Love Languages

In high school, I read Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I took the quiz and diagnosed myself as the quality time lover.  I didn't care too much about gifts or acts of service.  I wanted all of my free time to be spent with Jackson, even if we weren't doing anything at all.   When I went to college, i re-assessed my diagnosis and discovered that I had grown into a completely needy quality time person.  I didn't have a lot of time to spend with Jackson because Freshman year we were at two different colleges, and after that he was at school and working 13 hours a day.  Any time I got to talk to him, be with him, go out with him, I ate it up.  The phone calls, the skype dates, it all meant the world because it was "us" time.   After getting married, I re-assessed my diagnosis one more time.  From before we were married, we instituted a journal. We write in it and pass it back and forth to each other with love notes, post-argument cool down notes full of "I'm Sorry"s, and pictures.  It has been the topic of many an argument because Jackson doesn't like to write in it.  It's not that he doesn't like to, but it's hard for him to slow his thoughts enough to put pen to paper and get them all in.  I realized that I have completely changed in my love language.  I am now a "words of affirmation" person.  I love hearing that Jackson loves me and is proud of me and why he loves me.  What better place than our journal to put those thoughts? This way I can read them into my grey-hair days.   

One of the hardest things for us has been learning to speak the other's love language.  Jackson is a gift oriented person. If I go to the grocery and pick up a bag of chocolate-frosted donuts, I have won his heart.  If he tells me he needs socks for work and I buy him boxers, too, I have won the wife of the year award.  If we go out to dinner on a girls' night and I bring him back dessert, he might as well have won the lottery. You get the picture. He has always been that way, so I have had some time to practice.      His love language, he pointed out, is so much easier.  He drew the short stick because buying gifts is easy.  Mind you, they require thought and effort, but for me, that was very natural.  Getting out of his element and having to learn to do something he doesn't normally like to do is hard for him.  He is slowly learning, but it is taking time.  The man can text a mile a minute, and can text me his feelings with no problem.  It's the slowing down and having to slow his thoughts enough to put them on paper.    Then came the compromise. Do we get rid of the journal or do I force him to carve time out of his day to write in it? How do I get him to slow down and write what he is thinking? boom. If he can type fast enough to get his thoughts out there as often as I love to read them, why not let him type? Compromise has made this journey to communication so much easier; I write, he types and tapes. It works.  Sure, it's not his handwriting, but beggars can't be choosy.  :)