'm okay practicing and sounded like an idiot, but I really have enjoyed it. And I had an epiphany a little bit this morning, which was I'm getting very uncomfortable every time I start a new chapter because they're teaching us some other grammar concept or some new vocabulary and they'll say it at normal tone and it sounds like gobbledygook to me and I can't figure it out and I feel really dumb, I feel really ignorant when I first hear that and I have to listen to it probably each chapter 10 times. I replay until I'm comfortable with it. But I'm excited for this for my trip I realized that's the key for any type of change is figure out what you are really going to enjoy and make that uncomfortableness just something that you repeat over and over again.
Dan:So use that then for other habits, for other changes you want to make down the road. Just remember, hey, I was really uncomfortable learning Armenian. How did I get over that? And so you get used to and anticipate feeling uncomfortable and once I have that in my mind, it's a little bit easier than to maybe eat not quite as often, not give in to that urge, immediately Sit with that feeling, because I've been pretty uncomfortable these last like month of six weeks of listening to this Armenian and trying to speak it and stuff like that. But once you get it it feels really good and so get that little positive feedback.
Charles:Yeah, I meant to. I meant to ask you today as a matter of fact because I started looking up some small phrases that I might find useful on my upcoming trip. And it actually. It's looking. If you just stick to the tourist areas, you really don't need to even maybe get into the bottom of. Do you speak English or may I speak to you in English? Just learning how to say that as a courtesy. But yeah, from the looking I did on Reddit and some other sites, it's like if you're an American tourist and you're mainly going to the places that American tourists go, then everybody's going to be able to speak to you in English.
Dan:Oh yeah, it's not a. It's not a requirement to survive by any means. Yeah For sure.
Charles:So I'm just trying to decide okay, is it worth trying to learn a couple of phrases or just cause I'm sure they all understand? I'm sorry, I only speak English If I just say that. They just because I'm sure they all understand. I'm sorry, I only speak English If I just say that they're going to be like oh okay, I get exactly what this guy's saying. Even if they're not super fluent in English, they're going to know. Okay, this guy doesn't speak German. Again, I just want to. I want to be a good guest, I want to appreciate the hospitality that I'm shown going to somebody else's country, but I also don't want to waste a bunch of time trying to prep for something that I don't need to prep for.
Dan:Yeah, I think if you just make that effort for a couple of basic phrases like please thank you, that's interesting. Little things like that. I think that shows a little bit of respect at least.
Charles:Yeah, I see what you're saying. I always feel like if I'm at a Mexican restaurant and I say gracias, I feel like a poser. I don't feel like. You know what I mean.
Dan:I do too. You're right, that's fair, so it's like are you being a poser?
Charles:I feel like saying thank you in my native language, but doing it in a very genuine way would probably I don't know, I'm super critical and I'm always looking for people to act like posers. Maybe everybody's not like that.
Dan:Yeah, so the other difference is that the Mexican restaurants that you're going to aren't in Mexico either. They're here, florida Flowers, I know, but I'm saying I feel like, yeah, I feel like it's still nice as long as because it's showing that you're making an effort, I think.
Charles:Yeah, I guess I got to think about how.
Dan:It'd be different if you're trying to get something or trying to manipulate them by saying their native language. And it's just really just to kind of for me, just to show some respect, and I think you know we're going to Paris first. I hear that's for whatever reason, it's a bigger deal in Paris to try to speak a little bit in a restaurant and things like that.
Charles:Yes.
Dan:Than it is definitely in Germany. My experience in Germany is they're laid back and they're actually going to get excited because they're going to want to try their English out on you. It's not. You may not get an opportunity because they're like, oh, a native speaker, how good am I in English? Oh, yeah, okay.
Charles:I got that a lot Interesting. Yeah, I one of the things. When I went to Quebec city for the first time, one of the tips that I picked up was, instead of and I'm sure this up there everybody spoke English. But I'm sure this would apply even more in Paris, where the difference between asking someone, do you speak English? Versus may I speak to you in English Apparently, that courtesy is a big deal to go in with the may I speak to you in English? Oh, I didn't you know what?
Dan:I've never heard that, but that makes sense, sure.
Charles:Yeah, I could imagine it again. I worked retail at Disney so I talked to a lot of people that were foreign tourists and it never like the fact that they were. If they asked me, do you speak Spanish, do you speak French? They said it in English. I would. It didn't. I was like no, I'm sorry, I don't. Right. Yeah, but for some people I could see it coming across as a little more. It is a little more courteous to say may I speak to you in my language, instead of expecting that you're going to accommodate mine. I like it.
Dan:I'm going to look that up.
Charles:Yeah, so I was actually late last night. I was doing a little bit of research of how to say that in in German and I guess I need to look up and see what the primary languages are and all the places that I'm going. I guess it would be obviously in London, they're going to speak English. In Munich, they're going to speak German. In the Czech Republic. Are they going to speak in Prague? Are they speaking Czech? Are they speaking English? Are they speaking German?
Dan:Oh, definitely not German.
Charles:No, okay, yeah, but I'm not sure. Yeah, I might have to pick up a couple of phrases in check if I want to just get a lot of that might sound like German a lot of similarities in that area. And then I assume in Budapest they'll be speaking Hungarian. Yeah, it's, I'll do a little bit of research, but yeah, I'm not going to ramp myself up because you literally could just learn it on the ride over there on the train.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, you're fine.
