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: And welcome to the Dr. Nurse Mama show, prescribing Hope for healthy Families here on American Family Radio. Here's your host, professor, pediatric nurse practitioner.
: And mom of four, Dr. Jessica Peck.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Hey there, friends.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome to my favorite time of day, talking to some of my favorite people.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Here prescribing Hope for Healthy Families. Listen, we have got a great guest who is going to join us here, here in just a little bit. We have none other than Dr. Gary Chapman of the Five Love Languages, who's going to join us in a little bit and talk about the five Love languages. And in the meantime, I have some things I'd like to share with you about Valentine's Day. We have Valentine's Day that is just coming around the corner. Now, I know some of you are thinking, oh, yeah, I've got some great plans. And some of you are thinking, ugh, why'd she have to say that?
Dr. Jessica Peck: And some of you are thinking, what? Like, I didn't even. It wasn't even on my radar.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But listen, let's reframe this, this as an opportunity. There's an opportunity for us to love those around us. And after all, that's what we're commanded to do as Christians. We're commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves. And Valentine's Day doesn't belong only to couples. It actually belongs to the kingdom of God, as does every day of the year. And there can be some emotional complexity. There are people who have feelings about Valentine's Day. Like I said, some are indifferent. Some love it, some really, really hate it. For some people, it's joyful. But others, it's painful. For some people, it's just awkward. It might be lonely. It might be quietly heavy. And there are people who are often overlooked on Valentine's Day. You may be thinking, if you're married, what do I get my spouse? If you are dating someone or you're in a relationship. But the people who maybe are overlooked on Valentine's Day are widows and widowers. That is really close on my heart. Single moms and dads, singles who desire marriage. But are still waiting to meet that right person. Maybe young people who feel like, okay, I don't know what my future holds, and they just feel like they are not yet met that person. And there's children who are still forming their understanding of what love is and what worth. What worth is. Now, Valentine's Day is not a test of whether or not you are loved. And it feels that way. Feels like I am loved. Look, I got flowers delivered at work. I got chocolate delivered at work. Let this be a symbol to all that I am loved. Valentine's Day is really an opportunity to give love. That's what it's really about. And we know from 1st John 4:19, we love because he first loved us. And when we look at Valentine's Day, it is so consumeristic. And when we look at how much people are spending, which I'll talk about in a little bit, and it is astronomical. But here's the thing. The heart of Valentine's Day actually began with sacrificial love, with Christ shaped love, not heart shaped love or romance marketing. Valentine's Day, if you didn't know, is named after Saint Valentine. but actually, history suggests there were likely multiple Christian martyrs, maybe multiple Christian martyrs named Valentine who lived in the third century during the Roman Empire. Now, what they shared in common was this. They were faithful Christians who loved others at a great personal cost, even to the cost of their life. And one of the most widely told accounts describes Valentine of Rome. This was a priest who lived during the reign of Emperor Claudius ii. And Claudius believed unmarried men made better soldiers and outlawed marriage for young men. And so Valentine, convinced that the marriage was. Was sacred, it was God ordained. He continued to marry couples in. And when he was discovered, Valentine was imprisoned and eventually executed. And this, traditionally is the traditional date for his execution is February 14th.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Now, that is not something that we.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Think about when we think about Valentine's Day. You don't walk down the aisle at the grocery store of all the hearts and think, oh, yes, oh, dear Valentine, he was. He died on this day.
Dr. Jessica Peck: We don't think that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And whether every detail can be historically verified or not, the central truth remains that Valentine's legacy and the legacy of Valentine's Day is rooted in Christian values like conviction and courage and sacrificial love. Not romance just to make you feel good. And for early Christian martyrs and for martyrs today, it's not about emotion or indulgence or marketing in some sick sense. It was about witness. That's what we are seeing. Valentine's love was faithful in Persecution. It was grounded in God's design for covenant and community, which we know that marriage is God's design for the family, and it was willing to suffer for the good of others. And this aligns with a biblical understanding of love. We know from First Corinthians 13. Love is patient, love is kind. It always protects, always trusts, always perseveres. And I talked with Dr. Chapman last time he was on the show about the context of that, how it's often used at, weddings. But there's so much rich biblical truth there. And so when we look at the origins of Valentine's Day as martyrdom, we see the connection between Valentine's Day and romantic love really came much later during the Middle Ages. And in medieval Europe, it was believed that birds began to pair off in.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Mid February, according to what I could find.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And poets started linking February 14, like Chaucer, with courtly love. And then over time, people started writing notes, notes to each other and giving little tokens and little gifts. It was just more and more common among friends and admirers. Now these early Valentine's weren't exclusively romantic. They were about friendship and loyalty and just admiring someone. It was a much broader understanding of love than today's version is. And then we have this modern shift and where we start to commercialize the holiday and we have mass produced cards, we have candy, we have flowers, we have jewelry and, and most of all in the recent couple of decades, it comes with this social pressure to somehow perform romance. And the things that have been lost along the way are the idea of love as an act of service, love as an act of sacrifice, and love as being faithful even when things are really hard and still demonstrating godly character and godly sacrifice and love and a, Christ like sacrifice and love. And so really we have an opportunity for families today. We can reclaim Valentine's Day.
