Gary Chapman Quotes

Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment.

I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday.

People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.

Real love" - "This kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth.

Love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself.

Encouragement requires empathy and seeing the world from your spouse's perspective. We must first learn what is important to our spouse. Only then can we give encouragement. With verbal encouragement, we are trying to communicate, "I know. I care. I am with you. How can I help?" We are trying to show that we believe in him and in his abilities. We are giving credit and praise.

What we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage.

The person who is "in-love" has the ilusion that his beloved is perfect.

Love doesn't erase the past, but it makes the future different.

Something in our nature cries out to be loved by another. Isolation is devastating to the human psyche. That is why solitary confinement is considered the cruelest of punishments.

For love, we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, and endure untold hardships. Without love, mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, deserts unbearable, and hardships our lot in life.

Love is a choice you make everyday.

The best thing we can do with the failures of the past is to let them be history.

Love is a verb.

The in-love experience does not focus on our own growth or on the growth and development of the other person. Rather, it gives us the sense that we have arrived and that we do not need further growth.

Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment. It is a choice to show mercy, not to hold the offense up against the offender. Forgiveness is an expression of love.

All of us blossom when we feel loved and wither when we do not feel loved.

People do not get married planning to divorce. Divorce is the result of a lack of preparation for marriage and the failure to learn the skills of working together as teammates in an intimate relationship.

Inside every child is an 'emotional rani's waiting to be filled with love. When a child really feels loved, he will develop normally but when the love tank is empty, the child will misbehave. Much of the misbehavior of children is motivated by the cravings of an empty 'love tank

Recent research has indicated that the average individual listens for only seventeen seconds before interrupting and interjecting his own ideas.

In fact, true love cannot begin until the in-love experience has run its course.

Psychologist William James said that possibly the deepest human need is the need to feel appreciated.

You cannot force someone to accept an expression of love. You can only offer it. If it is not accepted, you must respect the other person's decision.

Love is a choice.

Most of us have more potential than we will ever develop. What holds us back is often a lack of courage.

True love cannot begin until the "in love" experience has run it's course.

Don't be a victim of the urgent. In the long run, much of what seems so pressing right now won't even matter. What you do with your children will matter forever.

We are trained to analyze problems and create solutions. We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve.

Quality time does not mean that we have to spend our together moments gazing into each other’s eyes. It means that we are doing something together and that we are giving our full attention to the other person.

I would encourage you to make your own investigation of the one whom, as He died, prayed for those who killed Him: 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do.' That is love's ultimate expression.

Empathetic listening is an awesome medication for the hurting heart.

Material things are no replacement for human, emotional love.

If we are to develop an intimate relationship, we need to know each other's desires. If we wish to love each other, we need to know what the other person wants.

Love is always freely given. Love cannot be demanded. We can request things of each other, but we must never demand anything. Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love.

I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday and in so doing, they pollute a potentially wonderful day.

Respect begins with this attitude: "I acknowledge that you are a creature of extreme worth. God has endowed you with certain abilities and emotions. Therefore I respect you as a person. I will not desecrate your worth by making critical remarks about your intellect, your judgment or your logic. I will seek to understand you and grant you the freedom to think differently from the way I think and to experience emotions that I may not experience." Respect means that you give the other person the freedom to be an individual.

Lack of love from parents often motivates their children to go searching for love in other relationships. This search is often misguided and leads to further disappointment.

Love makes requests, not demands.

Verbal compliments, or words of appreciation, are powerful communicators of love.

We fail to reckon with the reality of human nature. By nature,we are egocentric. Our world revolves around us. None of us is totally altruistic.

It takes time and the conscious choice to listen.

Love doesn't keep a score of wrongs. Love doesn't bring up past failures. None of us is perfect. In marriage we do not always do the right thing. We have sometimes done and said hurtful things to our spouses. We cannot erase the past. We can only confess it and agree that it was wrong. We can ask for forgiveness and try to act differently in the future. Having confessed my failure and asked forgiveness, I can do nothing more to mitigate the hurt it may have caused my spouse. When I have been wronged by my spouse and she has painfully confessed it and requested forgiveness, I have the option of justice or forgiveness. If I choose justice and seek to pay her back or make her pay for her wrongdoing, I am making myself the judge and her the felon. Intimacy becomes impossible. If, however, I choose to forgive, intimacy can be restored. Forgiveness is the way of love.

love is always a choice.

Often we fail to consider the fact that our social, spiritual, and intellectual interests are miles apart. Our value systems and goals are contradictory, but we are in love.

Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving. That kind of love requires effort and discipline. It is the choice to expend energy in an effort to benefit the other person, knowing that if his or her life is enriched by your effort, you too will find a sense of satisfaction—the satisfaction of having genuinely

Mark Twain once said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.

Another reality about relationships is that they are never static. All of us experience changes in relationships but a few stop to analyse why a relationship gets better or worse.

..there is hope. That's the marvelous thing about being human. We can change our future. We need not be enslaved by the experiences of the past. We can learn to love even when we have not received love.

Dr. Dorothy Tennov, a psychologist, has done long-range studies on the in-love phenomenon. After studying scores of couples, she concluded that the average life span of a romantic obsession is two years.

Gifts need not be expensive; after all, "it's the thuoght that counts." But I remind you, it is not the thought left in your head that counts; it is the gift that came out of the thought that communicates emotional love.

Third, one who is "in love" is not genuinely interested in fostering the personal growth of the other person. "If we have any purpose in mind when we fall in love it is to terminate our own loneliness and perhaps ensure this result through marriage.

We are influenced by our personality but not controlled by it.

Love is the fundamental building block of all human relationships. It will greatly impact our values and morals. Love is the important ingredient in one’s search for meaning.

People who are "in love" lose interest in other pursuits. That is why we call it "obsession.

Gifts are visual symbols of love.

Love doesn't keep a score of wrongs. Love doesn't bring up past failures. (1 Cor 13:5)

We need not agree on everything, but we must find a way to handle our differences so that they do not become divisive.

Anger held inside becomes hate.

Camp out in the living room. Spread your blankets and pillows on the floor. Get your Pepsi and popcorn. Pretend the TV is broken and talk like you used to when you were dating. Talk till the sun comes up or something else happens. If the floor gets too hard, go back upstairs and go to bed. You won’t forget this evening!

I think the tingles are important. They are real, and I am in favor of their survival. But they are not the basis for a satisfactory marriage. I am not suggesting that on should marry without the tingles. Those warm, excited feelings, the chill bumps, that sense of acceptance, the excitement of the touch that make up the tingles serve as the cherry on top of the sundae. But you cannot have a sundae with only the cherry.

Being in love is an emotional and obsessive experience. However, emotions change and obsessions fade. Research indicates that the average life span of the "in love" obsession is two years. For some it may last a bit longer; for some, a bit less. But the average is two years. Then we come down off the emotional high and those aspects of life that we disregarded in our euphoria begin to become important. Our differences begin to emerge and we often find ourselves arguing with the person whom we once though to be perfect. We have now discovered for ourselves that being in love is not the foundation for a happy marriage.

Can emotional love be reborn? You bet! The key is to learn the primary love language of your spouse and choose to speak it.

It may surprise you that the primary lifetime threat to your child is his or her own anger.

The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love.

Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct.

life’s deepest meaning is not found in accomplishments but in relationships.

A central aspect to quality time is togetherness. I do not mean proximity... Togetherness has to do with focused attention.

Our spouse will usually interpret our message based on our tone of voice, not the words we use.

Love can be expressed and received in all five languages. However, if you don't speak a person's primary love language, that person will not feel loved, even though you may be speaking the other four. Once you are speaking his or her primary love language fluently, then you can sprinkle in the other four and they will be like icing on the cake.

When I sit with my wife and give her twenty minutes of my undivided attention and she does the same for me, we are giving each other twenty minutes of life. We will never have those twenty minutes again; we are giving our lives to each other. It is a powerful emotional communicator of love.

The choice to do or say something for the other person's benefit, that would help make them a better person, something that would enrich their lives and make their lives more meaningful for them.

We even fall in love with love.

Lack of courage often hinders us from accomplishing the positive things that we would like to do.

But if, once we return to the real world of human choice, we choose to be kind and generous, that is real love.

Love won’t allow you to bear burdens alone. — Tina Givens —

A soft answer turns away anger.

An ancient sage once said, “A soft answer turns away anger.

There is a third truth, which only the mature lover will be able to hear. My spouse’s criticisms about my behavior provide me with the clearest clue to her primary love language.

Togetherness has to do with focused attention. It is giving someone your undivided attention. As humans, we have a fundamental desire to connect with others. We may be in the presence of people all day long, but we do not always feel connected.

When we express appreciation, it means that we recognize the value of the other person's contribution to our relationship/ Each of us expends our energy and abilities in ways that benefit our relationship.

The decision to get married will impact one's life more deeply than almost any decision in life. Yet people continue to rush into marriage with little or no preparation for making a marriage successful. In fact, many couples give far more attention to making plans for the wedding than making plans for marriage. The wedding festivities last only a few hours, while the marriage, we hope, will last for a lifetime

Each person has the potential of making a positive impact on the world. It all depends on what you do with what you have. Success is not to be measured by the amount of money you possess or the position you attain but rather in how you use both. Position and money can be squandered or abused, but they can also be used to help others.