Charles:You're fine. Okay, let's. Let's get into our next book, which I'm always so excited when we start a new, a new book, and then I actually start reading it and things start to annoy me and get on my nerves, but I think, okay, it's still good.
Dan:At least you're going in with optimism.
Charles:People are only listening to us to kiss the butts of every author that we are are exposed to.
Dan:Have we ever kissed any author's butt yet?
Charles:No, I think they're still waiting for us well, we, yeah, that's true, we uh yeah, even our first book that we did glove, dr julie. Oh, that's true, it's.
Charles:It's hard to think of anything she had in her book that wasn't perfect or close to it and I was gonna say, uh no, they haven't, because we haven't. I haven't done a sam Harris book or a Dr John Gottman book yet. Those are the only two guys that for the most part the stuff they write, I can't find an issue with any of this. But Dr Julie is on that list for me too. That's true. I forgot about it. There's nothing that she says in that book of hers. Why has nobody told me this before? Why has nobody told me this before? Yeah, that's probably the most positive experience of reviewing a book and not having to point out hey, here's a logical fallacy, here's an undocumented, unfalsifiable belief. There's none of that with that book, so it's a very easy one to read and talk about. Okay, we're doing five love languages for men by Gary Chapman with Randy Southern. I don't know exactly what to say.
Charles:Gary Chapman is an author, speaker and counselor. He does not appear to have a degree that he wanted or certification that he wanted to mention on the back cover of his book, which I would generally take to mean he doesn't have one. He probably I think he's a minister. I think that's what his background is, so he probably has a degree in Bible or pastoral counseling or something like that. I would say the way that he talks about relationships, the way a lot of his stories and his analogies and metaphors, they feel a lot as somebody who grew up going to church. They feel like sermon illustrations as much as they feel like, more than they feel, like case studies, you know what I mean.
Charles:I would say the audience that he primarily wrote this book for. Really all the love languages book, but particularly this one would be for men who are probably certainly men, who are husbands, because not once does he mention girlfriend, long-term partner, anything like that. Every, every single time he talks about a romantic relationship in this book, it's in the context of husband, wife marriage, never long-term girlfriend, long-term partner, anything like that Doesn't mean it doesn't apply.
Charles:Correct. It will apply in many cases. It's just if you're, like me, easily distracted by oh, I noticed that he always does this and never says this. Yeah, so if you're looking for reasons why this doesn't apply to you, you can definitely get the feeling from the way that he writes to you. You can definitely get the feeling from the way that he writes. But, like you said, I would argue you, yeah, any many of the books we cover, almost any of the books we cover there's going to be some things in them that don't feel like they were written specifically for you, but you can still get some good stuff out of them. Okay, yeah, I do want to talk about, before we get too far into it.
Charles:There are some people that have criticisms for the concept of love languages and the way that Chapman writes his books and puts them out there. One of those criticisms is that and he doesn't refer in this book and again, this is the only one of his that I think I read the original love languages book forever ago, but I don't remember hardly anything from it because it's been so long this one in particular, and I would say there's five, five, five languages or five books. There's a lot more than five books. I looked on his website. There's five love languages for anybody who could find a nickel. You could buy a love languages book that's written for you, and I actually ordered the one for singles because I wanted to compare how he talks about marriage in this one versus okay, if you're not married, because that's the other thing. I think he's going to classify you as either you're married or you're single, which is just not really accurate for the way that society functions. But that seems to be where he's coming from philosophically. But anyway, I wanted to say that, yeah, the five love languages in this book he does not make any reference to any sort of academic study.
Charles:Or, yeah, there does not seem to be like the method for how he came up with his questionnaire, the method for how he defined that there's five languages instead of four or six. If you're somebody who likes to be wooed and impressed on the academic side, you're not going to find anything like that by probably anecdotes and stories and pastoral counseling sessions he encountered while he was working with people in a church congregation and then he took those anecdotes and those Nick feels likes and he made a framework and a book around it. Where it's not. Here's the process by which we came up with this questionnaire to find out what your love language is. Here's how and why we defined it as five languages instead of four or six. So it feels like working off of experience and vibes to me more than working off of academic research, and you know how I love personal experience and vibes.
Charles:So, again, if you're looking for a reason to discount this, that would be one of the ones that you could choose that there is no, or very little scientific basis or scholarship that went into him putting this framework together. Some would say he has oversimplified that human expressions of love are too complicated to drill down into five distinct flavors. Some would say that you're shoehorning or forcing people into choosing one of these five, when maybe their overlap between two is very equal and maybe that represents a sixth kind of love language. When you have equal parts of this one and that one, that's actually a whole different thing.
Dan:Yeah, my, my criticism along those lines is he keeps using the term bilingual, which to me means you've got one and you need to learn one more, and so that doesn't make any sense to me, because he's having you learn all five love languages in this book, but yet he's telling you to become bilingual. That's more than just two, that's true. You know what I'm saying, and so I agree with that. That's a great point.
