EP 19 3 Tips to Getting Breakthrough in your Marriage- How to Make Relationship Better in One Day- Speak His Love Language

Wholly Made Life™- ReClaim your Whole Life, Tap into God-Sized Fulfillment for the Success Driven Woman, Mama, Wife, Sister

EP 19: 3 Tips to Getting Breakthrough in your Marriage- How to Make your Relationship Better in One Day

I wanted to talk today about our relationship piece of the pie, and I'm going to focus most on your spouse or your partner. And I just wanted to talk a little bit about some daily things that we can do to help us spread the love in our own relationship. So the first thing I want to talk about, I want to ask you if you know, what your spouse’s love languages, have you guys heard of this? It's called the Five Love Languages, and it's by Gary Chapman. And I have seen this it at this point, it was just at first with relationships, but it went to, uh, your kids, your teens, your workplace.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman

The Love Dare Test, by Stephen Kendrick

Satan, You Can’t Have My Marriage, by Iris Delgado

POUNCE- Saved our marriage in the physical touch realm 😉
You will NOT regret trying this one out, & your hubs will THANK YOU.

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#payitforward #spreadthelove

Welcome back to episode 19 today, we're going to talk about spreading the love. It is in honor of Valentine's day and it should post the week of, or the week after, I guess. But I wanted to talk today about our relationship piece of the pie, and I'm going to focus most on your spouse or your partner. And I just wanted to talk a little bit about some daily things that we can do to help us spread the love in our own relationship. So the first thing I want to talk about, I want to ask you if you know, what your spouse’s love languages, have you guys heard of this? It's called the Five Love Languages, and it's by Gary Chapman. And I have seen this it at this point, it was just at first with relationships, but it went to, uh, your kids, your teens, your workplace.

There's a five love language of work. You know how you can appreciate someone at work and it's all the same things. It's just, you tailor it for where you are, but I want to make sure that you know what these are, and I'll put a link below in the show notes about what the five love languages are. But these are really important because in order for you to really be seen and heard and perceive that you are showing love to your partner, you have to do it in the way that they understand it and receive it. So the five types are words of affirmation, quality, time, access, service, gifts, and physical touch. And first my question is, do you know what your love language is? There is a test or a quiz that assessment, whatever he calls it on his site, where you can go through and answer some questions and find out what your love language is.

And I would, I would suggest that you take that even if you've taken it in the past, because they may have shifted a little bit as you've grown, they may have shifted, and you might also be surprised at what your love language is. My personal love language is tied between quality time and acts of service. And my husband's love language is physical touch. My worst love language is physical touch. So go figure his number one. And I mean, by far his number one, like my top two were tied. He is way, way far away from others. Uh, his second one is quality time, but it's like several points away from his physical touch. So he is absolutely a physical Dutch person. And I am so far from physical touch. That that was difficult for me at the beginning of our relationship. And we've been together for about 24 years.

Well, yeah, a little over 24 years and no, it'll be 24 years in March. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it'll be 24 years in March. If you really work on showing love to the person that you love. Yeah. In a way that that person understands and receive that love, then they don't always feel like you're reciprocating love that they feel like they're giving and vice versa. He's very much on physical touch. And so that's how he would try to show me love, but that was not, and is not how I receive love. I receive love if you go change that light bulb that I've been asking you to change without me having to ask it more than once. Okay. Because that's an acts of service. That's why it's so important because we can be doing all this work and think that we are giving and giving and giving.

And if our partner is not receiving that, we have no idea. So this is about becoming aware and becoming accountable to do. What's not as comfortable for ourselves, but because we love our partner. We want them to know that we love them. And if they receive it in different way than we do, then we've got to make some changes and be intentional about showing them love, words of affirmation. That is where you just affirm and you listen actively. So a good way to show someone who scores high on words of affirmation is to, of course, verbally affirm them. But when you verbally affirm them, you want to be specific. You just don't. I don't want to be like, Oh, um, I love you. I love how you did that. Okay? If you're giving them a words of affirmation, you want to be specific. Like, I really liked the way you worked on that project.

I liked how you stayed focused until it was finished. You see how that's much more specific. It gives them an idea that number one, you're taking the time to verbally affirm them. But you are also giving them information that tells them what you liked about how they did that job. Another thing you could say, something like that is specific. Like I love the way that you handle that conversation with our oldest child. That was a difficult conversation, but you really showed him that you cared about him. And it, I think it made a difference. Not just you did a good job talking to Clayton. Okay. Does that make sense? So other ways, besides verbal being very specific and trying to really point out what you really liked about what they did to affirm them also notes, cards, texts, those are good ways to, you know, you just leave a note or a card on his seat, in his car when he opens up the door, or maybe you put a little I'll note in a lunch, or yeah.