Make time every day to share with each other some of the events of the day. When you spend more time on Facebook than you do listening to each other, you can end up more concerned about your hundred “friends” than about your spouse.

What is emotional intimacy? It is that depp sense of being connected to one another. It is feeling loved, respected and appreciated, while at the same time seeking to reciprocate. To feel loved is to have the sense that the other person genuinely cares about your well-being. Respect has to do with feeling that your potential spouse has positive regard for your personhood, intellect, abilities and personality. Appreciation is that inner sense that your partner values your contribution to the relationship.

Almost never do two people fall in love on the same day, and almost never do they fall out of love on the same day.

You can simply remember that behavioral expressions of love can be divided into physical touch, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and words of affirmation.

human anger is designed by God to motivate us to take constructive action in the face of wrongdoing or when facing injustice.

Love is the most important word in the English language--and the most confusing.

Love is not a feeling; it is a way of behaving.

إن اعترافك بالجهود التي يبذلها شريكك كي يصير شخصاً أفضل، وثناءك على صفاته الإيجابية، سيدفعه للقيام بمزيد من التغييرات

William James said that possibly the deepest human need is the need to feel appreciated.

I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday, and in so doing, they pollute a potentially wonderful present.

Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving.

The choice to love is the choice to take initiative. It is the choice to do or say something for the other person’s benefit, something that would help make them a better person, something that would enrich their lives or make life more meaningful for them.

A relationship calls for sympathetic listening with a view to understanding the other person’s thoughts, feelings, and desires.

Remember, emotions themselves are neither good nor bad. They are simply our psychological responses to the events of life.

A gift is a gift only when given as a genuine expression of love, not as an effort to cover over past failures.

Isolation is devastating to the human psyche.

Life is filled with opportunities to express love by acts of service.

Discovering your own love language helps you understand why you feel more loved and appreciated by certain people than you do.

The ones we love often don’t need our judgment—they need our prayers. — Dianne Fraser —

The best way to predict future is to create it." Abraham Lincoln

The desire for reconciliation is often more potent than the desire for justice. The more intimate the relationship, the deeper the desire for reconciliation.

Love is the most important word in the English language—and the most confusing.

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry. WINSTON CHURCHILL

Love helps those that are hard to pray for turn into people who are easy to pray for. — Donna Collins Tinsley —

When an action does not come naturally to you it is a greater expression of love.

Nothing has more potential for strengthening one’s sense of well-being than effectively loving and being loved.

When your spouse’s emotional love tank is full and he feels secure in your love, the whole world looks bright and your spouse will move out to reach his highest potential in life.

THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES Words of Affirmation Quality Time Receiving Gifts Acts of Service Physical Touch

Don’t be a victim of the urgent. In the long run, much of what seems so pressing right now won’t even matter. What you do with your children will matter forever.

Quality time does not mean we must spend our moments gazing into each other's eyes. It may mean doing something together that we both enjoy. The particular activity is secondary, only a means to creating the sense of togetherness. The important thing is not the activity itself but the emotions that are created between both.

We speak and understand best our native language. We feel most comfortable speaking that language. The more we use a secondary language, the more comfortable we become conversing in it. If we speak only our primary language and encounter someone else who speaks only his or her primary language, which is different from ours, our communication will be limited. We must rely on pointing, grunting, drawing pictures, or acting out our ideas. We can communicate, but it is awkward.

The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love. It is a fact, however, that when we receive afirming words we are far more likely to be motivated to reciprocate.

We are relational creatures. All humans live in community and most people seek social interaction. In western culture, isolation is seen as one of the most stringent of punishments. Even criminals do not aspire to solitary confinement.

Physician Albert Scheweitzer said. " We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness." Professor Leo Buscaglia notes, "There seems to be accumulating evidence that there is actually an inborn need for this togetherness, this human interaction, this love. It seems that without these close ties with other human beings, a new born infant, for example, can regress developmentally, lose consciousness, fall into idiocy and die.

WHAT’S THE ONE thing that most affects how much people enjoy their jobs? First and foremost, people thrive when they feel appreciated by their supervisors and colleagues—and that means they sense the appreciation is heartfelt and authentic.

I may not feel significant until someone expresses love to me.

The key to quality time is found in the values and priorities you as parents determine to cherish and implement in your home.

We needed love before we “fell in love,” and we will need it as long as we live.