Charles:I didn't think about that. The other way I think about that is when you consider that the divorce rate inside of evangelical Christianity or churches is pretty close to the same divorce rate as it is outside of the church. It's like there's a lot of guys reading this book that it's it may be their second or third go around with this book because it's their second or third marriage. And so, yeah, bilingual assumes that you grew up with your love language and then now you're learning your wife's love language. What if you're learning your third wife's love language and you've already been through this a couple of times? Then you're going to be tri or quadlingual depending, although that doesn't take into account that you're probably marrying pretty much the same woman each time.
Charles:We do have a tendency to do that. We do have a tendency to do that. We do have a tendency to do that. Okay, the potential for misunderstanding which, yeah, if partners focus solely on their own language or their partner's primary language, they might neglect other meaningful ways.
Charles:Because I would say that, based on the circumstances that you and your partner are experiencing, as far as various crises in life whether that's with illness or job loss or any kind of other economic problem issues with your children, it could be like okay, for this particular crisis, the love language that is the most necessary is one that is neither of our primaries. But to get through this in a way that we're not traumatized, we have to focus more on quality time, for example, even though quality time might not be either of our primary love languages. So I think that's a legitimate criticism. A couple of these that I don't think are very legitimate. They seem like they might've been brought up by someone who hasn't actually read the book. Focus on receiving over giving. This framework can promote a focus on what we receive from a partner rather than learning how to express love in ways our partner appreciates.
Dan:That's exact opposite.
Charles:Yeah, this book's Advocating in this book and maybe that's because we're reading the version for men, so he's just okay for men we need to focus more on what they give to their wife than what they receive themselves, which would be a little bit of a gendered stereotype, but also probably accurate in most relationships.
Dan:Yeah, from what I've read so far, I don't get the impression at all he's really focusing on and telling us to pay attention to our wives or our partners, rather than trying to understand how to get something other than making them happy and getting a better relationship right out of it. I don't. I totally disagree on that. Yeah, I disagree.
Charles:It's a focus on receiving it's not, I would say my, if anything, my criticism for again, this specific volume, made for men, is the opposite. It's focusing far more on how to give your wife in a way that she can accept than it is how to understand what you need and how to communicate what you need. I think, yeah, if anything, it tends it's close to a balance, but I think it tends a little bit more on okay, guys, it's your job to learn your wife's love language and how that you, how you could fill her love tank, which we'll talk about that concept in a second. I think yeah, it's.
Charles:If this particular book has a problem, or this edition has a problem, it's focusing on giving over receiving, I would say Neglecting individual differences. Again, I disagree with this one. The importance of each love language can vary significantly across individuals and cultures. That's why it talks about you filling out the little quiz or questionnaire and your wife filling out the quiz or questionnaire. I don't need to worry about some stranger's love language who lives in a different country with a different culture, and I feel like this book does a pretty good job of saying you need to be concerned with.
Dan:It's an individual thing. Yes, not a group.
Charles:Yeah, I didn't hear anything to the lines of men all have this love language, women all have this one, italians all have this one, swedes all have that one. He doesn't do anything like that. So I think that criticism is a little not really hitting the mark Static interpretation. So that's an important one. Your love language can change over time and, I believe, does change over time. It has for me, or at least what I thought my love language was, has changed, and we'll talk about that a little bit more when we get into the chapter. That I think is relevant for what my current love language is as well as what I think it used to be.
Charles:But I would say that, yeah, you should probably not, you know, do this book, go to this book once at the start of your relationship and then just assume that everything is going to be static forever. I don't know that. I've gotten to a part of the book yet and I'm almost done with it, but I haven't finished the whole thing. I think there is a troubleshooting chapter toward the end where he might say revisit the quiz and see if you're changed or unchanged. But whether he suggested or not, I think that's probably a good idea. Ignoring relationship dynamics. Yeah, I do agree with this one. It doesn't sufficiently address how communication styles, conflict resolution and overall relationship health can affect the way love is expressed. And I would even go further to say he doesn't seem to get very heavy into childhood trauma and your previous relationship experiences and how that can affect your ability to take the necessary risks to speak to your partner in the language that she needs to hear.
Dan:If you're dealing with anything like conflict resolution and overall relationship health, this is not the book for you. You want to get a book that's dedicated to just those topics, I think, to dig in if that's what you're looking for?
Charles:Yes, and that's something you and I talked about before we started recording this book. I feel is the main audience would be fairly healthy people, fairly healthy men who just need some tips on how to tune things up and make them better. But, yeah, if you're a trauma survivor, if you regularly are struggling with things like any kind of an addiction or profound shame or fear of vulnerability, which a lot of guys have, those issues we talked about a lot of those constantly when we were doing no more. Mr Nice guy, yeah, you might have some foundational work you have to do first before you pick up a book like this and just start cherry picking things to try.
Charles:Because, look, speaking when you lack the security and confidence to get uncomfortable, expressing love for someone in a way that you're not used to, that that's a big ask. And, yeah, doing some of that internal work first is going to be absolutely necessary so that you can get right. And you may not be comfortable sharing words of affirmation with somebody, because you probably got very little of them when you were growing up and learning how to be comfortable with other languages does require a certain base level of mental health, I would say, and you may have the greatest intentions to start finding out what your wife or partner's love language is and start speaking to her in that language. But then you just find yourself unable to do it, not because of laziness and not because you don't care, but just because, wow, this is too difficult for me. I don't know what. This only feels uncomfortable. I'm not used to this. I don't know how to do it right. And then that puts you in a position where, okay, you got some work to do.
