How to make your partner/spouse love you the more (concluding part)

Dr. Chapman: “I think things can be turned around rather easily at this juncture,” I said. I pulled two note cards out of my pocket. “Let’s try something. I want each of you to sit on the steps of the church and make a request list.

See part 1

Mark, I want you to list three or four things that if Mary chose to do them would make you feel loved when you walk into the house in the afternoon. If making the bed is important to you, then put it down.

Mary, I want you to make a list of three or four things that you would really like to have Mark’s help in doing, things that, if he chose to do them, would help you know that he loved you.” (I’m big on lists; they force us to think concretely.)

After five to six minutes, they handed me their lists.

Mark’s list read: Make up the beds every day. Have the baby’s face washed when I get home. Put her shoes in the closet before I get home. Try to have supper at least started before I get home so that we could eat within 30–45 minutes after I get home. I read the list out loud and said to Mark, “I understand you to say that if Mary chooses to do these four things, you will view them as acts of love toward you.” “That’s right,” he said. “If she did those four things, it would go a long way in changing my attitude toward her.”

Mary’s list read: I wish he would wash the car every week instead of expecting me to do it. I wish he would change the baby’s diaper after he gets home in the afternoon, especially if I am working on supper. I wish he would vacuum the house for me once a week. I wish he would mow the grass every week in the summer and not let it get so tall that I am ashamed of our yard. I said, “Mary, I understand you to say that if Mark chooses to do those four things, you would take his actions as genuine expressions of love toward you.” “I would,” she said. “It would be wonderful if he would do those things for me.” “Does this list seem reasonable to you, Mark? Is it feasible for you to do these things?” “Yes,” he said. 

“Mary, do the things on Mark’s list seem reasonable and feasible to you? Could you do them if you chose to?” “Yes,” she said, “I can do those things. In the past, I have felt overwhelmed because no matter what I did, it was never enough.”

I turned to Mark. “Mark, you understand that what I am suggesting is a change from the model of marriage that your mother and father had.” “Oh, my father mowed the grass and washed the car.” “But he didn’t change the diapers or vacuum the floor, right?” “Right,” he said. “You don’t have to do these, you understand? If you do them, however, it will be an act of love to Mary.”

And to Mary I said, “You understand that you don’t have to do these things, but if you want to express love for Mark, here are four ways that will be meaningful to him. I want to suggest that you try these for two months and see if they help.

At the end of two months, you may want to add additional requests to your lists and share them with each other. I would not add more than one request per month, however.”

In summary, that is the experience of Mary and Mark with Dr. Chapman when their marriage was falling apart and because they both were willing to make it work, they searched for the possible solution and they got it which is learning each other’s primary love language and speaking it

If you have been following their love story from the beginning, you will see that their primary love language as individual is act of service and because one (Mark) stopped communicating this language, the other also stopped after a while and it was like their love had finished and ended. Do we see why and how love fails now?????

But note this; seldom will you find couples or lovers who have the same primary love language as that of Mark and Mary, so at this point, I think you should take a look at yourself, your partner and your relationship and pen down what your primary love language is and that of your partner for effective and accurate communication.

Let’s take out few minutes to see how far we’ve gone with this series and how well we understood it so far. Tell us what you’ve discovered to be your primary love language and that of your partner (Drop it in the comment box)

Each of us must decide daily to love or not to love our partner/spouses. If we choose to love, then expressing it in a way  which our spouse requests will make our love most effective and fulfilled.

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