If you’ve never read The Five Love Languages, you should. Ironically, I was informed of this book as I was going through my separation and divorce 3 years ago. It (clearly) didn’t do much for that relationship, but it definitely opened my eyes to the different ways people need/want love.

They’ve put the quiz online and when you take it, it will show you how you like to be SHOWN you’re loved, based on 5 areas – Quality Time, Words of Affirmation, Receiving Gifts, Physical Touch and Acts of Service.

My results were:

9 Words of Affirmation - I like being told “I love you” or “You look good today” etc.
8 Quality Time - Kind of a given for a military relationship – Quality time is like GOLD!
7 Physical Touch - Again, I think this scores highly because we don’t get it very often – especially with deployment!
4 Acts of Service - Doing something nice for me is always appreciated.
2 Receiving Gifts - Yes, gifts are great, but for me, they aren’t as important (in this relationship)

(Side note: I suggest taking this quiz every few months, because I’ve noticed that my numbers change based on the situation. For example, when I took this quiz 3 years ago, my numbers were high for Receiving Gifts and low for Words of Affirmation.)

My honey’s results were:

11 Quality Time – He’d rather spend time together than anything else.
8 Acts of Service - He likes when you do something for him – like cook dinner, wash the car, keep the house clean, etc.
6 Words of Affirmation - He likes to hear “I love you” or “Thank you” or “You’re awesome!”
3 Physical Touch - He’s not a big PDA guy.
2 Receiving Gifts – He’s not big on gifts – probably because he’s not big on clutter. (This could be a problem with my love of sending care packages!)

Here’s the trick … how you like to BE SHOWN love is not always the way you actually SHOW love.  For me, I show love by giving little gifts and saying “I love you.” As you can see, Receiving Gifts does not rank highly on either of our lists. (I think there’s a quiz for how you SHOW love in the book, but not online.) The beauty of knowing how your loved one likes to be SHOWN love is that you now have a clear road map for what makes them happy.

Sometimes I feel like I’m always asking my honey to show me he loves me – in a specific way. Usually the way I show love – through e-mails, cards, letters, etc. And for a while I felt really sad, angry, annoyed that he didn’t – or would, but only after I asked for it.

Until I realized that he IS showing me he loves me in his own way – through Skype calls and messages. I needed to not compare what he’s doing to what I’m doing, but look at what he’s doing for me compared to what he does for others. As soon as I shifted that perspective, I was feeling the love. Right now, he doesn’t get a lot of “free” time, but when he does, he chooses to spend it with me – even if that means just a few minutes on Skype. And that ranks high on the “quality time” we both want.

So, next time you are feeling a little down or unloved or even ignored by your honey, take a different look at how he’s showing you he loves you. Maybe it’s not exactly what you expect them to do, but maybe it’s exactly what they can do.