Yesterday this ABC website item grabbed my attention [1]. It reported a London School of Economics study of 3,500 British couples that found divorce rates were lower when husbands helped with housework, shopping and childcare [2].
A podcast I subscribe to is The Marital Intimacy Show [3] hosted by Laura Brotherson (pictured). Of the 31 episodes so far, the one I’ve found most interesting and useful is number 25, titled ‘What You Need to Know about Loving Your Spouse’. It’s 13 minutes long, and you can stream or download it here [4]. Quoting Gary Chapman’s book Five Love Languages, Brotherson lists them: quality time, words of affirmation, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Each of the five’s a specific way people feel loved. And each of us has a primary love language, i.e. one of the five is paramount. It’s the key to our heart. So for a strong marriage, each spouse must love the other in the specific way he/she needs to be loved. That is, we must speak our spouse’s primary love language. The first step’s finding out what it is. Guessing has only a 20% chance of being right. So it’s best to ask.
I think this approach is intuitively sound. And it makes the LSE’s study simplistic – because it’s confined to only one love language, i.e. acts of service.
Dear readers, this post’s not a ‘ho hum’ one. Because this is really important stuff.
3 comments:
Your profile pulled me in... I was wondering if you have a dog in Australia and, if so, what kind. Maybe an Australian Shepard?
Helpful husbands last longer not really a big surprise there, the five languages more challenging, I'm assuming after 40 years together we must be close to correct,mine would be "quality time", I'll have to check with himself!
Dear Justice Bird
Thanks for flying by Farmdoc's Blog. Do you mean have I a dog, or is there an Australian breed of dog?
Dear Chrows25
Does Sel know you're a 'quality time' girl? And good that you're asking him what his primary love language is.
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