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You’ve probably heard about ‘love languages’ before — the idea that different people give and receive love in different ways.

You might even know your own — and if you’re extra diligent, maybe your partner’s too.

But did you know that to truly transform your relationships with this framework, you need to go even deeper? 

Or that it’s not just for romantic relationships, but can also revolutionize the way you connect with your kids, family, and even friends?

In this powerful episode, I’m joined by Dr. Gary Chapman, the legendary author of The 5 Love Languages — one of the top five most impactful books I’ve ever read. 

Together, we’re going beyond the basics to explore the transformative power of the love languages framework.

Press play to discover: the fascinating way our primary love language develops (it’s not what you think!), why your partner might not feel loved — even when you think you’re showing them affection, how to bridge the gap when you and your partner have different love languages, the secret to identifying someone’s love language without taking the test, why this framework isn’t just for couples, the hidden ‘dialects’ within each love language, and how understanding them can completely change the way you give and receive love.

So if you’re craving deeper connections, wildly fulfilling relationships, and romantic love that truly lasts, then press play now — this episode is for you.

About Gary Chapman

Gary Chapman is an author, speaker, pastor, and counselor who has a passion for people, and for helping them form lasting relationships. Chapman is a well-known marriage counselor and director of marriage seminars. ‘The 5 Love Languages’ is one of Chapman’s most popular titles, topping various bestseller charts for years, selling over twenty million copies, and has been translated into 50 languages. Chapman has been directly involved in real-life family counseling for more than 40 years, and his radio programs air on the Moody Radio Network and affiliate stations.

In this episode we chat about:

• The incredible story of how he became an expert on love and relationships (2:20)
• How he discovered the five love languages and the most powerful way to apply them in your life (4:52)
• The secret to filling up your partner’s love tank — even if they speak a completely different love language than you (13:42)
• A simple but powerful way to figure out someone’s type without them ever taking a test (17:01)
• The hidden “dialects” that can help you understand people on a whole new level (19:22)
• The surprising mystery behind how we develop our primary love language (22:55)
• Why knowing your own love language is crucial self-knowledge for everyone on the planet (25:21)
• The two life-changing books he believes should be required reading in every school (34:15)
• A rare glimpse into the daily habits and routines of one of the world’s most influential relationship experts (37:22)

Episode resources:

• SheLaunch (join here)
• Mastering Your Mean Girl by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Open Wide by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Comparisonitis by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Time Magic by Melissa Ambrosini and Nick Broadhurst (book)
• The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman (book)
• The 4 Seasons of Marriage by Gary Chapman (book)
• The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People by Gary Chapman (book)
• Anger: Taming a Powerful Emotion by Gary Chapman (book)
• Loving Your Spouse When You Feel Like Walking Away: Real Help for Desperate Hearts in Difficult Marriages by Gary Chapman (book)
• The 5 Love Languages of Children: The Secret to Loving Children Effectively by Gary Chapman (book)
• The 5 Apology Languages: The Secret to Healthy Relationships by Gary Chapman (book)
• The 5 Love Languages for Men: Tools for Making a Good Relationship Great by Gary Chapman (book)
• The 5 Love Languages Singles Edition: The Secret That Will Revolutionize Your Relationships by Gary Chapman (book)
• Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married by Gary Chapman (book)
• One More Try: What to Do When Your Marriage Is Falling Apart by Gary Chapman (book)
• The 5 Love Languages Workbook by Gary Chapman (book)
• Your New Life with Adult Children: A Practical Guide for What Helps, What Hurts, and What Heals by Gary Chapman (book)
• Building Love Together in Blended Families: The 5 Love Languages and Becoming Stepfamily Smart by Gary Chapman and Ron L Deal (book)
• The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers: The Secret to Increasing Joy and Trust with Your Teen by Gary Chapman (book)
• God Speaks Your Love Language: How to Experience and Express God’s Love (5 Love Languages) by Gary Chapman (book)
• Now You’re Speaking My Language: Honest Communication and Deeper Intimacy for a Stronger Marriage by Gary Chapman (book)
• Love As A Way of Life by Gary Chapman (book)
• The One Year Love Language Minute Devotional (One Year Signature Line) by Gary Chapman (book)
• The Love language Quiz (website)
• A Teen’s Guide to the 5 Love Languages: How to Understand Yourself and Improve All Your Relationships by Gary Chapman (book)
• Seen. Known. Loved.: 5 Truths About God and Your Love Language by Gary Chapman and R. York Moore (book)

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The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy.