Valentine's Day can be a moment of intentional Christ reflecting love
Dr. Jessica Peck: So if you're one of those who.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Is indifferent or you're thinking maybe you're even dreading it, it can be a moment of intentional Christ reflecting love, rather than just consumer pressure or social guilt. So when we understand the roots of Valentine's Day, how it happened, we know it's not about who bought the biggest gift or who got asked out or who is doing what, who's, whose husband is taking them on a really romantic date and who's is ordering pizza.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's not about that at all.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's about honoring covenant. It's about, serving your community and showing care, loving the overlooked, practicing generosity and presence and kindness, from first John 3:18, let us not love with words or tongue, but with action and in, truth. And so again, Valentine's Day didn't start with chocolates or roses. It started with a Christian who believed that love was worth defending even when it cost him everything. And that really gives us such an opportunity. Think about John 15:13. Greater love has no man than this to lay down your life for your friends. So we have the scripture to give us a fuller definition of love. Biblical love is sacrificial. It's not, worldly love is self centered. Biblical love is intentional. Worldly love is performative. Biblical love is faithful. And, worldly love is fleeting. So we see. Culture says, love makes me feel special. Love makes me feel good, Love makes me feel seen.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Christ says, love is to lay down.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Your life for someone else. That is a really big contrast.
There are some people that can be overlooked on Valentine's Day
And there's some people that really, especially as I said earlier, can be overlooked on Valentine's Day. And I want to give a special call out to the widows and widowers out there. And Valentine's Day can just be a bittersweet day, can be a sad day, even if it's been many, many years since their spouse passed. And I know our children's ministry at church for many years would write letters to widows and widowers and Valentine's Day cards. I know my kids have participated in that ministry as well. And it's something that's so simple. But just that gesture of you are seen and known and loved by God, that is an amazing thing. Just a handwritten note acknowledging remembrance, honoring their spouse. Just an invitation to join you. Maybe you ask them to join you for a Valentine's Day dinner, or maybe you do something for them, an act of service just to show a demonstration of love. Is there a widow or widow, widower in your life where you can, you can send a Valentine's Day gesture to. That would be a really beautiful thing to do. And a lot of times we think that we have to get them a nice, give a really nice gift or that with the gift that we have to give is to fix their grief, to make it go away, make it better. That's what we feel like. Sometimes the gift is just honoring their grief. It's just honoring that loss that they have and honoring the love that they had that was so special and so wonderful and that they, that it's worth celebrating and worth, and worth, worth celebrating and, and there. Okay, I'm just getting a note. I also, I'm just getting a note that Dr. Chapman is about to join us, so we're going to go ahead and pull him onto the show.
Dr. Gary Chapman is the creator of the Five Love Languages
But let me end with just an encouragement to reach out to someone in your life. Look for someone that you can serve. Look for a widow or widower, single parent. Look for that single young person in your life who's still looking for that right person and see what you can do to give them an act of service. Well, when we're going to talk about the five love languages today, and I think that we have Dr. Gary Chapman, who is joining us right now. He's an author, he's a speaker, he's a pastor. For many of you, he absolutely needs no introduction. He's a trusted voice on relationships for more than three decades. He is best known as the creator of the Five Love Languages, a New York Times bestseller that has transformed how millions of people around the world understand love and communication and connection. There's more than 20 million copies sold and translations in more than 50 languages. And his work over many decades now has helped couples and families and communities learn how to love with greater intention and grace. And most recently, he has written the Love Language that matters most. Dr. Chapman, we are so grateful to have you back with us today. Thank you so much for joining.
Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, thank you. I am glad to be back with you again.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I am, too. You've just been so encouraging to me. And you have a new resource out, the Love Language that Matters Most. And it helps people better understand and practice the original Five Love Languages. So just in case there's someone there out there listening who has been on a deserted island for the last, you know, 20 years or so and maybe.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Has not heard of the Five Love Languages. Could you give them a quick review.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And why this update that you have is so important?
