Speaking Your Partner's Love Language May Not Matter

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In his bestselling book, The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman introduces the idea that there are five basic ways—or “love languages”—that romantic partners demonstrate their feelings of love and affection for each other: physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, and acts of service.

Showing love through physical touch can involve a wide range of behaviors, such as holding hands, kissing, and sexual intimacy. For some individuals, physical touch is the primary way they show and experience love. When such individuals receive a lot of physical touch or their partner speaks their love language, their love tank is full—they feel valued, loved, and appreciated.

Demonstrating love through words of affirmation involves giving a partner compliments and stating how much they are appreciated (“You’re the best!”).

The language of quality time involves giving a partner undivided attention when together—putting distractions aside and making sure the partner is your primary concern.

Other individuals feel loved when they receive gifts from a partner—particularly gifts that show effort and thoughtfulness.

And speaking the language of acts of service means doing things for your partner that make their life easier—e.g., doing the dishes, picking up the dry cleaning, or putting the kids to bed.

According to Chapman, couples may use all five love languages to express love and affection, however, individuals have a dominant or primary love language. And relationships work best when partners’ primary love languages align—when individuals predominantly demonstrate their love in ways that their partners appreciate the most or when individuals go out of their way to speak their partner’s primary love language. The simplicity of the idea that one should predominately show love for a partner in a way they understand undoubtedly accounts for the widespread popularity of Chapman’s work.

Despite the prevailing embrace of Chapman’s ideas, little actual research has been done on the topic. And intuitively sensible ideas don’t always hold up to empirical scrutiny.

New research set out to test the very idea that love language alignment plays a role in determining a couple’s happiness. The research found that couples who shared the same primary love language were no happier than couples with a love language mismatch. The research also revealed that while the vast majority of participants intuitively understood their partner’s primary love language, insight into what a partner needs to feel loved didn’t result in better relational outcomes.

Although the researchers failed to support the idea that love language alignment results in better relationships, one finding did lend some support to Chapman’s work. In relationships where there was a misalignment of primary love languages, both men and women were happier when women adjusted their behavior to adapt to their partner’s needs. In short, this study showed that love style alignment wasn’t an important factor for a relationship to be successful, but when a misalignment was present, couples did better when female partners modified their behavior.

If speaking the same love language isn’t as important as book sales suggest, what does make a romantic relationship work? Decades of empirical evidence show that having a secure style of attachment and being responsive to a partner’s ever-changing needs lead to the outcome most couples desire—long-term happiness and satisfaction.