Melissa: [00:00:00] In episode 641 with the amazing Gary Chapman, we are talking about the five love languages and how understanding these will save your marriage, form deeper connections with your children and friends, and radically improve every relationship in your life. This is essential listening for every human on this earth.

The Melissa Ambrosini Show. Welcome to the Melissa Ambrosini Show. I’m your host, Melissa bestselling author of Mastering Your Mean Girl, open Wide, comparisonitis and Time Magic. And I’m here to remind you that love is sexy, healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn’t a dirty word. Each week I’ll be getting up close and personal with thought leaders from around the globe, as well as your weekly dose of motivation so that you can create epic change in your own life and become the best version of yourself possible.

Are you ready beautiful? [00:01:00] Hey beautiful! Welcome back to the show. I’m so excited about this episode because I have one of my dream podcast guests on the show, Gary Chapman. Now, if you haven’t heard of him, he is a bestselling author of multiple books, a speaker, pastor, and counselor. And he has a passion for people and helping them form lasting relationships.

He is a well known marriage counselor and director of marriage seminars. The Five Love Languages, I’m sure you’ve heard of it, is one of his most popular books, topping various best selling charts for years, selling over 20 million copies. And it has been translated into 50 languages. And he has been directly involved in real life family counseling for more than 40 years.

And for everything that we mentioned in today’s episode, you can check out in the show notes, including the love language test. And that’s at melissarambrosini. com forward slash 641. Get ready for [00:02:00] this episode to radically improve every relationship in your life. Personal relationship, business relationship, every relationship.

Let’s dive in.

Gary, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to have you here. And I want to kick off by you sharing your story and how you got into this work. How did your background as an anthropologist and your faith shape your theory? How did this all unfold for you? 

Gary: Well, my anthropology background goes way back, undergrad, and then later I did a master’s degree in anthropology.

After I had my PhD, I did that mainly just because I enjoyed studying cultures around the world. But my counseling, actually, I work on church staff. I’ve been on the same church staff for 50 years, and when I came, counseling was not in my job description. I directed all [00:03:00] of our adult education programs, all kinds of programs for adults.

But as I started teaching classes on marriage, people wanted to talk about their own marriage. And so I kind of got pushed into the counseling. I mean, I had taken counseling courses and all of that, you know, when I was in graduate school and seminary, but I really never anticipated it would become a major part of my life.

But it became a major part of my life. I was spending, for years, I was seeing 20 to 25 couples a week. No one told me that was too many, okay? But it was. So all of my books, really, have grown out of my counseling. Things that I’ve learned in the process of counseling people and the, the, the motivation was if I can put some of the things that I’m learning about relationships into a book, I can touch people’s lives that I will never have time to see.

And so that’s what motivated me to write, to write books. And the five love languages was actually the third of my books and two books [00:04:00] before that. 

Melissa: Wow. And you have so many books now. And two of those books, The Five Love Languages, The Secret to Love That Lasts, and The Five Love Languages of Children, The Secret to Loving Children, effectively, they were game changes for me.

Absolute game changes. So thank you for writing them. Now I first read The Five Love Languages, which has improved my marriage and all of my relationships immensely. And then I discovered that you had one for kids, which was a game changer for me, because I became a step parent at 28 years old, and I wanted to connect with my stepson on a deeper level.

And so reading the book and then understanding the five different love languages has been a game changer for how I parent. And it has been a game changer for so many people. You’ve sold millions of copies. So can you tell us what are the five different love languages for someone who’s like, what are they talking about?

I have [00:05:00] no idea what they’re talking about. Can you share what are the five different love languages and how did you discover these? 

Gary: I discovered them in my counseling office. I never remember, I will never forget the first time it dawned on me that what makes one person feel loved does not make another person feel loved.

I’ll tell you that story. And the couple came in, I’d never met them, found out later they’d been married to each other for 30 years. And the wife said, let me tell you a little bit about us. She said, we don’t argue. We don’t believe in arguing. We don’t have any money problems. And she went on with two or three more positive things, and I was beginning to wonder, did they come in to tell me what a good marriage they have?

Then she started crying. And she said, the problem is. I just don’t feel any love coming from him. She said, he lives his life, and I live my life, and there’s nothing going on between us. And I felt so [00:06:00] empty inside. And I don’t know how long I can go on like this. Well, I looked at her husband, and he said, I don’t understand her.

