Here’s a video of Gay Therapy Center Director Adam D. Blum, MFT explaining the 5 Love Languages and how they can help you keep love alive in your long term LGBTQ relationships.
The 5 Love Languages for Gay Men
What do you do when that feeling of being in love starts to wear off?
It can be really disappointing. And studies show that that feeling of feeling really connected, feeling really at one, lasts an average of about two years.
So then what? That’s when you have to really start feeding that relationship. That food for the relationship I think happens naturally in those beginning stages. But after that initial period of oneness starts to wear off, I think we have to be more intentional about it, and come up with specific strategies to keep it feeling to keep us feeling connected to our partner.
What I recommend is you follow Gary Chapman’s book, The Five Love Languages and figure out your partner’s favorite love languages, and your favorite love languages, and then intentionally start doing more of those.
What are the five ways human beings most like to be loved? How do they like to feel it, touch it and taste it?
- Number one is words of affirmation. Most of us love to be told a compliment, that we’re cute, or that we’re funny.
- Number two is quality time. Many of us really want to spend one on one time with our partner without the distraction of screens, tablets, cell phones, and televisions.
- Number three is receiving gifts. That just doesn’t mean we’re materialistic. It means some of us really want that visual representation of love.
- Number four is acts of service. Some of us feel most loved when our partner fixes our computer, I’m one of those, or makes us dinner.
- Number five is physical touch. That includes sex, but also includes cuddling and holding hands.
Most of us like all five of these, and there’s nothing wrong with any one of them. They’re all terrific, but typically, we have one or two that are our favorite.
It’s important to know what your favorite love languages are and what your partner’s are.
At one level it’s just efficient.
Think about it: if you’re spending a lot of time coming up with really thoughtful and creative gifts, and they’re not having that much impact, you could be spending a lot less time doing something that really means something to your partner. Maybe that means making him dinner instead.
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what your love language is.
That can take a little thought. Think about what you’re often complaining to your partner that he doesn’t do enough. The opposite of that tends to be your love language.
There’s more to love than just figuring out your partner’s love language and then doing it. We also need to have really great communication skills. However, the combination of really good communication skills, and knowing your partner’s love language (and consistently giving him that food of his favorite language), that’s a really powerful combination to keep love alive. Now give it a try!
