Receiving gifts: Gifts are very symbolic, he explains. “If somebody started talking about the value of gift, that would lead you down a different road. This gift is just about remembering someone.”
Quality time: Yep, it’s about spending time with each other. Gurpreet often hears clients say their partner “can’t ever be bothered to sit with me”. This is often down to technology. “It acts as a big deterrent in a relationships because people are often on their phones, and quality time tends to diminish, so that tends to lead to a lot of hurting these days,” he explains.
Physical touch: Gurpreet’s clients will often complain their partner never holds their hand, for example. “This can mean anything from sex to just holding hands, to stroking someone’s hand, kissing,” he says. ” Some people like a morning kiss and an evening kiss, and other people don’t necessarily need that.”
How to identify your partner’s or your own love languages
“Identifying your love languages is part of the communication process among the couple,” Gurpreet says. “When counsellors see clients, we don’t ask them what their ‘language of love’ is specifically. Instead, we ask, ‘What will make you feel loved and cherished in the relationship’?”
Their answer will fit into one of the above five languages, and you can use this to understand your partner. “It gives you a framework of understanding the other person’s needs,” Gurpreet says. “It gives you some bullet points, and it’s worth finding out, but it is not the gospel of love.”
Essentially, you need a healthy amount of those five things, with a preference for one.
You should also remember that people speak more than one love language. Gurpreet explains, “If my language, for example, was quality time, does that mean I don’t like being touched? No. It’s that one language might be preferred, but there might be other things you enjoy as well in the relationship.”