Dan:Yeah, now, a lot of the stuff is going to make you feel a little uncomfortable, but if you are struggling with this, or just reading it is making you feel really uncomfortable and really anxious, that might be a good indication that you need to dig a little bit deeper in in in certain areas and maybe seek out some professional help, because you might be have experienced things in your past that you're just not even aware of, and this, these activities, might bring that to the surface. This doesn't seem like a big deal, but when you actually go to think about it or do it, you're feeling overwhelmed. That might be a good indication. All right, maybe time to go get some professional help in that specific area, because these aren't super comfortable things.
Charles:but at the same time, they shouldn't paralyze you in fear either. No, either that would get in the way of you trying to do these new things. Then you probably need to. Yeah, so far I've not and again, I'm almost done with the book Not once has he recommended hey, man, you might want to consider some therapy.
Charles:That has not come up once in this book, and it's very unusual for us to do any kind of a book on mental health or even overall even self-care for men. At some point talked about the value in finding a therapist, and that book is mostly massages and baths and crystals. But at some point it was still important enough for the author to say, hey, you might need to consider finding a therapist. The fact that I'm almost done with this book and I don't remember him, and as we go, we're going to go through it with a fineoth comb as we do.
Charles:Maybe something that I missed will come to my attention, but so far I have not heard him explicitly say there are problems you might have that this book won't fix, which is another thing that feels a little evangelical, churchy to me, the idea that there could be things outside of my primary skill set that you might need that I can't provide and you might have to go somewhere else to find that. Yeah, you don't want to send people away? That's not a thing. Yeah, growing up in the church, that is not a thing that we were taught to tell people. Okay, potential for manipulation I'm not too concerned about this one. If you are a bit of a love bomber and you exploit and manipulate people in relationships, maybe finding out somebody's love language and then using that to get what you want out of them is a possibility.
Dan:But I feel like yeah, it's not like instructions on how to build a nuclear bomb or anything where like getting that published online. You know what I'm saying.
Charles:It's a little different, I feel like people, men who, if that's already your thing, that you don't need. You don't need the offerings of this book to figure out how to do that and appealing people.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:You're probably already pretty skilled at that and this book isn't going to add a whole lot to your repertoire. Commercialization yeah, I do. Just going on his website this morning, you can take the Love Languages quiz on his website. It will tell you your primary language, but if you want to find out how the other four rank, then you have to spend $35 to get that answer. And, as I said, there is a different love languages book for whatever your demographics are A young, old, teen, single man, woman he will sell you a book based on whatever you are, that is specifically designed for your demographic, which we went with the one for men because I think it's most relevant to our audience of either men or women who want to understand what's out, what resources are out there for men. But yeah, it is a little. He's definitely commercialized this into workshops and books and premium online content and stuff like that I've got no problem with that whatsoever, I don't have a problem with it.
Charles:I don't think there's an issue. Somebody does the work to create something that people want to buy, then the people who buy it and the people who sell it don't need me trying to guilt them out of what they want.
Dan:No, and that's the thing is. I don't think that should be on the list of criticisms, because he's, in effect, by saying it's love languages for men, for teens, for women, he's actually speaking a language that speaks to his potential audience, right so for men, and he uses examples, stereotypical examples of men and activities that men like to do, and he probably does the same thing in those other formats as well, and so to me, he's he is practicing what he preaches. He is using the language that the majority of those people stereotypically respond to and can identify with I good for him.
Charles:Okay, my, my counter argument to that is if Dr Julie released a, why has nobody told me this before? For men, women, teens, children, singles, divorcees, it would give me a little bit of it. You wouldn't feel that.
Dan:Not at all. Not at all Because I'd be curious, I'd be like, oh, what kind of considerations is she bringing to light that a common teen or a common mom or would encounter in this situation? And I would, if there was one of those that was like identified for me, I would I'd go for it.
Charles:okay, but what if you read the original and then read the one for men and you're like, okay, she crowbarred a couple of references in here for men, but it's not not really any new stuff?
Dan:I have no problem with her because maybe she'll reach more people. I've got no problem with them making it's still good information. It'd be different if it was she was leveraging the success of the first book and then the other stuff that she's putting out. She's writing the coattails of that and that other stuff is crap. That's true?
Charles:yeah, Then I would have a little bit of a problem. Or if she just put out why has nobody told me this before for men and she just put a dark blue or a black cover on this exact same book.
Dan:Even then, I still again. If the information is still of quality and is still the same, I've got no problem with that. Where I have it is. Where I feel to bait and switch is if it's garbage information or garbage product and you're using the halo effect of the success of the first product. That's where I would be like you gotta be. You know, buyer beware yeah, that's fair for me anyway, that's what I'm saying.