At the heart of mankind's existence is the desire to be intimate and to be loved by another. Marriage is designed to meet that need for intimacy and love.

The one who chooses to love will find appropriate ways to express that decision everyday.

ليس الحب أن تحصل على ما تريد بل أن تفعل شيئا ذا أهمية لمن تحب، ورغم هذا فإننا عندما نتلقى كلمات تشجيعية ممن نحب فإن ذلك يخلق لدينا حالة من الاثارة والايجابية لتلبية رغبات الشريك.

We all need support, in the workplace and beyond it. When we both give and receive, we stand a much better chance of survival.

It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth. Our

God loves you—as a person and as a unique individual. — Susan Campbell —

When I have been wronged by my spouse and she has painfully confessed it and requested forgiveness, I have the option of justice or forgiveness.

Can emotional love be reborn in a marriage? You bet. The key is to learn the primary love language of your spouse and choose to speak it.

Psychologist William James said that possibly the deepest human need is the need to feel appreciated. Words of affirmation will meet that need in many individuals.

If you are to become an effective gift giver, you may have to change your attitude about money.

Encouragement requires empathy and seeing the world from your spouse’s perspective. We must first learn what is important to our spouse. Only then can we give encouragement.

Expressing love in the right language. We tend to speak our own love language, to express love to others in a language that would make us feel loved. But if it is not his/her primary love language, it will not mean to them what it would mean to us.

Positive, affirming relationships bring great pleasure while poor relationship brings great pain. Greatest happiness found in good relationships, greatest pain found in bad relationships

Many people mess up every new day with what happened yesterday. They insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday, and in so doing pollute a potentially wonderful day. When bitterness, resentment, and revenge are allowed to live in the human heart, words of affirmation will be impossible to speak. The best thing we can do with past failures is to let them be history.

Remember, love is the attitude that wishes good things for the other person. Do you desire the best possible life for your mom and dad for the rest of their years?” “Yes,” Brian said. “Then ‘I love you’ is a true statement.

We forget that marriage is a relationship, not a project to be completed or a problem to solve. A relationship calls for sympathetic listening with a view to understanding the other person’s thoughts, feelings, and desires.

A nadie le gusta que lo obliguen a hacer algo. Es más, el amor se da siempre con libertad. No se puede exigir el amor. Podemos pedirnos cosas el uno al otro, pero nunca debemos exigir nada. Las peticiones dan dirección al amor, pero las demandas detienen el flujo del amor.

Sometimes our words are saying one thing, but our tone of voice is saying another. We are sending double messages. Our spouse will usually interpret our message based on our tone of voice, not the words we use.

For love, we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, and endure untold hardships. Without love, mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, deserts unbearable, and hardships our lot in life.

and no one likes to be forced to do anything. In fact, love is always freely given. Love cannot be demanded. We can request things of each other, but we must never demand anything. Requests give direction to love, but demands stop the flow of love.

your child, like a flower, will benefit from your love. When the water of love is given, your child will bloom and bless the world with beauty. Without that love, she will become a wilted flower, begging for water.

true love cannot begin until the in-love experience has run its course.

The most essential emotional element in a happy and healthy marriage is love.

love hugging and kissing my wife after we’ve been apart for a while.

God’s forgiveness is always in response to man’s repentance. His

Love is the attitude that says, “I am married to you, and I choose to look out for your interests.

A gentle answer turns away wrath.

Inside every child is an ‘emotional tank’ waiting to be filled with love.

Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse may be as different as Chinese from English.

Each of us has an individualized perception of the purposes of money, and we have various emotions associated with spendint it.

When we hold hands, it seems as if our blood flows together. We could kiss forever if we didn’t have to go to school or work.

they begin the hard work of learning to love each other without the euphoria of the “in love” obsession.

True love cannot begin until the in-love experience has run its course. We cannot take credit for the kind and generous things we do while under the influence of the obsession.

Most of us have more potential than we will ever develop. What holds us back is often courage.

In every vocation, those who truly excel have genuine desire to serve others.

Estaba pensando en ti. Estabas conmigo, incluso cuando te encontrabas fuera”»

Good marriages are built upon a combination of emotional love and a common commitment to a core of beliefs about what is important in life and what we wish to do with our lives. Speaking each other's primary love language creates the emotional climate where these beliefs can be fleshed out in daily life.

Unconditional love is a full love that accepts and affirms a child for who he is, not for what he does. No matter what he does (or does not do), the parent still loves him. Sadly, some parents display a love that is conditional; it depends on something other than their children just being. Conditional love is based on performance and is often associated with training techniques that offer gifts, rewards, and privileges to children who behave or perform in desired ways.