I do everything I can to show her that I love her. And she sits there and tells you what she’s been telling me. She doesn’t feel loved. I said, well, what do you do to show your love to her? He said, well, I get home from work before she does. So I start the evening meal. Some nights I have it ready when she gets home.

If not, she’ll help me. After dinner, I wash dishes every night. Thursday, I vacuum the floors. Saturday, I wash the car. I mow the grass. I help her with the laundry. And he went on, and I was beginning to wonder, What does this woman do? It sounded to me like he was doing everything. And he said, I do all of that.

And she says she doesn’t feel love. He said, I don’t know what else I could do. I look back at her, and she [00:07:00] started crying again. And she said, Dr. Chapman, he’s right, he’s a hardworking man, but we don’t ever talk. We haven’t talked in 20 years. He’s always mowing the grass, washing the dishes, vacuuming the floor.

He’s always doing something. And I knew here was a sincere husband who was doing everything he knew to do to show his wife that he loved her and a wife who was not getting it emotionally. And after that, I heard similar stories over and over in my office. And I knew there had to be a pattern to what I was hearing, but I had no idea what it was.

So eventually, I took time to sit down and read several years of notes that I made when I was counseling, and asked myself the question, when someone said, feel like my spouse doesn’t love me, what did they want? What were they complaining about? And their answers fell into five categories. And I later called them the five love languages.

And I [00:08:00] started using it in my counseling. If you want her to feel love, you’ve got to learn to express love in her love language. And if you want him to feel love, you’ve got to learn to express love in his love language. And I would help couples discover their love language and challenge them to go home and try it.

And sometimes, Melissa, they’d come back in two or three weeks and say, Gary, this is changing the whole climate. I mean, this is really making a difference in our marriage. And so then I start teaching it to small groups. And the same thing would happen. And probably five years later, I thought, you know, if I could put this in a book, I could help a lot of people I would never have to see in my office.

So here are the five love languages. And I was never dogmated to say there were only five, but after all these years, I haven’t heard one that I think is the number six. There are many dialects now in each of these languages. Okay? I call them dialects. One is words of affirmation, simply looking for things about the other person that you can [00:09:00] genuinely affirm.

It can focus on the way they look. You know, you look nice in that outfit. I really appreciate what you did. One of the things I like about you is it’s just looking for things that you can affirm the other person for. I did have a lady say to me some time ago, she said, I know it would be good if I could give my husband some positive words.

She said, but to be honest with you, I can’t think anything good to say about the man. I said, well. Does he ever take a shower? And she said, well, yes. I said, how often? She said, well, every day. I said, if I were you, I’d start there. Honey, I appreciate you taking a shower. I said, there are men who don’t. So, words of affirmation.

And then, and these are in no particular order. Acts of service. Doing something for the other person that you know they would like for you to do. This is the language the gentleman I just discussed was speaking. He was doing acts of service. Washing dishes, [00:10:00] vacuuming floors. Washing cars, all those things.

There’s an old saying, actions speak louder than words. If this is their love language, that’s true. It’s not true for everyone. But if this is their love language, actions will speak louder than words. And then, there’s gifts. It’s universal to give gifts as an expression of love. By studying anthropology, we’ve studied cultures all over the world.

We’ve never found a culture where gift giving is not an expression of love. And the gifts do not have to be expensive. We’ve always said, it’s the thought that counts. But I remind people, it’s not the thought left in your head that counts. It’s the gift that came out of the thought in your head, okay?

They don’t have to be expensive. It’s just thinking about them. I had a husband say to me just recently, he said, Gary, my wife’s language is gifts. So the other morning I was taking a walk and I saw a bird feather and I picked it up and brushed it [00:11:00] off, took it home. And when I got home, I said to my wife, honey, when I was walking, I found this bird feather and I want to give it to you because it reminded me that you are the wind beneath my wings.

And she said, Oh, that is so sweet. It didn’t cost him a penny. He gave her a gift and words of affirmation. And then number four is quality time, giving the person your undivided attention. I do not mean sitting on the couch watching television. I mean the TV is off, the computer is down, we’re not answering our phone.

We’re giving each other our undivided attention and we’re sharing whatever we want to talk about, but we’re into each other and it doesn’t always involve talking. It can be doing something together that the other person really wants you to do. Maybe planting a flower garden in the front yard and they want you to help them do it.