Charles:I remember back in the day when howard stern used to make fun of rush limbaugh, because what one of the things that rush limbaugh would sell to his listeners, his fans. He would basically go and go through a company to get what's essentially a $99 black leather chair from Staples and he would put the EIB excellence in broadcasting embroidered logo on it and then sell it for six or eight times what you would pay if you got it at Staples. Oh, my God, yeah. And so Howard would tease him about that. Bill o'reilly was famous for doing stuff like that too. Where it's this no spin zone three ring binder that's essentially a four dollar binder that I put my logo on and charge you forty dollars for.
Charles:I guess this is not that, but I still. Yeah, the all the different flavors and stuff that's out there, and particularly the idea of the, the workshop, the couples retreat that you go to. That is again seemingly not based on any real academic or scientific process. It's more of just a. We will sell the five love languages workbook to your Sunday school class and then we will come by eight weeks later to promote the marriage workshop that we're doing in your area, where, yeah, it's. Look if it's working for people. I got no problem with people spending money on things that work for them in the absence of scientific proof that it's actually doing anything. If it works for you, that by all means have at it. But it's still going to either annoy me or turn me off a little bit.
Charles:So that's my thing, though that's not their thing. Okay, so let's talk about yeah, he does talk about being bilingual, as you mentioned, having the language that you understand and speaking by default, and then going the extra mile to learn the love language of your partner so that you can speak to her in the way that she can hear you, in the way that she'll get value out of it. And he does have an example of I think it was three guys at the beginning of this chapter that did some pretty elaborate, romantic seeming things for their partner. And then he finishes that by saying, yeah, but if those big, elaborate things they planned were not in their partner's?
Dan:love language. It was meaningless.
Charles:Yeah, might as well have just bought him a greeting card.
Dan:It was Chinese takeout and a greeting card and I was like, no, that's not. The first example was a guy who basically took 18 months to plan a superhero themed wedding for his wife.
Charles:It was on their 10th anniversary. Oh, that's what it was okay, did their wedding reception with all these interests that she had? Yeah, I feel like, if you're not a woman who can appreciate the amount of effort that went into that, I think any human regardless of the love language.
Charles:Yes, I agree with that yes, that wasn't a good example for him to lead off if somebody did anything for me that required that level of effort, and it wasn't. Look, this is a woman who hates crowds and hates being the center of attention, directly speaking to an anxiety or a fear that she has. Yeah, then she's going to appreciate that amount of effort that you took to to make something like that happen, yeah. So, yeah, I did feel like him boiling it down to yeah, but if it's not there, if you don't read this book and get everything from this book, you might make this mistake where you put in all this work and all this effort and it turns out you might as well just written I love you.
Charles:On a post-it note a little bit of an extreme example, yeah which yeah, again, that is extreme examples seems to be the one of the hallmarks of a good sermon illustration, and a lot of this stuff is coming across as sermon illustrations.
Charles:So, yeah, everyone has a primary love language, a way of expressing devotion and affection that touches us deep inside, occasionally puts a goofy grin on our face and leaves no doubt that we are truly and spectacularly loved. Again, this would be the place that a normal book would have a little footnote where he references the academic work that supports him saying this. But yeah, everyone has a primary love language. Just accepting that as a fact without anything to back it up Okay, since I really trust my preacher, who told me I needed to buy and read this book, I'll just accept that on faith. But that's not where you and I come from. With any of the books that we review, we're not just going to accept any of this stuff and we're going to evaluate it, and that's a pretty big claim to make without any kind of supporting evidence, in my opinion.
Dan:Now, in my opinion, is I don't need a scientific study for every single thing that somebody says either. So I try to, just I try to say hey, does this apply to me? And then, logically and emotionally speaking, could I see it applying to other people? And I do, and I do, and I can, and in terms of that, we that there is some sort of way that we all resonate with more than others in terms of the way we felt, we feel cared about, and that's the way I think about it. And so I don't need a scientific study to prove every single thing. But I see your point, but I, for me, I don't.
Charles:Yeah, no. When I read most of the concepts in this book, they feel like they're probably true. But I could be wrong, I could be fooled, I could be misled, I might. They might not be right, but they feel right Intuitively. Looking at the list of love languages, words of affirmation, quality time, gift giving, acts of service and physical touch, nothing pops into my head where I'm like aha, he forgot number six and and here's what it is.
Dan:I did, and it was peanut butter. Clearly that's my primary, and it's like the book isn't speaking to me.
Charles:Oh boy, I do like peanut butter. I had peanut butter for dinner last night yeah, I got out the jar and the spoon and just didn't feel like getting up and cooking anything. Didn't feel like going to get anything, so I just popped open a can of Coke Zero and a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter.
Dan:That's why I didn't forget. I mean, I definitely feel loved when I'm eating peanut butter.
Charles:Yeah, but he, I know you're joking, but yeah, obviously he couldn't put something in there as different as peanut butter or something like, or flowers or something like that. Right, so these yeah, I can't think of a competing number six love language that would feel like it belongs in with these five.
Charles:These five feel like they pretty much cover just about everything right Form of communication and maybe one could argue because some of them are a little too broad. Like you could say, quality time is a little too broad. There's so many things that could be considered. Quality time or acts of service is a little too broad. That's like anything you do for somebody is an act of service. Some of these could be drilled and that's where he gets into dialects later on.
Dan:Exactly, and I was going to say that's. One of my biggest takeaways from this was that there are dialects and I've read the original five love languages years ago and he may have talked about it in that book.
