Language of Love: Quality Time

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails..." 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a

Love means something different to each person. Each person feels love differently than the next. We all want to be loved, feel love, give love and receive love. Often times, we only know how we feel loved, so we show love to others in the same manner. That is great. Don't stop loving on others (unless, of course, if it's in a creepy way haha). It is better to pour love on others the wrong way (so to speak) than not at all.

What I mean, by the wrong way, is that not every person feels love in the same manner. If you read "The 5 Love Languages" by Gary Chapman, you will further understand exactly what I mean by that. It's very insightful and a "must read" in my opinion. If you are not much of a reader (like myself), just take the quiz, in the back of the book or online, to find out you and your spouses love languages.

In this book, the love languages you learn about include: physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, acts of service and receiving gifts. It helps you pinpoint which ones are your personal love languages, i.e. how you feel loved. It also helps you determine your spouses love languages. This is extremely beneficial in understanding how your husband or wife "ticks", so to speak. For example, my love languages go in this exact order of importance: quality time and physical touch are tied for first, then words of affirmation, followed by acts of service. Receiving gifts did not even place, for me. To sum this up, I love to be felt up by my man, while spending time with him, as he's telling me how great of a wife I am, all while helping me clean the house and I could care less if he bought me a present or not. Okay, not really...but, maybe. ;) Haha.

Over the next few days, I'll explain what each love language means, one by one.

Quality Time
This is extremely important in my personal relationship, and maybe yours too. The key to this is not time, but quality. You see, I spend a lot of time with my husband. We live together, sleep together, spend time with family and friends together, and go to church together. All of this is a lot of time, but lacks the quality. What I, personally, need in my relationship is quality time. I need that, one-on-one, alone time with my man. Even if it means just snuggling up watching TV, it's our time. I love it. Recently, we choose one day out of the week to designate time for just the two of us. It helps us become more mindful for the time we spend with each other. It's easy to fill up your schedules, allowing no quality time for each other, but hard to squeeze that quality time in. Find time for and with each other, especially if quality time is either of your love languages.

Here is another big tip (for all the love languages), just because your love language may be quality time, doesn't mean it's his. His love language may be words of affirmation. So, here comes the tricky part. As I mentioned before, it's easy to show love to someone in the way you feel loved. The issue though, is that they won't receive it as love, if it's not their love language as well. You have to be mindful of that. It's extremely challenging, but incredibly beneficial.

For example: If Seth's love language was receiving gifts (it's not), and I clearly don't feel loved by receiving gifts, I may not think about giving him a gift. But, it's not about me, it's about him. So I should put time and effort into giving him gifts, to show him I love him. Do what makes him feel loved, not what makes you feel loved, and vice versa.

It will make a world of difference in all of your relationships, if you just take the time to figure out how those around you feel loved. Even though, they may not be your love languages, it will still make you feel great when you make the ones you love, feel loved.

Have an amazing week! :) 

(Here is the website for the book I recommended: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/)