In that day the wolf and the lamb will live together; the leopard will lie down with the baby goat. The calf and the yearling will be safe with the lion, and a little child will lead them all. —Isaiah 11:6

Women like to be affirmed verbally, just as men like to be affirmed verbally. They tend to pull away from dating partners who do not give affirmation. Lack of verbal affirmation is interpreted as lack of love.

I’m sorry. I know I have hurt you, but I would like to make the future different. I would like to love you in your language. I would like to meet your needs.” I have seen marriages rescued from the brink of divorce when couples make the choice to love.

It is the mistaken idea that if I reward mediocrity, I will curtail the person’s aspirations to be better. That is a commonly held myth that keeps some parents from verbally affirming children. Of course, it’s untrue.

We have been led to believe that if we are really in love, it will last forever. We will always have the wonderful feelings that we have at this moment. Nothing could ever come between us. Nothing will ever overcome our love for each other. [..] Unfortunately, the eternality of the in-love experience is fiction, not fact. The late psychologist Dr. Dorothy Tennov conducted long range studies on the in-love phenomenon. After studying scores of couples, she concluded that the average life span of a romantic obsession is two years.

The best way to love your children is to love their mother [father].” That’s true. The quality of your marriage greatly affects the way you relate to your children—and the way they receive love. If your marriage is healthy—both partners treating each other with kindness, respect, and integrity—you and your spouse will feel and act as partners in parenting.

Discipline is not a negative word. It comes from the Greek word "to train.

He dreams of buying a new car, but she flatly says, “We can’t afford it.

Sometimes the decision to agree with the other person's idea will involve great sacrifice. However, love always involves some sacrifice.

The decisions we make regarding vocation, child rearing, education, civic and church involvement, and other areas of life create changes that affect our marriage relationships. The manner in which couples process these changes will determine the quality of their marriages.

It is the choice to expend energy in an effort to benefit the other person, knowing that if his or her life is enriched by your effort, you too will find a sense of satisfaction—the satisfaction of having genuinely loved another.

I liked the metaphor the first time I heard it: “Inside every child is an ‘emotional tank’ waiting to be filled with love. When a child really feels loved, he will develop normally, but when the love tank is empty, the child will misbehave.

Nothing works well if a child’s love needs are not met. Only the child who feels genuinely loved and cared for can do her best. You may truly love your child, but unless she feels it—unless you speak the love language that communicates to her your love—she will not feel loved. Filling the

When your spouse’s emotional love tank is full and he feels secure in your love, the whole world looks bright and your spouse will move out to reach his highest potential in life. But when the love tank is empty and he feels used but not loved, the whole world looks dark and he will likely never reach his potential for good in the world.

Professor Leo Buscaglia notes, "There seems to be accumulating evidence that there is actually an inborn need for this togetherness, this is human interaction, this love. It seems that without these close ties with other human beings, a new born infant, for example, can regress developmentally, lose consciousness, fall into idocy and die.

If acts of service do not come naturally for you, it is still a love language worth acquiring. It is a way of expressing a sense of responsibility for the well-being of others. Albert Schweitzer said repeatedly " As long as there is a man in the world who is hungry, sick, lonely or living in fear, he is my responsibility." Helping others is universally accepted as an expression of love.

Welcome to the real world of marriage, where hairs are always on the sink and little white spots cover the mirror, where arguments center on which way the toilet paper comes off and whether the lid should be up or down. It is a world where shoes do not walk to the closet and drawers do not close themselves, where coats do not like hangers and socks go AWOL during laundry. In this world, a look can hurt and a word can crush. Intimate lovers can become enemies, and marriage a battlefield.

Quality conversation is quite different from the love language words of affirmation. Affirming words focus on what we are saying, whereas quality conversation focuses fully as much on what we are hearing. If I am sharing my love for you by means of quality time and we are going to spend that time in conversation, it will be with a genuine desire to understand your thoughts, feelings and desires.

Psychologists have concluded that the need to feel loved is a primary human emotional need. For love, we will climb mountains, cross seas, traverse desert sands, and endure untold hardships. Without love, mountains become unclimbable, seas uncrossable, deserts unbearable, and hardship our lot in life.