Charles:I didn't remember it I forgot.
Dan:Yeah, I, I forgot. Yeah, I don't remember that. But reading in this I was just like, oh, I like that idea. Here is dialects you need to hone in, and to me it was just a way of saying look, you really need to pay attention to your wife or your partner and find out what they like, what they don't like. And I think, at a bottom, the bottom line here is, no matter what you're doing, the fact that you're trying to do something, I think, shows that you care and that you want to make an effort and you want to make things a little bit better, right, even if you?
Charles:don't get it exactly right, and we've talked on numerous books about the difference between taking care of someone and caretaking someone where it's okay.
Charles:Am I giving them what I need to give them, or am I giving them what they need to receive?
Charles:And when you focus on just giving people what you need to give them so that you can feel about yourself the way you want to feel, then, yeah, that's going to lead to dissatisfaction and resentment.
Charles:And that brings me to the concept of the love tank where, yeah, basically, as you live with somebody and go through life with somebody, you guys are going to have ups and downs, due to both how you react and relate to one another, as well as external pressures on your relationship, and the idea that you can do things on a daily basis that will make deposits into your partner's love tank.
Charles:That means that when you guys do go through a difficult season of things like illness or economic challenges or whatever, the more fuels in that love tank, the longer you're going to be able to cruise down the road instead of okay, something big is happening, now we should probably break up or have daily fights about it or whatever. And so I do see value in that concept and I think that it doesn't just apply to this book and this framework like the idea of, as you water your plant all the time as you should, then when water gets low or you leave town for a couple of days, it's got a much better shot at surviving than if you just only trickle in a couple of drops now and then. When you think about it, then when anything either a parasite hits it or you just forget to water it because you left town and didn't make arrangements yeah, it's not going to be as resilient as if you were taking care of it all the time.
Dan:Yeah, I like the expression the grass is greener where you water it the most, right. The other thing that was interesting to me was when he's talking about the love tank and people speaking different love languages at the beginning of the relationship, so when you first get together with somebody. I thought that was interesting was that, because you're so excited about the newness of the relationship, you find yourself speaking all the love languages.
Charles:Both giving and receiving Right.
Dan:Absolutely.
Charles:Yeah, yes, you and I use the-.
Dan:And don't realize, perhaps, what that person really needs the most Correct.
Charles:Don't realize, perhaps, what that person really needs the most Correct, because anything you do for them is going to be received as if it's their primary love language. And, yeah, and anything they do for you is going to be received as if it's your problem, because you're just so excited and we use the metaphor all the time of being on. It's like you're on drugs. Yep, it's like you're on drugs. And, yeah, if you're taking a high enough dose of sub stimulant let be it Adderall, probably cocaine, probably MDMA it's like somebody could just give you a unbuttered piece of wonder bread. Your reaction is going to be like oh my God, this is amazing, this is the best thing I've ever eaten.
Charles:And that is the experience that you have when you are just infatuated and falling in love with someone at the beginning of the relationship.
Charles:It's like anything they do for you, about you, toward you, is going to feel like oh my God, this is the best I've ever felt in my whole life. And, as you and I, and everybody probably listening to this, both know, that wears off eventually. And then at that point you have to decide OK, are we just going to say, oh, that wears off eventually and I don't get to ever feel anything like that again. You're certainly never going to feel exactly like that again in either this relationship or your next relationship. Every falling in love experience, and the kind of euphoria that it brings, is always different, and it's going to be different even if you stay with the same person for the rest of your life. It's never going to feel exactly the same as it did in the beginning. One of the ways people respond to that is they just write it off and say, oh, that was the honeymoon phase and now we've been together long enough where we just are. We're just. We're just roommates that have sex.
Dan:You summed it up right there with that, sometimes Just the quote, just and it just. I could hear your voice trail down in terms of and you're right, we don't need to be that way. I think we can definitely get closer to the honeymoon phase if we're speaking and receiving the support and the feedback and the experiences in our love languages.
Charles:Yes, I would agree that. Yes, the goal should not be that. Yes, the goal should not be. And unless there are some people that will struggle with levels of love, addiction, sex addiction, things like that, where it's, no, I need that, I need that drug level euphoria all the time. And if I don't get that, then I got to leave this relationship and start up a new one so that I can get it from that one. But that is. That is not the kind of behavior that this book is talking about, nor is it the kind of behavior that we recommend you just accept as oh, that's just how I am, so that's the way I'm going to live. The rest of my life is jumping from infatuation to infatuation or limerence to limerence. But yeah, that is a good point. And you will definitely feel at the beginning like, okay, this is great. Everything she does for me makes me feel loved and seemingly everything I do for her makes her feel loved. I finally met the right person and it's just going to be easy.
Dan:And that is a false assumption that we can often make. So have you ever had any mismatched love languages in any relationships, romantic or otherwise? Family, not just romantic.
Charles:That's a good question, I would say.
