When Love Languages Clash

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There can be some resistance to playing into clichés or following rules from a rulebook that feels so outdated. Learning about and executing love languages can meet that description. Even the term “love languages” feels so put on. But if you look around, you see clashing love languages as the root of so many relationship disputes. Here’s a common example: a boyfriend works very hard to earn money to buy a gift for his girlfriend. After weeks of working extra hours to do this, his girlfriend is upset that they haven’t been spending enough time together while he’s been working the extra hours. The two completely misunderstood one another’s love languages. His is gift-giving; hers is quality time. And in this instance, the two love languages were in direct conflict with each other. While the boyfriend was trying to show love, the girlfriend interpreted the path to that as the total opposite of doing so.

In the above scenario, everybody had good intentions. Everybody wanted to show and feel loved. So how can two people with good intentions who do love each other, wind up so frustrated with one another? Clashing love languages. If your reaction to that story is, “Well, they just aren’t right for each other,” then you may be in for a bumpy love life. People cannot be expected to read one another’s minds. Nor can they be expected to understand a love language that isn’t their own overnight – the same way we wouldn’t expect someone whose first language is English to speak French overnight. There is a learning curve. To get more insight on the topic, we spoke with Ann Marie Sorrell, pictured below. She is the author of Chronicles of a Serial Dater about how to deal when love languages clash.

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Love languages provide a road map

Love languages can provide a road map to a successful relationship, but if you speak different ones, and don’t learn each other’s, it’s like you’re reading two different maps – which will inevitably make you feel distant. Sorrell admits that, until she learned what love languages were, she was stumbling around a bit in love. “Until reading a book about love languages, I had no clue! Therefore, I could not understand why many of my relationships did not last more than a year,” she says. “Most people are not familiar with love languages, why they exist, and what to do with them. Many just go about relationships as business as usual while never really considering what it takes to truly please their partner.”