Embracing my love language

In the Catholic church if you want to be married, you must participate in pre-cana (pre wedding) preparations. This includes attending classes about marriage preparation and counseling sessions with your priest. As a newly engaged couple, Josh and I were looking forward to this process. We felt that this would assist us in our journey with our faith as a married couple and our practical lessons on what to expect when we are finally together. Like most aspects of our relationship we really wanted to waste no time and get started. So two weeks ago we attended a "Couples Engagement" weekend with the church.

Our "weekend" took place at the Avila Retreat Center in Durham, NC. The facility was very tranquil and had a restful feel to it. The center is run by nuns...so we had great food and attention all weekend. Now I have to admit that before going into this weekend, I had a lot of expectations in terms of outcomes. I fully expected to get information on all of the aspects of the church's teachings (prayerful unity and Natural Family Planning to name a few) as well as practical hands on stuff for a successful marriage (financial tips and communication strategies). Although the weekend fell short in some areas....I felt that we definitely walked away with more of a "game plan" on how we wanted our marriage to be. The format allowed for plenty of time for Josh and I to discuss the bigger things that we wanted out of our marriage as well as the tiny details.

One of the highlights of the weekend was a workshop that we attended facilitated by an older couple who had been married for nearly 45 years. They spoke to the group about the importance of communication and how it can literally "make or break" a marriage. Good stuff. They also introduced Gary Chapman's "Five Love Languages". Now if you have not read this book or heard of these languages....you definitely need to check them out. The languages allow couples to understand how to "talk to each other". For example if you are a touch person and your mate is not.....that could cause problems if you did not know it. However if you understand your partner's love language, you are more likely to respond to their needs as well as yours.

Now keep in mind that I had read the book previously and had an idea of what my love language was. Of course it had been a few years since reading the book.....so I was anxious to see if I still "spoke" the same language. Josh on the other hand had not read the book, so this was all new to him. As we broke apart to take our language quizzes...I could not help but think what our outcomes would be. I knew we would be different. So when the results came back...we both laughed at where we stood. I clearly was a "Words of Affirmation" person. I spoke that language loud and clear and valued it in every aspect of my life.....not just my romantic relationships. Josh's love language was "Touch". Hilarious in one regard because "Touch" was my very last language in the rankings of the five. Clearly we knew we had some differences.

The great result of learning these love languages is that now we know how to really talk to each other. I know that I need to touch Josh more and he understands how important it is to affirm his love towards me. We had a lot of fun learning these new languages and we definitely made fun of ourselves for the rest of the weekend.

Knowing what each other needs now......can most definitely save a lot of headaches and heartaches in the future.

JAR