Dr. Gary Chapman: Yes. what I discovered years ago, before I wrote the book, is that what makes one person feel loved does not make another person feel loved. We have different love languages. And, many couples have wrestled with that through the years. one would be saying, I'm showing that I love her. Look, I wash the dishes, I vacuum the floors. I wash her car. I get gas in her car. I change the baby's diaper. I mean, why wouldn't she feel loved? And she says, I know you do those things. You're a hard worker. I appreciate all of that, but we don't ever talk. I mean, we don't ever talk. We don't ever sit down with each other and share life with each other. And so it was that realization that I heard that over and over in my office. And I knew there had to be a pattern to what I was hearing. And so I really just, went through several years of notes that I made when I was counseling and asked myself, when someone said, I, just don't feel any love coming from my spouse, what did they want? What were they complaining about? And their answers fell into five categories. And I later called them the five love languages. And I started using that in my counseling that if you want her to feel love, you've got to learn to speak your love in her language. And if you want him to feel love, you've got to learn to speak his love language. And, couples would come back after they discovered each other's language and started speaking it and just say, gary, this is changing everything. I mean, the whole climate's different now. And so here are the five languages that I discovered. Number one is words of affirmation. You look nice in that outfit. I really appreciate what you did. You know, one of the things I like about you is just using words to affirm them for things that you really do appreciate about them. and then there's acts of service, doing things for them that, you know, they would like for you to do. The things like I was mentioning, you know, washing dishes, vacuuming floors, washing the car, changing the baby's diaper. That's a big deal.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know what, Dr. Chapman?
Dr. Jessica Peck: We.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Yes, absolutely. I love that. And we're going to leave it, but.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Right here we're going to our first break, but you don't want to miss it because when we come back, there's three more love languages to learn about, and so much more that will help you with Dr. Gary Chapman and the love Languages that matter most. We'll be right back.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Don't go away.
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All About Love by Steven Curtis Chapman: Radio and TV shows, conferences, retreats and seminars. We got books and magazines to read on everything from A to Z, and a web to surf from anywhere we are. But I hope with all this information buzzing through our brains, and we will not let our hearts forget the most important thing. It's love. Love, love, love, love.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Welcome back, friends. That is all About Love, with Steven Curtis Chapman. And if you heard him saying CDs, yes, he did.
3/4 of US adults plan to celebrate Valentine's Day in some way
And there are so many things that change in the world around us, but.
Dr. Jessica Peck: One thing that does not change is.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That February 14th is coming, just like it does every year.
Dr. Gary Chapman: And.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And with Valentine's Day approaching, many of us are thinking about love. And you may be thinking about candy hearts or dinner plans or flowers or.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Gifts, or what is my wife expecting me to do this year?
Dr. Jessica Peck: And in fact, recent data shows that about 3/4 of US adults plan to celebrate Valentine's Day in some way. More than half of those with a romantic partner, but half of those with friends and family that they love. Galentine's is all the rage, where girls get together and celebrate friendship. And the celebrity spending on this is absolutely astronomical. We from the National Retail Federation, it is estimated that Americans spend about $27 billion on Valentine's gifts and experiences, with an average of $190 each. Oh, my goodness. That is.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That is giving me palpitations there.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But as believers, we know that real love, the kind that Christ calls us to, goes deeper than just chocolates and Valentines. And that's what we're talking about today, the love language that matters most. And I'm so, overjoyed to have Dr. Gary Chapman with us today talking about the five love languages.
Dr. Chapman says each of us has a primary love language
And right before the break, Dr. Chapman, we were taught you were talking about the five love languages. For those who may just not be familiar, you've done two. And so let's pick it up right there.