Charles:In romantic relationships I've only had mismatches, and I think there's a good reason for that. I think that we are typically one of the things Dr Glover said and I don't think he said it in no More Mr Nice Guy or any of his other books. I think I only heard him say this on a podcast he was interviewed on and I've heard other professionals say this too the idea that we are attracted to partners who embody the negative characteristics of both our parents, with someone who has these characteristics where it makes them unlikely to be able to meet my emotional needs. If I get into that relationship and yet somehow I'm able to figure out a way to get my needs met in this relationship, then that means that I was okay when I was a kid and I've repaired that damage that happened to me when I was a kid, because now I'm with this partner who has the same problems my mom and dad had, but I was. I figured out a way to navigate this relationship and get what I need from them anyway. So now I feel okay.
Charles:Or about what happened to me when I was a kid, yeah, and I think it speaks to me, yes, and I think as part of that, it's very likely that they have a a different primary love language than you do, because I think that the you're and again that's something where it feels like he could have gotten how are these primary love languages formed, like he? As far as I could tell, he doesn't address that at all.
Dan:The other thing that I have heard and I don't remember where that came from was that we may have different love languages in terms of the way we feel love versus the way we typically like to express love. And he doesn't. At least, I've only gotten in a couple of chapters into this, so I don't know if he addresses it down later in the book, but I know sometimes that rings true for me.
Charles:Yeah, the giving versus receiving language. Yeah, I think that would only make sense that there would be and maybe it often overlaps where we find it easiest to communicate in the language that we're used to receiving. But I would I'm not sure that's the case, I feel. I feel like the. I feel like your primary love language is very likely to have some relationship to the needs you did not get met when you were a kid. And it seems to me like and again I'm just maybe his attitude was look, I don't have the qualifications to open up this can of worms, so I'm just going to not address it.
Charles:But I would be curious to see if there are actual certified, licensed, practicing mental health professionals who have adopted the framework of the five love languages and said and here's why yours is this instead of that. And here's how we can roll back the clock and look at this experience and say this is why receiving gifts means so much to you, or this is why physical contact means so much to you. And, yeah, I do feel like that level of understanding of both yourself and your partner would be pretty beneficial to understand exactly how that love language developed and the fact that we're coming in what feels like halfway through the story with our partner to just say, hey, take this test and tell me what it says so that I can know what your love language is and not know how that relates to her relationship with her mom or her dad or where she was in the sibling order. I feel like all those things must be a factor in generating your primary love language.
Dan:Our childhood really influences who we are as adults.
Charles:Yeah, how could it not be a factor right, and how could knowing that information about your partner not be helpful? I think it would have to be.
Dan:Yeah, sounds like it's an opportunity for you to put together a couple lists of questions for people right to dig into that.
Charles:Yeah, maybe I could see if there are people.
Dan:You already came up with five of them off the top of your head, just sitting here.
Charles:So yeah, maybe there are people out there talking about it that are professionals and we might be able to bring into this conversation.
Dan:That'd be a great idea, I'd like that Okay.
Charles:Yeah, he does get into a little bit about the. What happens when the honeymoon period wears off, where you are not feeling like every single thing they do is in your love language and every single thing you do for them is so some chalk it up to the natural course of love and romance. We talked about that already. Some will blame busyness and pressures of everyday life.
Dan:Yeah.
Charles:Some will allow their frustrations and unmet needs to fester and spark conflicts and accusations. Some will suffer in silence, with each partner thinking something is wrong with him or her. Some will eventually convince themselves that they made a mistake in getting married in the first place. Look, that definitely happens. Oh, I know.
Charles:But, that's coming to that conclusion and I would say, based on what we know about statistics from breakups, I think it's usually the woman who goes there before the guy does that just says I married the wrong person. They can't speak to me in my love language. Maybe it's time to. And yeah, 75, 70 to 75 percent of breakups are initiated by women. Is it that much yeah, so I think you have a scientific study to show that thanks.
Charles:Now I've got to either edit that out or put it in the notes, so thanks for creating more work for me. I appreciate that my pleasure, anytime yes, I'll address that.
Charles:Yeah, he does make listen if you like. If you like sports or movies about sports, boy, this is the book for you, because you are going to get tons of sports analogies and references to movies about sports. One of the things he talks about is the challenge of becoming fluid in another fluent, in another love language is working on your golf swing, where, if you go to a pro and say, hey, I need some help on my swing, biggest jobs and where they spend a lot of their time working with you is going to be getting you out of the bad habits that instinctively and intuitively felt like, oh, this is probably a good way to swing a golf club. It's like, nope, not so much. And so you have to let go of some of those bad habits.
Charles:And I think the bad habit in this case would be sort of interpreting everything about how you love someone and how you communicate love with someone through the filter of your own primary love language.
Charles:Like seeing you could unconsciously be walking around with this idea of there's plenty of ways to do nice things for people, but the only way you can really communicate that you love someone is through physical contact or through quality time or through words, whatever it happens to be, or even giving gifts yeah, you should be nice to your partner and all these other ways, but the only way you really show somebody you love them is by buying them something, and I have no doubt that I have definitely lived my life that way and some have shown up to some of my relationships that way.
Charles:Where it's yeah, I get, it's nice to do all these other things, but the only way you really show somebody you love them is X Me too Absolutely yeah, and being able to take yourself out of what you're used to thinking and feeling every day of your whole life and say, oh no, there's another way to look at this and I have to adopt that so that this person, my favorite person in the world that I care about more than anybody else, isn't feeling from me what they need to feel for me for this relationship to work. And, yeah, the vulnerability, the curiosity. There's a lot that has to go into you coming to the decision to all. Right, I've got to take on this project now and I've got to make this work because my default setting is not giving them what they need.