Maybe you send him a text in the middle of the day that you wouldn't normally send. That is just saying, Hey, just wanted you to know. I was thinking about you. Love you, thank you for dinner last night or whatever. Okay. So that's words of affirmation. Second one quality time. And these are in no particular order. Quality time is when you have uninterrupted time with that person. Now this will go back to a couple episodes ago where we talked about the technique of being here now, which means being present in the moment. This is when you spend time with your person and you are spending dedicated time intentionally to be with them. It is sometimes intentionally scheduled because I know for us, it's very easy for us to go through an entire day where we don't have any time where we've sat down and have a conversation.

I mean, we've spoken throughout the day as we've gotten stuff done, but we haven't sat down and looked eye to eye and had a conversation about anything. I mean, that happens more often than not, unless you are intentional about the time that you are spending together. So 100% put away your phone, computer emails during the time that you're having this intentional quality time. Think about it. When's the last time you actually spent time with just you and him where you weren't also cooking or watching a movie or, or watching Netflix or with your kids. It's not that you can't do that things together. It's just that, is it an intentional schedule or is it just kind of by the way happening? And if that's just, by the way, that's how it happens. Then you may want to think about if your partners is quality time.

You may want to think about having intentionally scheduled time, at least once a week, or maybe even five to 10 minutes a day where you guys meet eye to eye and you have a conversation or you schedule something where it's just you and him doing something specific. Okay. Acts of service is the next one. And this is when you let someone know that you appreciate them and love them by lightening up their load. You are doing things without being asked because you know, that that person would appreciate that. And, and that shows that makes them feel loved. This is definitely one of mine and access service for me would be when I walk out to my car and my car has been washed and cleaned inside, or I have asked for a certain piece of furniture to be repaired or tightened up or whatever. And I don't have to ask for that to happen multiple times, he remembers to do it and he does it.

And I feel loved that way because it lightens my load. It, it takes something off of my plate. I'm just big with acts of service. That's how I feel loved. And if you notice, when you have your love language, like mine's quality time and access service, you are naturally going to show other people that you love them, or appreciate them by naturally participating in activities that are in that love language, quality time, and acts of service for me, for example. So like at church, I am all about serving. Like I will serve, serve, serve, serve, because I know that that is needed at the church. But I also, that is how I feel loved. So that's how I easily show love for my church community and my pastors and people at church. That's how I show them. And it's very natural to me. Okay. All right.

Next one is gifts. And this is just the simple is exactly what it says. It's gifts. It's letting them know that you're thinking of them through gifts. My dad is a hundred percent a gift giver. That is how he shows love to me and to his kids, to everyone. He knows. I mean, he let's see, there was a point where my boss had given us tickets to a concert. I invited my dad because it was U2. And I knew that he would really like that. So I invited my dad. He ended up sending a gift basket. He ended up sending that gift basket to my boss, to thank him for inviting us. That's just an example. That is how his father showed love was through gifts. And that's how he shows up. Now, my guess would be that my dad's love language is also gifts.

That's just a guess. I don't know that he's ever taken this test, but that would just be my guess, but it says simple things like, and I think that's a really important point is that is if you know what the love languages are and you know, another person you can assess what you think that their love language is. You can reciprocate that love with them. It just gives you a better understanding of who they are and what you can do differently to show that person love. I have another example of another lady that I worked with. She is very much a gifts person, and I knew that because she gave the most amazing thoughtful gifts. And so on her birthday and special occasions for her, I would always try to be very thoughtful in what I chose to give her as a gift, because I knew that if I was able to give her a good, thoughtful gift that she would feel loved by me.

Okay. So I think that's a really good point to make is that we can be more accountable and more personally aware and a better lover of people. If we understand the love languages and understand each of those and what each of those looks like and how we can show each other love, okay. Back to gifts. Oh, I saw this pair of shoes on sale and I knew you'd like them. So I bought them for you. No sin, no reason. Just because or something smaller like you, like, I know my husband loves these caramel brownie, like truffle brownies. And so I will just get those and make those for him sometimes without him asking me or hinting about it. And that's a gift, quote, unquote, a gift. That's just an example of how you might show someone love through gifts, physical touch. This is the last one for me.

But again, in no particular order, physical touch is definitely my husband's number one. Now this is not just doing the thing. Okay. There are lots of ways that you can show physical touch. It is so much low on my totem pole that I even, I have to practice. And I am very intentional. When my sons give me a hug, I've got two sons that physical touch are way high up there. One of them is number one in the, and the other one is kind of tied with another. When they give me a hug, I do not stop hugging until they release first. That's just one intentional thing that I do, because I know for me, it is not natural just to be in a physical embrace for a long period of time. I have made practice of intentionally not letting someone go in the hug until they let go.