Dr. Gary Chapman: Okay, the first two. One was words of affirmation. One was acts of service. Actions speak louder than words for those people. Number three is gifts, which you've been talking about in Valentine's Day. you know, I studied, cultures all over the world. We've never discovered a culture where gift giving is not an expression of love. It's universal to give gifts, and God is our example. I mean, all good gifts, the Bible says, come down from the Father of lights above. So, giving gifts and then Number four is quality time. Giving the person your undivided attention. I do not mean sitting there watching television together. Someone else has your attention. TV is off. Computer is down. We're not answering our phone. We're giving each other our undivided attention. We're sharing life. Our thoughts, our feelings, our desires, our dreams, our frustrations, whatever. We're sharing life with each other. Undivided attention. And number five is physical touch. We've long known the emotional power of physical touch. That's why we pick up babies, hold them, kiss them, and cuddle them. Long before the baby understands the meaning of the word love. The baby feels love by physical touch. So the basic concept is that out of those five, each of us, married or single, young or old, we all have what I call a, primary love language. One of those speaks more deeply to us emotionally than the other four. We're not going to turn away any one of them. They're all fine. But if we don't receive love in our primary language, we will not feel loved, even though the person may be loving us in another language.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, you know, Dr. Chapman, I was sharing with you, during the break that I took the assessment, the new assessment that comes out with this book, the love language that matters most, because I've known about love languages for a long time. M followed your work for a long time and read the five love languages for children. That was really instrumental in learning to love my kids because each one of my four children was different and had a different love language and learning how to express love to them in a way they would best receive it. And what I'd shared with you is that I was really shocked to find that my love language had completely changed from when I first started this maybe 20 years ago. And my love language, my primary love language, used to be quality time, but when I took it this time, it was very clearly words of affirmation.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And when I started thinking about. About that I had shared with you that I thought maybe that is evidence of a woman who has spent,
Dr. Jessica Peck: The last 15 years raising teenagers and.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Has heard for 15 years.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Mom. Mom. Oh, come on. Why? Oh, no, don't. Mom.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And I embarrass people by breathing, you know, which is just a natural part of having teenagers. There's lots of great things, too, but teens are not known for their strength in words of affirmation.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And that may be something that somebody wants to revisit. They may have known about the love languages and think, oh, I know what.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Mine is, but it's Changed.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And he said, you see that?
Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah. It's pretty common for our love language to change at different stages of life. Things like you described, or like a mother that has two preschool children, Acts of service may not have been her language, but during those years, it's probably going to jump to the top because she's overwhelmed, she needs help. So, yeah, seasons of life and circumstances. Also, you know, your spouse gets off the phone and starts crying, and you say, honey, what's wrong? And she said, I just got a message that my mother died. Physical touch may not be her language, but at that moment in that circumstance, embracing her and let her weep and let her say, I'm with you, honey. I'm with you, is probably the most important thing you could do. So in that circumstance, another love language.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Jumps to the top in that circumstance and for different people. Because the love languages don't just apply. This is not just a language for husband and wife, for romantic couples, as I shared, I've used this with my kids. How can people use the love languages and everyday relationships around them?
Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, I think whatever the relationship, if it's a close relationship, listen, we want to feel loved by the significant people in our lives. It's an. Almost everyone agrees it's one of our deepest emotional needs to feel loved. And so whether it's a marriage, whether it's children, whether it's, a close friend, whether it's your aging parents, or whether it's somebody at work that you have a close relationship with. At work, we don't usually call it love. We call it appreciation. I wrote a book called the Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. But it's the same emotional need. It's the need to be valued as a person. I'm, not just a cog in a machine. I'm a person. They care about me. So it's one of our basic needs. And that's why it's so important. I think that's why the original book has been so successful. As you mentioned, 20 million, copies have sold in 50 languages around the world. But I think this new book is also going to help the people who have read the original book. Because two of the questions that I've gotten through the years is that, Dr. Chapman, you mentioned that there are dialects to these languages, but you don't explain that and what they are. And you've mentioned that personalities interface with the love languages, but you didn't go into that. So in this new book, we're going into both of those. We're laying out dialects within each of the languages. That is different ways to speak those. Because we have not only a primary language, but we have a key dialect that really, really speaks deeply to us. So I think this book is going to help a lot of people who've already read the original book.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, I'm already feeling curious. Give us a little sneak preview of what you mean by dialect and that and personality. I think that will be really instructive for a lot of people.
Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah, well, you know, in spoken language, there are different dialects. I speak English with a Southern accent. Okay. You go to Boston. It's altogether different in Boston. Yeah, Same language, different dialect. And so just take gifts, for example. because Valentine's Day is coming up, we often give gifts. There are fanciful gifts. I mean, really nice, super things. You know, maybe jewelry or. Or something really, really fancy and nice. And then there's functional gifts. And, for a person, if this is their dialect, they'd much rather have a new coffee maker or a new vacuum cleaner than they would some fanciful gift. And then there's sentimental gifts, maybe a framed photo that you made somewhere along the line, something you all were doing together, and it's a memory, and you present that to them. It's a sentimental gift. And so when, ah, you take that, when you read the book, you'll get all of these dialects on each of the languages. And when you take the quiz that you're talking about, the premium quiz, you find out which dialect are dialects that are really more meaningful to you than the others.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Yeah, well, what I'm getting from that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You know, I speak Texan, Dr. Chapman.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I have a Texas accent, but apparently I speak fanciful when it comes to gifts. And that is my dialect. And you're telling me that there is.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Someone out there who would love to receive a vacuum cleaner.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But you better make sure before you give that. I am, I want it on record, I am not endorsing anybody to give a vacuum cleaner for Valentine's Day unless you read this book and take the assessment and feel very confident moving forward. But you know, Dr. Chapman, I think one of the greatest, the greatest.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Takeaways from your work is that this is not a book that you read. The Love languages, all of that work that you've done, you don't read it to serve yourself. You can read it to understand yourself. But it really teaches you how to love others. And then, you know, and then you love others will love you in return. That usually is an investment that yields. That, has such a great Yield. But tell us about that perspective, because that is the godly perspective is it's not okay. Our temptation is to take this book to our spouse. Right. And you need to read this book and then you need to do this for me.
Dr. Jessica Peck: How do we shift that focus and.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Really think, okay, how can I, I love others well, even if I maybe don't feel very loved.
Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah. You know, we are all by nature self centered. There's a good part to that. We feed ourselves, we get sleep, we get exercise, we take care of ourselves. But when that becomes selfishness, it's the opposite of love. Because love begins. Biblical love begins with an attitude. Doesn't begin with a feeling, it begins with an attitude. You know, let this attitude be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. Though he was God, he didn't demand his rights, he emptied himself and became a man. And when he got on level ground, he stepped down further and died for us. Let that attitude be in you. So the attitude of love, we choose our attitudes. We don't choose our feelings, we choose how we respond to our feelings, but we choose our attitudes. So you choose an attitude of love. It's the attitude of, in a marriage, I want to enrich your life. I want to do whatever I can to help you become the person you believe God wants you to be. And, so you bring that into the whole picture of love. It means I want to make sure that you feel that I love you. I want that need to be met. I'm there for you, I love you, I care about you. And so the whole love language thing helps you do that. It gives you information, but, it doesn't. You have to choose the attitude. You know, there are people in a marriage who are selfish. They're in that marriage for their partner to make them happy. I mean, how many times have I heard this? When people are at the point of divorce and they say, I'm going to be honest with you, I haven't felt loved by you in 10 years. I am simply not happy in this relationship. And I'm out of here. Selfishness. I'm, in this relationship for you to make me happy. No, as a Christian, I'm in this relationship to do everything I can to meet your needs. And if we take the initiative, even with someone that's not loving us, we take the initiative and learn how to speak their love language in a very meaningful way. You're doing the most powerful thing you can do to influence them in a positive way. See, we influence each other every single day. Either Negatively or positively, there's no more positive impact you can have on a spouse that's not loving you than to love them consistently every week for six months, no matter what chances are before that six months is over, they're going to be drawn to start loving you. The Bible says we love God because he first loved us. We didn't start the relationship with God, he started it. And so in the marriage relationship, that same principle is true. If one of you chooses, with the help of God, to love that other person in a meaningful way. Love stimulates love. And there's a good chance they're going to reciprocate down the road. Not in three weeks, no, but when they see it's a way of life. And this is really your, efforts to encourage and to meet their needs.
Dr. Chapman delivers some tough truths about selfishness in marriage counseling
People are drawn to people who love them.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Dr. Chapman, you just delivered some really tough truths. And it may have been softened a little by your Southern accent, but it's still some tough truths there when you're talking about selfishness. Now we'll set aside issues of abuse of infidelity, Biblical grounds. We'll set that aside. For now, we're just talking about the everyday, just annoyances, just, I don't like you anymore. I don't feel like I love you anymore. I'm not happy. I deserve to be happy. These are the messages that we get. And even so far as I'm going to say this, as gently as I can, as saying things like convincing ourselves that my children would be happier if I was happier. So leaving, this is going to make me happy, and that's going to make them happy. These are, that's, this is really dangerous ground that we're on here.
Dr. Jessica Peck: How do we fill up our love tanks when relationships are difficult
And many times people feel you, you talk about this concept of a love tank, and they just feel like, my love tank is empty. I got nothing left. How do we fill up our love tanks and continue to love even when maybe we feel in a relationship that's in a really tough season?
Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, I think as Christians, we have outside help. Ah. The scriptures say the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. So we can say to God, lord, you know how I feel, and you know, I don't feel loved, but I'm married to this person and, I'm in the best position of anyone in the world to express your love to them. So I'm opening my heart to you. Pour your love into me and let me be your agent for loving them. You see, we have outside help. It's not natural to do that. It's natural to love people who love you. But God loved us when we were unlovely and sent Christ to die for us. And he's not only our example, he's the one that gives us the power to do that. I cannot tell you how many times I've seen marriages turned around when I give us what I call a six month experiment. And that's what I just described, speaking their primary love language in the most meaningful way, if you know the dialects, even more effective for a six month period and just see what happens. And I can't guarantee that everyone will respond because, listen, there are people that spit in God's face and he loves them every single day. So I can't guarantee, but I can tell you, you can look yourself in the mirror after six months and you can look God in the face and say, thank you, God. If there's anything else I could do, I want to do it.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I feel like that gentle, simple truth is like a lightning bolt that is really transformational. Listen, there's so much more to talk about, the love, language that matters most. Dr. Gary Chapman, written with Les and Leslie Parrott. We'll be right back with more after this break.
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Made For More by Bethel Music, Jenn Johnson, and Josh Baldwin : Back to life again. I was made for more. So why would I make a bed in my shame When a fountain of grace is running my way? I, know I am yours and. I was made for more welcome back friends. You were made for more.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That's by Bethel Music.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And you were made, you were made for more. We're talking about how you can love others more in your life as we are. We see Valentine's Day coming around the corner. Love is in the air.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Love is in the aisles of the grocery store. And love has reminders everywhere from what are you going to do?
Dr. Jessica Peck: But it is very clear that how we feel love and how we show love are not always the same thing or receive the same way. The way that we feel loved is not the same way that our spouse feels loved. And many people assume that. If I know their love languages, maybe I, you can say I have been following Dr. Gary Chapman for years and I know the five love languages. Mine is this. Hers is this. I know them that I know them. And I can speak it fluently.
Dr. Jessica Peck: But that doesn't mean that your relationship.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Is perfect because relationships are built on progress, progress and consistency and grace. And there are definitely seasons of life that will throw you curveballs, that will walk you through valleys, that will present you with something that you didn't ever expect. And then that in that time, there's no perfection, there's no performance that's going to fix it. And so the question brings, the question for us today is how do we live out love practically and intentionally in ways that honor both God's design and the person who is before us.
Dr. Gary Chapman's new book focuses on learning the love languages
I am delighted to be talking to Dr. Gary Chapman again, talking about his book, the Love Language that matters most. So, Dr. Chapman, let's talk about this concept of mastery. You kind of, we can kind of almost feel prideful, feeling like, okay, now we know the love languages.
Dr. Jessica Peck: We show them.
Dr. Jessica Peck: How do you tell when you're moving in the right direction? You talked about the six month challenge that you would have.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Where's the line between mastery and not being prideful and assuming that you've arrived?
Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah, you know, I don't ever talk about a perfect marriage. I talk about a growing marriage because marriages are either growing or they are regressing. We never stand still. We're either making progress in having a better marriage, or we're just drifting apart. And so, the purpose of anything I've ever written is not to have a perfect marriage. It's to have a growing marriage. And I do think that, this new book, the Love Language that Matters Most, is going to help people who already have the basic concept down, but it's going to help them because it's going to help them identify the dialect within that language that's going to be meaningful to them. And it's also going to help them understand each other's personalities and how that interfaces with speaking their love language. So, and let me just say this too, because people say, after they see the title, the Love Language that Matters Most, they say, what is the Love Matters Most? What I say is, and we make this clearly at the beginning of the book, the love language that matters most is the love language of your partner or the other person, not yours. Theirs put the focus where it needs to be on the other person. Okay.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Huh? That's right.
Dr. Jessica Peck: That's absolutely right.
My husband and I have very different personalities, and that's what draws you together
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, tell us a little bit about that with personality.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I was just sharing with you that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: My husband and I, you know, have very different personalities, and that's what draws you together. Like, I take myself too seriously. He loves to have fun.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And those things that draw you together.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Then become the, Why can't you ever be serious? Why can't you ever lighten up and have fun?
Dr. Jessica Peck: So what are those personality traits that.
Dr. Jessica Peck: We have that we can learn more to lean into that love language?
Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, let's just take the simple trait of extrovert and introvert, for example. So you know that your spouse's language is words of affirmation, but they are an introvert. And so you get this idea that you're at a party or you're with a group of friends, and so you're just going to tell. You just gonna tell everybody how wonderful your husband is or your wife is just gonna. Just gonna pour it all out. Well, they're going to be okay with you. They're not going to hit you over the head. But I can tell you this inside. They're thinking, oh, honey, this is not the place for that. You know, this should be in private. Don't say all this stuff in front of other people. you know, and you're serious. So you're trying to do, you know, something really big for them, but you're failing to recognize they're an introvert. They don't thrive on being put up there in front of everybody talked about them, you know, or take another example, quality, time. So you know, your spouse's quality time. but let's say that, he's an improviser, but she's a planner. She's a manager. So one Saturday, one Friday night, he says to his wife, honey, how about tomorrow morning we get up early and we go take a hike up at Pilot Mountain and just spend the morning together, just you and me for him. He knows that's her language. Quality time, man. He thinks he's doing something great. And she says, honey, tomorrow is Saturday. I've got Saturday already planned. He's, oh, honey, you can do that next Saturday. See, he thinks he's doing something wonderful for her. She feels like he's putting pressure on her to do something. You know, who's gonna watch the kids?
Dr. Jessica Peck: What are we gonna eat? The planner in me is already thinking.
Dr. Gary Chapman: Yeah, so she's fine to take a hike, but let's plan it ahead of time and get it on my calendar so we can do it and I can feel good about it. So personality impacts and interfaces with all of these. And that's why I think, again, this book's going to really help a lot of people who already have the basic idea down, but have never really thought seriously about how personality impacts this.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, even in those scenarios you were talking about, empathy plays a big role in that, you know, because we just immediately get defensive when you're trying and you try to make an expression of a love language in the way that you think, you know, this is the way that this is what you like, and it's rejection and it can feel really, you just. Immediately everything turns internal. How do we step out of that and step into empathy for our partner?
Dr. Gary Chapman: I think we have to recognize that, two people who marry each other, even if they're just a close friendship, they're going to have differences because we are human. No two humans are alike. We're going to have different ideas, we're going to have different emotions, we're going to have different interpretations of what is said. And if we're ever going to have a loving, caring relationship, we're going to have to listen to each other and listen empathetically. And by that I mean listen and try to look at the world through their eyes. Whatever they're talking about, try to find out. I want to understand what they're thinking and what they're feeling. I want to see the world and I want to see this situation the way they see it. And that means you have to ask questions. You know, if your spouse shares that they're having a struggle at work today and they tell you a little bit about it and you say, well, what you ought to do is go, da, da, da, da, da da da. You know, and they're feeling inside, they don't understand me. They've always got the answer. They always tell me what I ought to do. They don't empathize with me, they don't feel with me. They're not really understanding me. So, we're not by nature, empathetic. We're all self centered. But we've got to learn how when a person shares anything positive or negative, we want to ask questions. Tell me more about that, honey. I want to understand what you're saying. That sounds exciting. Tell me about it. And if we become listeners when the other person's talking, we can get to the place where we can say after a bit, well, you know, honey, I can see how that makes sense. You know, I understand what you're saying. It makes sense to me too. And you may even disagree with what they're saying, but you express it. I can see what you're saying. I can see it makes sense because it always makes sense in their head. You don't have to agree with them, you know, but they want to know that you hear them and understand them. And then you can say, honey, could I share my perspective on that? And then if they become a listener and they hear what your perspective and they ask you questions, then they can say, well, I can see, honey, how that makes sense too, you know, and if it's a decision that has to be made, then you can say, okay, how can we solve this? We see it differently, but we each understand each other. So how can we solve the problem? So you spend your energy solving the problem rather than spending your energy trying to win an argument. You know, I've always said if you win an argument with your spouse, you know, they just say, okay, have it your way. They won the argument, you won the argument, they lost. It's no fun to live with a loser. Why would you create one? We're on the same team. We're not, we're not enemies.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Okay, that is gonna have to be a, post it note on my computer. It's no fun to live with a loser. That's so true. But, you know, but that, and sometimes.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You have to make that choice. Do I want to be right or do I want to be in right relationship. I've heard that said before. And that is sometimes the choice that we make.
Dr. Jessica Peck says empathy is key to unlocking emotional vulnerability
Dr. Jessica Peck: And one of the things that really.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Intrigued me, Dr. Chapman, was, you know, I do a lot of work in pediatrics about trauma and we talk about trauma responses. But you talk about this empathy response that's kind of similar. It's fluent, faltering, frustrated, or flu frozen in demonstrating empathy. But I think empathy is such a key to unlock emotional vulnerability. Walk us through these. These, what does this mean? The fluent, faltering, frustrated and frozen?
Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, I think those are just different ways of responding to the other person when they're sharing something with us. You know, we can be frozen and we don't. We're not even open to thinking in another way. It's in my ways, always the right way and all that sort of, sort of thing. And I think just those differences, and we all have those differences where whatever label you put to them, we all have those differences. So let's not demand that our spouse be like us or think the same way we think or have the same opinions we have. No two are better than one. That's why we want to, whatever the topic, we want to have perspective on that each of us have, and it will be different, but we're going to enrich each other's life by sharing that. But if one of you just kind of plugs, up and just kind of withdraws and whatever the other person does is fine. You just accept it, even though you don't like it, but you don't talk about it. You know, you're just frozen. You're never going to have, the kind of relationship you want to have, which is a loving, caring relationship in which you have the sense that I'm known by them and they're known by me. And we're with each other even though we have differences, we're together and we're there for each other. That's the goal, that's what we're shooting for. But it takes an attitude of empathy, to get there and we can't. If our spouse says something about us that we feel like is a put down, then we get defensive by nature. We get defensive and they say, well, da, da, da, da, da da da. Now we're into an argument trying to convince them that they shouldn't feel that way about us.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I'm going to say that's rarely successful.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Yet we still give it our best effort. Why do we do that?
Dr. Gary Chapman: So if that's their perspective. It's their perspective. M. So just kind of look at it through their eyes and see how they could have come to that perspective. No, you don't like it. It doesn't make you feel good that they have that perspective about something you did or didn't do. But listen, long enough to find out what their perspective is and recognize it's okay for them to have a perspective. of course, the culture doesn't help us because in our culture today, we're just shooting each other verbal wars. Everybody's telling how awful everybody else other people are, but we do that on the personal level as well. And we've got to stop doing that on the personal level. We're not there to put the other person down or to condemn them. we want to share with each other our perspectives, whatever they are, and we want to listen empathetically so that we can walk away from whatever the conversation was with the sense that we understand each other and we're there for each other.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You're so right, Dr. Chapman, that the culture doesn't help. I was actually having this conversation with my daughter over lunch, and we. I was telling her how I had been, you know, scrolling through social media or looking at the news feed, and the word that I see that I was seeing just pop up over and over and over again is actually the word eviscerated. And it would say, like, oh, so and so eviscerated this person in their response. And it was like a celebratory thing. And I was getting these. These visions of, like, you know, even ancient coliseum. And. And people are literally eviscerated there. And there's people cheering. And that is the kind of culture that we have. Like, oh, yeah, burn, burn. You know, a good burn. Like, oh, good comeback. Clap back. We have so many cultural words to describe that, like how, you know, we just have that verbal prowess, you know, and that's celebrated. It's much, much harder to take the attitude of Philippians too. And.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And now my, I'm just getting the two minute warning here. And as, my team says, radio is so rude. We're about to get cut off here, Dr. Chapman. We're going to get cut off in the middle of the conversation.
Tell people what is their love language that matters most
But in the last two minutes, tell people what is their. Your last word of advice and encouragement.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And how can they find more about the love language that matters most?
Dr. Gary Chapman: Well, I would say if they're a Christian, ask, God to give them the attitude of Christ toward their spouse. That's what changed? My own marriage in the early years, when we had our own struggles. Lord, give me the attitude that Jesus had. He washed the feet of his disciples, and he said, do you call me leader? And yes, I am, but the leader serves. So ask God to give you the attitude of Christ towards your spouse. I think that's a good starting point because that gets you the right attitude. And I would just say if they want to know more about, the book or anything about me, you can find it at the website 5lovelanguages.com the number 5 5lovelanguages.com Click on resources. You can see all the books. Click on the quizzes. You can see all the quizzes. you know, there's lots, a lot of stuff there that will help you. so I would just encourage them to make the most of what we've talked about today. And I want to thank you for what you're doing because, you're. You're seeking to enrich the lives of the people who are listening. Listening. So keep up the Good work.
Dr. Jessica Peck: Well, Dr. Chapman, you just practice what you preach. You gave me words of affirmation, and.
Dr. Jessica Peck: I will take them every day and twice on Sunday. Thank you so much for all that you do.
Dr. Jessica Peck: It's the love language that matters most. I took the survey.
Dr. Jessica Peck: You should, too.
Dr. Jessica Peck: And listen wherever you are, however you're feeling loved or not, I pray the Lord will bless you and keep you and make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. And I'll see you back here tomorrow.
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Jeff Chamblee: Opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