Dan:It's really tough if you have achieved some sort of success or you're really intelligent in certain areas, to then go back into beginner's mindset and to be humble enough to go hey, listen, I really don't know much about this at all and I have to let go of my ego that has been really well built up and massaged, probably because I have some sort of success in life. And the older we get, I think, the more likely we are to fall into that category.
Charles:Yeah, I've referenced before with my conversations with you that, being in the tech business and primarily working, the majority of my clients now are not just small businesses that are owned by a single guy, but I've worked a lot with small businesses that are owned by a single guy. But I've worked a lot with small businesses that are owned by a single guy, and so this guy has built up his company from nothing and gotten some level of success in his community and his industry. And then what you sometimes have to then deal with is okay, as your technology professional, I'm advising you do this and the answer is yeah, but I was on a flight the other day and the Delta magazine that was in the seat back it talked about going to the cloud. So I think I want to go to the cloud and then I'm like, yeah, but here's why that's not the best option for you right now. And it's like, yeah, but this article made it.
Charles:It's hard to tell.
Charles:It's hard to tell the quote unquote self-made man, which we could argue about whether the self-made man is a myth or actually exists, but it's hard to tell the self-made man, or the man who thinks he's self-made, it's hard to give advice on anything that goes against what he thinks is the right thing to do.
Charles:And when it really comes to any relationship advice, especially somebody who's been in a relationship for a certain length of time and they feel like their needs have been met from that relationship and they feel this is producing. I'm living in the kind of house I want to live in, I've got the number of kids I want to have, and who are you to tell me the advisors? Your partner? You're sitting in this office or reading this book for a reason, and either you spontaneously decided to take on the task of personal development and some self-improvement or you're trying to solve a problem, and it's hard to solve a problem when your attitude is I don't really have a problem, I'm okay, I'm just doing this to meet somebody's request, but this is my problem to fix.
Dan:Yeah, it's got to sting enough for you to wake up, I feel.
Charles:Correct. You can get nagged into reading a book like this, but you can't get nagged into changing who you are based on what you learn from a book like this?
Dan:Yeah, one of the things I think, unfortunately, it comes down to is lack of intimacy at some point. I know, at least anecdotally, I've heard a lot of times where, you know, after people have been married for a while, the sex life goes down the drain and where it's not what it used to be. It's and this could be one of the reasons why is that? You just don't have that connection with your partner anymore? And this is a very good incentive for stereotypical man, right? Yeah, guys like sex, so it's. You don't have that that. Maybe that's stinging enough that you're not having sex the way you used to or as often as you used to. You don't feel as close anymore. That might be an incentive to learn some other languages.
Charles:Yeah, and that is certainly a challenge that many relationships experience on. Obviously, every relationship is different. You can't say everything's the same just because, oh, straight man, straight woman, here's how it's going to work. But there certainly is a problem or an issue that arises where men can often feel their emotional connection with their wife is improved, or they really they feel it strongly from the act of sex, where on the other side, women don't really feel like they want the physical act of sex if they don't already have the emotional connection. So you've got one partner who's I need to have sex to feel connected to you, and the other partner is I need to feel connected to you, to want to have sex. And so then you will find yourself in this cycle where neither person's getting what they want and neither one wants to say, okay, I'll be the one to only give even though I'm not receiving, because then what if I'm the first one to give but then I never get it back? Or yeah, there's a lot of very complex, vulnerable issues that can come up on both sides, and that's when a qualified third party is probably a good idea of maybe a book, I would say, in most cases when there's a problem that serious going on.
Charles:Don't waste your time reading books, listening to podcasts. Get your butt in a room with somebody who's a professional and say, okay, this is a five alarm fire that is burning up our relationship and we need to address it now. Not, oh, let me try this book. That book didn't work. Let me try another book. It's okay. You only have so much time before things degrade to the point where they're not. You're not gonna be able to get it back.
Dan:Fair.
Charles:Okay, dan. Yeah, that covers what I wanted to, from this very short introductory chapter to essentially the rest of the book and how you and I are planning on covering it for the podcast. We're going to then spend one episode each on the five love languages. That's where we're going next, so the first one we're going to cover is going to be words of affirmation.
Charles:And when was the last time you've taken this test before right? No, I've never taken one of his tests. I don't think you just have intuited what you think your language is yeah or I took something online.
Dan:I don't think it was an official.
Charles:Okay, gotcha.
Dan:Five love languages marketed official copyright test or whatever, All right we're going to record our next episode.
Charles:Did you say 1 o'clock or 12 is when you're done?
Dan:One.
Charles:Perfect. It's a short quiz. You can take the free one on his website, where it only gives you your number one love language. Okay, and we will do that before the next episode so that you and I can talk about what our primaries are. Love it All right, cool, I will talk to everybody. I'll talk to you in two seconds and I'll talk to everybody else next week. Thanks, dan, yep. Thank you Bye. Wow, you made it through the whole thing, so you must like us at least a little bit.
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