And the fact that you would take two hours or whatever and spend the total time [00:12:00] doing something with them that they really want you to like, would like to have done. That can, quantity of time people, that speaks loudly to them. The lady who said to me, we don’t ever talk, she didn’t mean they didn’t discuss logistics.

Who’s going to take the kids to school? Which restaurant do you want to go to? She meant we don’t ever have any sit down and look at each other and give each other our undivided attention and talk and share life together. That’s what she was crying for, quality time. And then number five is physical touch.

We’ve long known the emotional power of physical touch. That’s why we pick up babies, hold them, kiss them, and cuddle them, long before the baby understands the meaning of the word love. The baby feels love, a physical touch. So in a marriage, this is such things as holding hands, kissing, embracing, the whole sexual part of marriage, arm around the shoulder, driving down the road, you put your hand on their leg, sitting around the house, they walk by, you trip them, [00:13:00] I’m kidding on that one, don’t trip your spouse.

So those are the five love languages, and the basic concept, of course, is that each of us has what I call primary love language. One of those five. It speaks more deeply to us than the other four. Now we can receive love in all five. We’re not going to turn away any one of them, but if we don’t receive love in our primary love language, we will not feel loved even though the person is speaking love in some of the other languages.

Melissa: Okay. So I’m going to link to the test so everyone can go and do your love language test to discover what their primary and secondary one is. And it’s so fascinating. I just love it. So what if yours is different to your partner’s? So say mine is touch and my husband’s is acts of service. And so it’s quite foreign for me to do acts of service because, you know, mine is touch.

What can we do? How [00:14:00] can we both fulfill each other’s love language so we both feel loved, seen and heard? 

Gary: Well, I think it’s a fundamental basic. It is an attitude. Love starts with an attitude, a fixed way of thinking. And the attitude of love is, I choose to do whatever I can to enrich your life, to help you become the person that you would like to become.

That’s the attitude of love. Well, if we have that attitude, then we learn this information that my spouse, what makes my spouse love is. Acts of service, then I can choose to do acts of service, not because it’s natural for me, but because I know this is going to communicate to them love on an emotional level.

This is going to meet one of, one of our basic fundamental emotional needs, and that is the need to feel [00:15:00] loved by the significant people in our lives. And so, it’s a matter of choice at that, but I had a man say to me, he said, Dr. Chapman, my wife and I read your book. We took the quiz. Her love language is acts of service.

But I’m going to tell you and her, if it’s going to take my washing dishes and my vacuuming floors for her to feel love, she can forget that. And I said to him, that’s your choice. Love is a choice. If you choose to live with a wife who has what I call an empty love tank, that’s your choice. I said, I much prefer to live with a wife who has a full love tank.

I said, I’ve lived with both. Same woman, early years, empty love tank, later years, full love tank. I said, my wife’s language is acts of service. I do wash dishes. I do vacuum floors. I do take out trash. And my wife tells me I’m the greatest husband in the world. I said, [00:16:00] my language is words of affirmation.

And I know that’s a hyperbole, but it feels good to me. So what I’m saying to him is, I’m giving you information. On what would meet your spouse’s emotional need for love. You either choose to have an attitude of love and choose to do it, or you choose not to do it. The opposite of love is selfishness. And that’s what he was demonstrating.

I’m not going to do anything I don’t want to do. Selfishness. We each, we all lean in one of those two directions. We lean toward an attitude of love, or we lean toward an attitude of selfishness, not just in marriage, but in all of life. And so what I’m doing is giving information to people who choose an attitude of love, how you can effectively meet this particular need of your spouse to feel love.

It’s 

Melissa: kind of like as well, the alternative is, yeah, a very unhappy partner and an unhappy marriage. It’s like, What [00:17:00] would you prefer? At least give it a go, you know? But what if our partner won’t do the test? Like is there a way that we can discover their love language without them doing the test? 

Gary: Yeah, there’s three informal ways that you can discover a person’s love language.

One is observing their behavior. How do they typically relate to you and other people? For example, if your spouse is always giving you and other people words of affirmation, because we tend to speak our own language. That’s a clue. If they’re always serving you and other people, acts of service is probably their language.

