What are the Five Love Languages? Summary of Dr. Gary Chapman's Book

Not many authors can claim to have forever changed their industry with one of their books. That is exactly what Dr. Gary Chapman did with The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts.

Dr. Chapman explains how important it is for couples to understand how each other and themselves both give and receive love. It is possible for couples to truly love each other, but to truly feel unloved because they don’t think the same about giving and receiving love.

Everybody generally has their own primary love languages for receiving love and giving love. It may be the same for giving/receiving, and it may be different. If a husband does not meet the primary love language of his wife, she might not sense his true feelings and start to be unsatisfied with their relationship.

Understanding your spouse’s love language and acting accordingly will fill their “Love Tank”. The “Love Tank” analogy is a great metaphor for describing how loved someone feels. Like a gas tank in a car, our lives run best when our Love Tank is filled and constantly being topped off. The alternative is running on fumes and burning out.

Meeting people’s primary love language consistently will fill up their love tank and help them feel loved like they need. But if a spouse fails to meet this primary love language, it might leave their “Love Tank” empty, which leads to feelings of being unloved and issues in relationships.

Below is a summary of Dr. Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages with three questions at the bottom to discern what is your primary love language:

Summary: What are the Five Love Languages?

What-are-the-Five-Love-Languages-Dr-Gary-Chapman-Summary-Book-Review

1. Words of Affirmation

“If this is your love language, you feel most cared for when your partner is open and expressive in telling you how wonderful they think you are, how much they appreciate you, etc.”

2. Acts of Service

“If your partner offering to watch the kids so you can go to the gym (or relieving you of some other task) gets your heart going, then this is your love language.”

3. Affection

“This love language is just as it sounds. A warm hug, a kiss, touch, and sexual intimacy make you feel most loved when this is your love language.”

4. Quality Time

“This love language is about being together, fully present and engaged in the activity at hand, no matter how trivial.”

5. Gifts

“Your partner taking the time to give you a gift can make you feel appreciated.”

How to figure out your primary language:

Your upbringing can speak into your love language. How did you parents show you love growing up? What made you feel the most loved as a child? There is a high probability that is your primary love language.
When you really want to show someone you care about them, what first comes to your mind to show it? Your most basic instincts can show your primary love language as well.
Painful relational experiences can show your primary love language. If someone close to you hurt you in a deep way or neglected to show love the way you wanted, perhaps the deep hurt/dissatisfaction came because the way you most feel loved was not met. This means that what they failed to do is what you value the most because it is your primary love language.

Take the Five Love Languages test to assess what your love languages are.

Buy on Amazon: The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

Additional Love Language Resources from Gary Chapman:

The video below is an interview with Dr. Chapman on Christian Doctors Digest Podcast discussing this groundbreaking book.

Limitations of The Five Love Languages

David Powlison of the Christian Counseling and Counseling Foundation shares on 9Marks.org how the Five Love Language message is worthwhile, but incomplete (see reasons below or other reviews of Christian books on marriage).

5LL teaches several worthwhile things: love is expressed and received in different forms (“languages”); what communicates love to one person may be entirely different for another person; married people should learn what is meaningful to their spouses; they should also take initiative in showing accurate love, and persist.
But the underlying premise of 5LL is faulty. It relentlessly communicates a theory of psychological needs that must be met by a spouse (or parent), and it ascribes magic-working power to change others if you give them what they want. 5LL wholly lacks awareness of both the sin in our desires and the Christ who turns life upside down.

My recommendation: still read The Five Love Languages, but read The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller or When Sinners Say I Do by Dave Harvey first to lay a strong Christ-centered foundation to your marriage.

Top Quotes from The Five Love Languages:

“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.”
“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.”
“People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.”
“The object of love is not getting something you want but doing something for the well-being of the one you love.”
“In fact, true love cannot begin until the in-love experience has run its course.”
“People tend to criticize their spouse most loudly in the area where they themselves have the deepest emotional need.”

Bonus Resources:

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What are the Five Love Languages? Summary of Dr. Gary Chapman’s Book