Choosing to love someone versus feeling loving toward someone. Should there be a difference? And why am I being asked to be selfless? Shouldn’t others be meeting my needs? As I mentioned in my last post, Gary Chapman identified Five Love Languages that people can express and need:
All five of these can be important to us, but there is usually one that will be more important for you to receive than the other four.
Without asking him or her, what do you think your spouse’s primary love language is?
What do you think your spouse’s secondary love language is?
Have your spouse do the free online test at 5lovelanguages.com to see if you are right.
The primary and secondary love languages are seldom the same for a husband and wife. But that doesn’t mean you cannot fill each others’ tanks. Instead, you must each ask this question – Can I fill my spouse’s love tank even though it is different from how I naturally show love?
Being “in love” is not a feeling. Love is something you choose to do for someone else. We know this to be true, but then we often operate as if love is a feeling. For example, we know it is a choice, because we say on our wedding day that we will be committed to one another for better or for worse. Therefore, you know that you must choose to love…even when times get “worse.”
We also know love to be a choice based on how we choose to love our children. We tell them, “No matter what you do, I will always love you.” And then we fulfill that statement. Even when they mess up. Even when they hurt our feelings. Even when they disobey us or betray us. The selfless love of a parent remains – no matter what.
And though we understand this with our children, too often we are unwilling to provide that same level of selfless love to our spouse – the person who we stood before God and everyone and said “I vow to love you till death do us part, even in times of sickness and even if things in life get worse.”
We know that love is a choice and not a feeling because that is how we have chosen to love our children – unconditionally. Be sure to remind yourself that it is to be the same with your spouse – love is a choice, so choose to love your spouse unconditionally.
If love is a choice, then we can choose to speak our spouse’s love language even when it is not our primary love language. We can decide to show them our love, even when the way they want to receive love isn’t the way we most naturally give it. We can choose to do this because, as the Bible says, “love is not self-seeking.” Choose to be selfless. Choose to love.
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