They’re always giving people gifts. That’s a clue that that’s their language because we tend to speak our own language. A second thing is what do they complain about most often? The complaint reveals the love language. For example, I had a mother say to me not long ago, she said, My six year old son said to me, [00:18:00] We don’t ever go to the park anymore since the baby came.

He’s telling her quality time is his language. He used to have her undivided attention, just the two of them playing in the park together. Now the baby’s here. He’s complaining he’s not getting quality time. So what does your spouse complain about? If they say, I don’t think I could ever please you.

They’re telling you words of affirmation is their language and they’re not hearing it. If they say, I don’t think you would ever touch me if I didn’t initiate it. They’re telling you that physical touch is their language. So what do they complain about? And then what do they request most often? If you put those three things together, if they’re saying, for example, quite often, Honey, can we take a walk after dinner?

They’re asking you for quality time. Or can we sit down and chat tonight? They’re asking you for quality time. Or if you’re going on a trip and they say to you, Be sure and bring me a surprise, they’re telling you GIFS is their [00:19:00] language. If you put those three things together, you can pretty well determine a person’s primary love language.

Melissa: Yes, I love that so much. My number one is touch and my secondary is quality time. And yeah, my husband is very similar as well. He loves quality time and he loves touch. So it’s so powerful to have this information. And you spoke about the different dialects. Can you talk about that? So what are some examples of dialects within each of the love languages?

Gary: Well, words of affirmation, for example, there can be words of praise, which are normally affixed to something they, and you’re praising them for something they’ve accomplished in life. There can be words of encouragement to a child, for example, Oh, you’re doing well. You almost got it there. Yeah. Yeah. It’s great.

It’s just encouraging them. You know, we do this when our children are learning to walk and they’re holding [00:20:00] onto the couch. And they take half a step and fall. We don’t say, you dumb kid, can’t you walk? We say, yay! And what do they do? They get up and try again. So it’s encouraging words. It can be words that focus on a personality trait.

You know, honey, one of the things I like about you is you always have a positive attitude. I really appreciate that about you. So it can focus on personality traits, it can focus on accomplishments, it can focus on many things. But it’s simply using words, and you can speak the words, you can write the words, I guess you could sing the words, but it’s using words to communicate to them in some area of life that you have a deep appreciation for them in that aspect of life.

Gifts, of course, there’s all kind of gifts. But the important thing with gifts is to know your spouse’s preference. What are the kind of gifts that they really [00:21:00] like to get? You can give them a gift that you think might be good to them, that’s not so with them. When we first got married, my dad had always, always told me, get the woman gifts, get the woman gifts.

I bought her dresses. I bought her all kinds of stuff. Everything I, this before I knew anything about love languages, everything I bought her, she took it back and exchanged. She was saying, I don’t really know her. I don’t really know in that area. I don’t know what she would prefer. And so one day I said to her, honey, why don’t we just cut out the middleman and you go buy what you want?

And she said, Oh, okay. Of course, gifts is not her language. And obviously gifts wasn’t my language either. There’s many different kinds of gifts, but the important thing is to give a gift that the person would appreciate. You might give them something that you would appreciate and you think they would appreciate.

But, but they may not. Quality time, again, different dialects of that. Sometimes it would be sitting [00:22:00] down on the couch and talking to each other. Sometimes it would be taking a walk down the road and talking as you walk. Sometimes it would be, as I said, doing something together that the other person really would like for you to do.

Maybe they are a symphony person, and you may not be a symphony person. But they say, Honey, would you go to the symphony with me? I just, I always dreamed of us going to the symphony together. And so you choose to go and you spend an hour or an hour and a half or however long the symphony is, with them giving your undivided attention to them and the symphony.

And, and, you know, later on, you began to appreciate an oboe or a violin or something. But that’s not the point. The point is you’re giving them your undivided attention, doing something that they really would like for you to do. And of course, touches, there’s all kinds of touches, which I enumerated earlier.

So that’s what I mean by dialects. They’re just different ways to express each of these languages. 

Melissa: I love that. How do we develop our primary love language and why is it a [00:23:00] constant over a lifetime? 

Gary: I don’t have an answer to that. I’ve had a lot of questions about that. I’ve done a lot of thinking about it.

You know, the fundamental question is, is it nature or is it nurture? Is it something we’re born with or is it something we learn? And I don’t know. I do know this. The primary love language of a child can be discovered at least by the time they’re four years old. And the primary way is observing their behavior.