Those who say it is hypocritical to take positive action when they have negative feelings are operating on the assumption that the true self is determined by emotions. I am suggesting that is a false premise, and to the degree that it has permeated Western thinking, it has been detrimental to family relationships. In

The best thing we can do with the failures of the past is to let them be history. Yes, it happened. Certainly it hurt. And it may still hurt, but he has acknowledged his failure and asked your forgiveness. We cannot erase the past, but we can accept it as history. We can choose to live today free from the failures of yesterday. Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment. It

Forgiveness is not a feeling; it is a commitment. It is a choice to show mercy, not to hold the offense up against the offender. Forgiveness is an expression of love. “I love you. I care about you, and I choose to forgive you. Even though my feelings of hurt may linger, I will not allow what has happened to come between us. I hope that we can learn from this experience. You are not a failure because you have failed. You are my spouse, and together we will go on from here.” Those are the words of affirmation expressed in the dialect of kind words.

Covenant love is conscious love. It is intentional love. It is commitment to love no matter what. It requires thought and action. It does not wait for the encouragement of warm emotions but chooses to look out for the interest of the other party because you are committed to the other's well-being. Covenant love requires two factors: knowledge of the nature of love and the will to love. Understanding the 5 love languages will give you the information you need to have a successful long term covenant love relationship. Hopefully, as you see the benefits of covenant love, you will also find the will to love.

Slavery is at the heart of dysfunctional families. When people serve others because they are forced to do so, freedom to truly serve is lost. Slavery hardens the heart, creates anger, bitterness and resentment. On the other hand, true love often finds its expression in acts of serve. It is service freely given, not out of fear but out of choice. It comes out of personal discovery that "it is more blessed to give than to receive

A supportive environment and attitude will help our children learn at home. Children are more emotional than cognitive—that is, they remember feelings more readily than they do facts. This means that your children remember how they felt in a particular situation much more easily than they recall the details of the event. For instance, a child listening to a story will remember exactly how she felt long after she forgets the lesson.

I’m now much less of an asset to the company than I could be. I keep my head down and for self-preservation just do my work with little conversation with anyone. Yet the irony is this: in my self-preservation, I’m actually destroying myself. In bottling up my unexpressed feelings, I’m making myself sick emotionally and physically.

Write a love letter, a love paragraph, or a love sentence to your spouse, and give it quietly or with fanfare! You may someday find your love letter tucked away in some special place. Words are important!   6. Compliment your spouse in the presence of his parents or friends. You will get double credit: Your spouse will feel loved and the parents will feel lucky to have such a great son-in-law or daughter-in-law.

It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth. Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving.

Parents who treat the teenager in the same manner in which they treated the child will not experience the same results they received earlier. When the teenager does not respond as the child responded, the parents are now pushed to try something different. Without proper training, parents almost always revert to efforts at coercion, which often lead to arguments, loss of temper, and perhaps, verbal abuse. Such behavior is emotionally devastating to the teenager whose primary love language is words of affirmation. The parents’ efforts to verbally argue the teenager into submission are in reality pushing the teenager toward rebellion.

Such immaturity will manifest itself in a lack of integrity. This lack will critically affect the child’s spiritual development; the less able a child is to deal with anger well, the more antagonistic will be his attitude toward authority, including the authority of God. A child’s immature handling of anger is a primary reason the child will reject the parent’s spiritual values.

When my spouse lovingly invests time, energy, and effort in me, I believe that I am significant. Without love, I may spend a lifetime in search of significance, self-worth, and security. When I experience love, it influences all of those needs positively. I am now freed to develop my potential. I am more secure in my self-worth and can now turn my efforts outward instead of being obsessed with my own needs. True love always liberates. In the context of marriage, if we do not feel loved, our differences are magnified. We come to view each other as a threat to our happiness. We fight for self-worth and significance, and marriage becomes a battlefield rather than a haven. Love is not the answer to everything, but it creates a climate of security in which we can seek answers to those things that bother us. In the security of love, a couple can discuss differences without condemnation. Conflicts can be resolved. Two people who are different can learn to live together in harmony. We discover how to bring out the best in each other. Those are the rewards of love.

Genuine forgiveness and reconciliation are two-person transactions that are enabled by apologies. Some, particularly within the Christian worldview, have taught forgiveness without an apology. They often quote the words of Jesus, “If you do not forgive men their trespasses neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Thus, they say to the wife whose husband has been unfaithful and continues in his adulterous affair, “You must forgive him, or God will not forgive you.” Such an interpretation of Jesus’ teachings fails to reckon with the rest of the scriptural teachings on forgiveness. The Christian is instructed to forgive others in the same manner that God forgives us. How does God forgive us? The Scriptures say that if we confess our sins, God will forgive our sins. Nothing in the Old or New Testaments indicates that God forgives the sins of people who do not confess and repent of their sins. While a pastor encourages a wife to forgive her erring husband while he still continues in his wrongdoing, the minister is requiring of the wife something that God Himself does not do. Jesus’ teaching is that we are to be always willing to forgive, as God is always willing to forgive, those who repent… While a pastor encourages a wife to forgive her erring husband while he still continues in his wrongdoing, the minister is requiring of the wife something that God Himself does not do. Jesus’ teaching is that we are to be always willing to forgive, as God is always willing to forgive, those who repent…

