I’ve heard a fair bit about The 5 Love Languages—usually recommendations and praise—so I decided to check it out for myself. My partner and I took turns reading it to each other on a fairly epic road trip, and we agreed that it was a generally useful and interesting read, though with a few drawbacks. Chapman’s premise, based on his years of experience as a marriage counselor, is that people intuitively gravitate toward one of five ways of expressing and interpreting love and affection. Couples run into problems when they’re speaking different love languages to each other, leading to complaints that “he/she doesn’t really love me.” In actuality, according to Chapman, they just need to learn each other’s love languages in order to start communicating in a way that will be received as loving and caring. Continue Reading →
realationship communication
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Book Review: Nonviolent Communication
“Communication is the key to great sex.” If I had a nickel for every time I heard this…well, insert your favorite joke here. But it’s true. We humans are complicated social animals who require linguistic transparency and precision to get the quality of connection with others that we want. However, I find it frustrating how often the value of relationship communication is distilled to a sound bite, without offering any strategies or tools to actually achieve it. Continue Reading →