How do they relate to you and other people? For example, my son’s language is physical touch. When he was that age, I would come home from work. He would run to the door and grab my leg and climb on me. He’s touching me because he wants to be touched. Our daughter never did that. She would say at that age, Daddy, come into my room.

I want to show you something. She wanted my [00:24:00] undivided attention. So it’s there very early in a child’s life. And I would like to just throw this in, Melissa, because I don’t want parents to think that you only speak a child’s primary love language. No, the idea is you give heavy doses of their primary language, but you also speak the other four because we would like that child to learn how to receive love and later how to give love in all five languages, that’s the healthiest adult.

Most of us did not receive all five growing up. So we come to adulthood. And some of these don’t come natural for us. Now the good news is, of course, we can learn them, even though they don’t come natural for us. But the ideal is that a child will learn that there are different ways to express love. So as they grow, we can explain to them, you know, one of the ways I show you that I love you is I give you a big hug.

Or one of the ways I show you I love you is I give you a gift. So they begin to get the idea that there’s different ways to express love. And so they can begin, and once the family [00:25:00] gets a little older, daddy has a love language, mother has a love language, sister has a love language, brother has a love language.

And now we all know that and we’re loving each other in our love language. So the whole family is, is a loving family. They all feel love, man, that’s the healthiest place in which to grow up in a family like that. 

Melissa: Yes. It’s so beautiful. It’s such a beautiful thing to do. Like, as you were speaking, I was reflecting on my daughter who’s three and a half, I’ve got another baby on the way and how I, I’m always.

Being conscious and aware of hitting all of those five for her. So giving her the touch, you know, having quality time with her, like even in a day, always touch her. I always give her words of affirmation. I have quality time with her. I don’t always like give a gift, but you know, something like I might just pick a flower or the way that I present the meal to her, you know, like little things like that.

It’s just so powerful, this information. It’s only going to [00:26:00] deepen our relationships and our connections with our spouse and with our children, but also even with our friends. So my friends and I know each other’s love language. And like a lot of my friends know that gifts for me is my bottom one. So a lot of my friends, they know that I would much prefer to have quality time with them and go for a walk or have lunch together than for them to buy me a gift.

But then there’s some other people that I know That really love gifts. Like that means a lot to them. So I can see how it can affect every single relationship in your life and only deepen it and only make it even more fulfilling. It’s just such a beautiful thing. 

Gary: You’re right. It applies in all human relationships.

You know, and I have some spinoff books, the five love languages of teenagers. Because people kept asking me, does their love language change when they get to be a teenager? I said, I don’t think the love language changes, but you have to use new dialects, because what you’ve been [00:27:00] doing now seems childish to them.

You have to, if it’s touch, you’ve got to give them more adult touches, you know, a little tap on the shoulder, wrestling or, wrestling or, you know, just high fives and that sort of thing. And if it’s words of affirmation, you have to use more adult words, you know, rather than baby words. You’re so sweet. I just love you so much.

You know, to be teenagers, you have to use different words, more adult words. And for example, if physical touch is their language, when they were eight or nine or ten years old and they played ball, you could go out there on the field after it was over, hug them in front of everybody, and they just loved it.

Now you go out there to a teenager and you try to hug them on the ball field, oh, leave me alone. Don’t, don’t do that out here. You, you have to do it in private, not in front of other people, a lot of dynamics with the teenagers. So, and I also have a special edition for men, just giving them a little extra help in speak these languages, have a [00:28:00] military edition for military couples because many military chaplains said to me, because I speak on a lot of military bases, you’ve got to write one for the military.

And specially include, how do we communicate these languages when we’re deployed? And so we asked scores and scores of couples to get ideas because they had been using the original book already. They knew the idea. For example, physical touch you would think would be impossible when you’re deployed. But one lady said, I knew his language of physical touch.

So while he was deployed, traced my hand on a sheet of paper and mailed it to him with a note that said, Put your hand on my hand, I want to hold your hand. He told me later, Gary, every time I put my hand on that paper, I felt her. It’s not literal touch, it’s emotional touch, but that’s what we’re talking about.

And another guy said, well, my wife’s language is physical touch. So before I left, I said, honey, [00:29:00] I’m going to leave this jean jacket here. Anytime you want to hug, you put it on and I’ll hug you. She said, Gary, every time I put it on, I felt his arms. Yeah, and we gave practical ways on how to speak these languages when you are deployed.