The manner in which we speak is exceedingly important. An ancient sage once said, “A soft answer turns away anger.” When your spouse is angry and upset and lashing out words of heat, if you choose to be loving, you will not reciprocate with additional heat but with a soft voice. You will receive what he is saying as information about his emotional feelings. You will let him tell you of his hurt, anger, and perception of events. You will seek to put yourself in his shoes and see the event through his eyes and then express softly and kindly your understanding of why he feels that way. If you have wronged him, you will be willing to confess the wrong and ask forgiveness. If your motivation is different from what he is reading, you will be able to explain your motivation kindly. You will seek understanding and reconciliation, and not to prove your own perception as the only logical way to interpret what has happened. That is mature love—love to which we aspire if we seek a growing marriage.

Positive Eye Contact Quality time should include loving eye contact. Looking in your child’s eyes with care is a powerful way to convey love from your heart to the heart of your child. Studies have shown that most parents use eye contact in primarily negative ways, either while reprimanding a child or giving very explicit instructions. If you give loving looks only when your child is pleasing you, you are falling into the trap of conditional love. That can damage your child’s personal growth. You want to give enough unconditional love to keep your child’s emotional tank full, and a key way to do this is through proper use of eye contact. Sometimes family members refuse to look at one another as a means of punishment. This is destructive to both adults and children. Kids especially interpret withdrawal of eye contact as disapproval, and this further erodes their self-esteem. Don’t let your demonstration of

If we speak only our primary language and encounter someone else who speaks only his or her primary language, which is different from ours, our communication will be limited. We must rely on pointing, grunting, drawing pictures, or acting out our ideas. We can communicate, but it is awkward. Language differences are part and parcel of human culture. If we are to communicate effectively across cultural lines, we must learn the language of those with whom we wish to communicate.

We are talking about love, and love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself. Most of us do things each day that do not come "naturally" for us. For some of us, that is getting out of bed in the morning. We go against our feelings and get out of bed. Why? Because we believe there is something worthwhile to do that day. And normally, before the day is over, we feel good about having gotten up. Our actions preceded our emotions. The same is true with love. We discover the primary love language of our spouse, and we choose to speak it whether or not it is natural for us. We are not claiming to have warm, excited feelings. We are simply choosing to do it for his or her benefit. We want to meet our spouses emotional needs, and we reach out to speak his love language. In so doing, his emotional love tank is filled and chances are he will reciprocate and speak our language. When he does our emotions return, and our love tank begins to fill. p139

Self-revelation does not come easy for some of us. Many adults grew up in homes where the expression of thoughts and feelings was not encouraged but condemned. To request a toy was to receive a lecture on the sad state of family finances. The child went away feeling guilty for having the desire, and he quickly learned not to express his desires. When he expressed anger, the parents responded with harsh and condemning words. Thus, the child learned that expressing angry feelings is not appropriate. If the child was made to feel guilty for expressing disappointment at not being able to go to the store with his father, he learned to hold his disappointment inside. By the time we reach adulthood, many of us have learned to deny our feelings. We are no longer in touch with our emotional selves.

Abuse of gift-giving can occur when a child is living with a custodial parent following a separation or divorce. The noncustodial parent is often tempted to shower a child with gifts, perhaps from the pain of separation or feelings of guilt over leaving the family. When these gifts are overly expensive, ill-chosen, and used as a comparison with what the custodial parent can provide, they are really a form of bribery, an attempt to buy the child’s love. They may also be a subconscious way of getting back at the custodial parent. Children receiving such ill-advised gifts may eventually see them for what they are, but in the meantime they are learning that at least one parent regards gifts as a substitute for genuine love. This can make children materialistic and manipulative, as they learn to manage people’s feelings and behavior by the improper use of gifts. This kind of substitution can have tragic consequences for the children’s character and integrity.