First, you would be amazed at how many people crave that touch. There was a lady that came into church at one point, she said, you know, this is the only place that anyone ever touches me because she lived alone. She didn't have a partner or any kids in the home. And so when she came to church, that was the only place that she experienced any physical touch. And so it's important. Another thing about physical touch and this isn't necessarily about our love language, but this is just something I learned in a marriage conference and it made, it was a life changer. So when you are arguing with your husband or you guys are having a disagreement, I challenge you. The next time that's happening is to hold hands. It is really difficult to continue to argue with someone or escalate a disagreement while you're holding hands.

So physical touch is powerful, and I would challenge you to try that next time. We have tried to do that. Anytime that we feel like we're getting into a disagreement, we both try to remember to reach out and touch the other person, whether it's putting your hand on his knee or grabbing his hand and just looking at him and saying, we probably need to stop the conversation until we can get to a place where we're not so emotional about it. So that's another tip for physical touch.

Then finally, the other big thing that is going unsaid, but we know what that thing is. I have always struggled with in my just coming up. It's just been one of those things. I think it's related to physical touch. I think it's related to some past incident. It's just been one of those things that's been difficult.

And that can be very, very, straining in a relationship in a marriage where your husband is a number one, physical touch and everything else is way far below. So like, that's really the only way that he feels loved is through physical touch. So one thing that has really changed our lives is something called POUNCE. I'll just put that in the show notes. So if any of you guys have any of those issues, that's not just about the act. There's lots of things that play into that. But anyway, that'll be in the show notes for you to take a look at if you're, if you have any resonating with what I was saying, all right.

So those are the five love languages. So I would challenge you to, if you don't know what yours is, take the assessment and get your husband to take the assessment and then get your kids to take the assessment.

That way, you know, the more aware we are of where each other is, the better we can each choose to be accountable and choose to be intentional in showing our loved ones that we actually love them in a way that they can receive it, hear it, understand it, and get something from it.

Two other suggestions I have that we've done in the past. We related to love and your, your spouse. There's something called the love dare test. It's at the lovedaretest.com. There's a book called the Love Dare by Stephen Kendrick.

And then there's also a book called Satan, You Can't Have My Marriage by Iris Delgado throughout the years, we have done these together in separately, and these have made a huge difference in our marriage. So those are the three things I would suggest the love languages. The love dare test.com and get the book Satan, you can't have my marriage now choose one of these to do at once.

And then once you've done one and you kind of practice those, then move to the other. Don't try to bite off more than you can chew. You know, when we were talking about, you know, you can do anything for a day, just think about what can I, if I do the love language test, and I find out what mine is and what my husband's is, what can I do today? That is in, for example, the physical touch realm that my husband, that I can show my husband, I left him final challenge, and this is kind of fun. And I'll put it in the Facebook community. If you're not over in the Holy made life, Facebook community, jump over there and join the group. We are going to start for the rest of February. We're going to start a, pay it forward and spread the love campaign where we talk about, or we, we talk about, but also encourage each other to every single day, do one act of kindness, whether it's to someone in your family or someone outside a stranger that you don't know, we want to get into the season of February and pay it forward and spread the love.

So I will put a post in the community group where we can encourage each other. What I'd love to see is people posting every single day, what they did for their act of kindness for that day. And just as some examples to get you thinking about what those could be, it could be to offer, to give somebody a ride somewhere, or to pick up trash that you see in the community, bake cookies for somebody, you could write a letter or a small, thank you. Note to someone who's made a difference in your life. Uh, you could make a phone call to one of your friends. You haven't talked to in a while. You could send an email just to say hello to somebody without anything else that you need. You hold the door open for somebody. You could allow somebody to use the parking space that you were going to get.

You could go on and get one further back, be intentional about not complaining out loud about anything the entire day, hug someone a little bit longer than you would normally to show that you care about them. You could send flowers or send a box of candies to the nearest police or fire station. You could leave a note for your mailman or your mailwoman or your garbage collector. So these are just some ideas about what you could do. I am really excited about this, so I can't wait to hear what you are doing every single day, and let's just pay it forward and spread the love. Hashtag that, pay it forward. Hashtag hashtag spread the love. Okay, let's do this together because the more of us doing one random act of kindness per day, the more love we spread into the world. All right, ladies, I will see you in the next episode and let's pay it forward and spread the love.

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