In 1992, Gary Chapman wrote a book called The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate. The book gives five ways people express love and expect to receive love. Chapman calls these "love languages." They are: acts of service, receiving gifts, physical touch, quality time and words of affirmation. The book was spot-on, groundbreaking and useful to many. We do have ways of expressing love, and we feel most loved when someone recognizes our way of receiving and gives to us in that way. The trouble with all generalizations, love languages are used to define and evaluate under those terms. We put people in boxes, and boxes tend to alienate rather than unify. I know that wasn’t Chapman’s intention, but in a me-first society, it is easy to make it all about me and leave the spouse out of it entirely. It is not a question of what my spouse’s love language is and how can I make him/her feel loved. We expect to have him/her recognize our language and everything must revolve around my love language and how I expect to be treated.
My parents were married for half a century, and they never read Chapman’s book. My parents outlasted the Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and are making it through the War on Terror. They lasted through chicken pox, measles, flu epidemics, accidents, surgeries, heart attacks, strokes, blindness, deafness, nervous breakdowns and broken bones. They scrimped through driving school bus, working on the Forest Service watch fire tower, working shift work on the paper mill, driving log truck and selling eggs. They weathered snowstorms, droughts, locoweed, lightning storms, windstorms, hailstorms, and squash and potato bugs. They cowboyed their small herd of cattle through rustlers, 6 feet of snow, broken fences, pinkeye, coyotes, wild motorists, low prices, bottomless markets and government regulations. They nurtured six kids from birth, to toddler, to teenager to marriages, to grandbabies, to grandparents. They left a legacy few will ever accomplish.
Marriage is not a walk in the bright gardens of life where the path leads through a plethora of blooming delights and sweet aromas of love. Marriage is climbing through the roughest terrain Earth has to offer. It is canyons of misunderstanding with steep and rugged cliffs to climb. It is raging rivers of tears and unrequited emotion to ford, and mountains of unforeseen tragedy and adversity, interlaced with a few hand-in-hand walks under the stars through hand-grown gardens of your own making. Marriage is not for the faint of heart or the love blind. It is the wide-open eyes of commitment intermingled with acts of charity. Like the old saying, “I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it.”
My parents lived by a double standard. In other words, they expected more of themselves than they expected of each other. They didn’t even know about love languages. Mom took on the housework with all the vigor of any pioneer housewife, and Daddy worked out of the home providing for the family. Pretty standard for the good old days, but when it came to the division of chores, they both pitched in without being nagged or cajoled. The garden belonged to both of them. Daddy cooked breakfast and washed dishes. He helped kids with homework and picked up after himself. He cleaned toilets and made beds. He stayed up nights, walked the floor with sick children and read stories to his children when his eyes were half shut from want of sleep. Mom rode horses to gather cattle. She ran the branding iron and kept the tally. She helped the cattle birth their calves. She milked the cows and mothered her children while she drove the tractor to plant and harvest corn. She helped get winter firewood and built fences. Both Daddy and Mom worked to harvest and store food for winter. Neither of them looked at the other and complained, “I’m working like a dog. Why don’t you do your fair share?” They were concerned more with doing their fair share than monitoring what the other person was doing.
From them, I learned and formulated my own philosophy of marriage that helped me weather the storms of married life.
Ten commandments of a lasting marriage
1. Put the Lord first in your marriage. Put your spouse in second place only to the Lord.
If you put the Lord first, you will always have your priorities straight. He will school your desires and passions and will fill you with compassion. You will be able to see life from your spouse’s point of view.
2. Don’t let any person, device, machine, game or hobby take more time than the family.
There are so many distractions these days – television, internet, games, movies, smartphones and gadgets that take our time. Most of them are individual entertainments. We can be totally alone amid a crowd. Marriage is a partnership, not a solo flight. You can’t build memories of togetherness staring at your smartphone. Your spouse is your best friend and will be with you to your last day. You want him/her beside you, not a stranger dressed in medical attire.
3. Don’t call your spouse derogatory names, even in jest, or gossip behind his/her back.
It is easy to get angry at your spouse and weep on the shoulder of a friend, but there is a price to pay when you do that. Your friend is apt to give you the wrong advice and destroy your marriage. He/she might not keep your problems confidential, and then your dirty laundry is all over town. Even intimate moments should be kept between husband and wife. What happens in the bedroom should stay in the bedroom. Some things should always be sacred. The act of inviting God’s children into the world is a sacred act whether you are intending to have children or just expressing love. Make your spouse your hero or heroine. You will be surprised how he/she will act the part.
4. Take one day a week to have a date away from everyone else. Labor equally.
Selfishness always has a measuring stick to make sure the scales of labor and love are equal. Compassion and true love never use a measuring stick. They simply give and give to make sure others are not giving too much.
5. Honor the in-laws on both sides, but don’t let them come between you.
It is easy to run to Mom or Dad to solve your problems. No matter how wonderful they are, they can get in the way of working out your own marital difficulties. That is not to say, don’t ask for their advice; just make sure you and your spouse make the final decision together.
6. Physical and emotional abuse are off-limits.
Hurtful words and physical abuse have no place in a marriage. I have learned if you can’t be persuasive in a calm way, you are probably pushing a selfish agenda, or you haven’t taken time to talk it over with the Lord. Take a break and try to wear the other person’s shoes for a while. Pray for a soft heart and the gift of discernment and understanding.
7. Do not commit adultery or do anything like unto it.
Adultery is a thing of the heart, not just a physical act. Remember that when you are at a convention or in front of a computer.
8. Do not steal the other’s time or money.
Agree on how you will spend your time and money. Make sure the price you pay in time and money is worth it.
9. Tell your spouse the truth.
Trust is vital to a marriage. One lie can destroy trust forever.
10. Be grateful for what you have.
Don’t let keeping up with the Joneses be a point of contention. Take stock daily of what you have and only occasionally look at what you need. You will be surprised at how much the Joneses have that they don’t need, and you don’t need it either.
My parents didn’t read the book, but they understood that languages of love are useful, if you use them to discover what your spouse needs and to appreciate the special times when he/she gives to you in your love language.