Research seems to indicate that there is a third and better alternative: We can recognize the in love experience for what it was—a temporary emotional high—and now pursue “real love” with our spouse. That kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth. Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving. That kind of love requires effort and discipline. It is the choice to expend energy in an effort to benefit the other person, knowing that if his or her life is enriched by your effort, you too will find a sense of satisfaction—the satisfaction of having genuinely loved another

First, they illustrate clearly that what we do for each other before marriage is no indication of what we will do after marriage. Before marriage, we are carried along by the force of the in-love obsession. After marriage, we revert to being the people we were before we “fell in love.” Our actions are influenced by the model of our parents; our own personality; our perceptions of love; our emotions, needs, and desires. Only one thing is certain about our behavior: It will not be the same behavior we exhibited when we were caught up in being “in love.” That leads me to the second truth: Love is a choice and cannot be coerced. Dave and Mary were criticizing each other’s behavior and getting nowhere. Once they decided to make requests of each other rather than demands, their marriage began to turn around. Criticism and demands tend to drive wedges. With enough criticism, you may get acquiescence from your spouse. He may do what you want, but probably it will not be an expression of love. You can give guidance to love by making requests: “I wish you would wash the car, change the baby’s diaper, mow the grass,” but you cannot create the will to love. Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in the way in which our spouse requests will make our love most effective emotionally. There is a third truth, which only the mature lover will be able to hear. My spouse’s criticisms about my behavior provide me with the clearest clue to her primary love language. People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need. Their criticism is an ineffective way of pleading for love. If we understand that, it may help us process their criticism in a more productive manner.

In the area of linguistics, there are major language groups: Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Greek, German, French, and so on. Most of us grow up learning the language of our parents and siblings, which becomes our primary or native tongue. Later, we may learn additional languages but usually with much more effort. These become our secondary languages. We speak and understand best our native language. We feel most comfortable speaking that language. The more we use a secondary language, the more comfortable we become conversing in it. If we speak only our primary language and encounter someone else who speaks only his or her primary language, which is different from ours, our communication will be limited. We must rely on pointing, grunting, drawing pictures, or acting out our ideas. We can communicate, but it is awkward. Language differences are part and parcel of human culture. If we are to communicate effectively across cultural lines, we must learn the language of those with whom we wish to communicate. In the area of love, it is similar. Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse may be as different as Chinese from English. No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other. My friend on the plane was speaking the language of “Affirming Words” to his third wife when he said, “I told her how beautiful she was. I told her I loved her. I told her how proud I was to be her husband.” He was speaking love, and he was sincere, but she did not understand his language. Perhaps she was looking for love in his behavior and didn’t see it. Being sincere is not enough. We must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love.

Dead Seas and Babbling Brooks Not all of us are out of touch with our emotions, but when it comes to talking, all of us are affected by our personality. I have observed two basic personality types. The first I call the “Dead Sea.” In the little nation of Israel, the Sea of Galilee flows south by way of the Jordan River into the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea goes nowhere. It receives but it does not give. This personality type receives many experiences, emotions, and thoughts throughout the day. They have a large reservoir where they store that information, and they are perfectly happy not to talk. If you say to a Dead Sea personality, “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you talking tonight?” he will probably answer, “Nothing’s wrong. What makes you think something’s wrong?” And that response is perfectly honest. He is content not to talk. He could drive from Chicago to Detroit and never say a word and be perfectly happy. On the other extreme is the “Babbling Brook.” For this personality, whatever enters into the eye gate or the ear gate comes out the mouth gate and there are seldom sixty seconds between the two. Whatever they see, whatever they hear, they tell. In fact, if no one is at home to talk to, they will call someone else. “Do you know what I saw? Do you know what I heard?” If they can’t get someone on the telephone, they may talk to themselves because they have no reservoir. Many times a Dead Sea marries a Babbling Brook. That happens because when they are dating, it is a very attractive match. If you are a Dead Sea and you date a Babbling Brook, you will have a wonderful evening. You don’t have to think, “How will I get the conversation started tonight? How will I keep the conversation flowing?” In fact, you don’t have to think at all. All you have to do is nod your head and say, “Uh-huh,” and she will fill up the whole evening and you will go home saying, “What a wonderful person.” On the other hand, if you are a Babbling Brook and you date a Dead Sea, you will have an equally wonderful evening because Dead Seas are the world’s best listeners. You will babble for three hours. He will listen intently to you, and you will go home saying, “What a wonderful person.” You attract each other. But five years after marriage, the Babbling Brook wakes up one morning and says, “We’ve been married five years, and I don’t know him.” The Dead Sea is saying, “I know her too well. I wish she would stop the flow and give me a break.” The good news is that Dead Seas can learn to talk and Babbling Brooks can learn to listen. We are influenced by our personality but not controlled by it. One way to learn new patterns is to establish a daily sharing time in which each of you will talk about three things that happened to you that day and how you feel about them. I call that the “Minimum Daily Requirement” for a healthy marriage. If you will start with the daily minimum, in a few weeks or months you may find quality conversation flowing more freely between you.