As a couple’s therapist, I often find myself having discussions about people’s love languages and how to help one’s partner translate their expression of love into the other partner’s way of receiving love. The concept of love languages was introduced by Psychologist, Gary Chapman, in his (1995) book, “The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate.” His work has since gained a great deal of traction and has been adapted to a website and a love language quiz, which is widely accessible to couples in need of a relationship tune-up.

 To outline the concept briefly, there are thought to be five predominant ways in which we give and receive love: through acts of service(e.g. pumping your partner’s gas), gifts, words of affirmation (communicating interest and understanding), quality time, and physical touch. While we may enjoy all of these in relationships, usually one speaks us most profoundly –perhaps a type of affection we became accustomed to receiving in childhood, or more commonly, a means of affection we may not have received enough of growing up. I’ve found it’s a wonderfully, simplistic, universal framework for conceptualizing human affection that generalizes well to people of diverse cultural backgrounds, genders, and sexualities.

In addition to this model, I think it’s important to consider each partner’s personality types, as one’s orientation toward extraversion or introversion also tends to influence how they may exhibit affection. For instance, extraverts thrive in social, larger group settings and tend to express themselves better verbally, while introverts thrive in one-on-one or smaller group interactions, can require personal time for self-reflection, and tend to express themselves better in writing. Within the context of affection in relationships, this distinction can help explain a lot, since the modality in which we communicate is becoming more central to our daily interactions in our modern world.

 In real life, this could look like an extroverted partner who expresses words of affirmation a great deal in person, but becomes more reserved over phone, video, or text communication, which can shift the dynamic of the relationship entirely (e.g. in the context of a long-distance relationship that relies heavily on written communication), leaving the other partner wondering. And vice versa: an introverted partner may seem slightly reserved in person but more expressive over phone, video, or text. (E.g. maybe this is why he’s not texting the words she’s hoping to hear, and maybe she’s coming across as more forward over text than she would in person.)  It’s easy for each partner to take this personally if the subtleties of personality style are overlooked, but this added lens offers greater objectivity about what’s transpiring in the relationship: they’re more likely to express affection in a manner consistent with their personality types. This helps the long-distance couple understand that the extraverted partner is likely to resume being affectionate once they’re together in person again, and that the introverted partner really is expressive in their own way. Of course this is just one of many examples of how personality type may manifest in relationships. There are some stereotypical gender and cultural differences, (e.g. men tending to be less expressive over text; some cultures tend to be less emotionally expressive in general), but these generalizations don’t apply to everyone. Another take away is the realization that much of what happens in life and relationships is not personal, but often more about what’s going on for the other person, which is a powerful antidote to counter reactivity in relationships.