So, you know, all of those and, of course, some spinoff books in terms of, uh, how it works with stepfamilies and stepchildren, stepmoms and stepdads, how it works with adopted children, how it works with special needs children, how it can help you when you’ve lost a baby, you know, either miscarriage or early, uh, early death of a baby, how it can help the couple.

So just a lot of ways. And many of those books I wrote with co authors who were experiencing, you know, those particular things, and they’d been using the love language in those settings. And so, just a lot of help. All of that is found, of course, at fivelovelanguages. com, the website you mentioned earlier, where you, they can take the free quiz.

And incidentally, my publisher said, I think about six months ago, they told me. [00:30:00] 147 million people have taken that free quiz. We now have a kind of a premier quiz that you do have to pay for, but it ties the love languages to your personality. And it also discusses the, the, the dialects that you, you prefer, not just the primary language, but the dialects of that.

We’re thinking that a lot of counselors will probably be using that in helping people that they’re counseling with, you know, because it’ll give them more information about how this works with their personality. 

Melissa: Wow, Gary, you really have covered everything and the work that you’re doing is just so powerful and it can really impact every relationship.

Like we said, I just love it so much and it’s so simple to do such a simple quiz to take. that can radically transform all of your relationships for the better. And I just, I just love it. I think it’s so beautiful. And it’s really impacted my marriage and my relationship with my stepson and my [00:31:00] daughter and all of my friends.

So I just love this so much. Even if it doesn’t come natural for you, you know, even if like you were never touched as a child and it doesn’t come natural for you by going out of your way to do that for your partner, because you know that that is their love language that speaks volumes to how much you care.

That’s like an act of service as well. So I just love this so much. It’s such powerful work. I’ll give you 

Gary: an example of it. I had a man in my office and said, Dr. Chairman, my wife and I read your book, we took the quiz, her language is words of affirmation. And he said, I don’t know how to do that. I did not receive words of affirmation growing up.

All I was ever told, only thing I can remember is my parents told me I was lazy and I was never going to amount to anything. And I don’t know how to say positive words. And I said to him, well, you are where you are. We can’t change our history. I said, but here’s the good news. You can learn to [00:32:00] speak this language as an adult, even though you didn’t receive it as a child.

I said, for example, can you tell me three things that your wife is good at? He said, well, she’s a good cook, and she’s a good school teacher, and she’s a good mother. And I wrote them down, and beside of them, I wrote two or three sentences on each one of them. Like on the cooking, something like, honey, I haven’t told you this, but I really appreciate all the meals you fix.

You’re a wonderful cook. Just two or three sentences on each one of them. I said, now here’s your assignment. This week, twice a day, I want you to get in a room by yourself and read these out loud so you hear yourself saying these words. And when you come back next week, I hope you can say them to me without looking at your notes, okay?

And he said, well, I’ll try. So he came back the next week, and I said, well, can you say them? And he did. [00:33:00] I said, okay, now here’s your assignment. For the next three weeks, each week, I want you to give her one of these compliments. I don’t care what day of the week or what time of the day, but you give her one of these each week.

And he said, Oh man, I said, listen, you just said them to me, if you can say them to me, you can say them to her. And I said, if you want to say them not looking in her eye, that’s okay. You can say them when she’s looking the other way, whatever makes it easier for you. He said, well, I hope I can do it. And I said, listen, I’m sure you can do it.

So he came back in three weeks. I said, well, did you do it? He said, yep. I said, How’d your wife respond? He said, Well, on the third week, she said to me, What’s going on with you? I have never heard you give me so many compliments. I said, What did you say? He said, Well, I said, Honey, you know, we read that book and your language is words of affirmation, and I’m just trying to learn how to put my love [00:34:00] into words because I do love you.

She said, Oh, it’s so wonderful. So yeah, we can learn any one of these languages if we understand how important it is to the well being of our spouse. 

Melissa: Hmm. Beautiful. I love that so much. Now, let’s pretend you had a magic wand and you could put two books in the school curriculum of every high school around the world.

What book of yours would you put in? And then what is another book of someone else’s that you would put in for that, 16, 17 year old male and female? 

Gary: I think with the teenager, I would put a book that I wrote called a teen’s guide to the five love languages. You know, the, the other book was for parents.

The Five Love Languages of Teenagers is written to parents on how to effectively love teenagers. But that book is written to teenagers, how to, a teen’s guide to the five love languages. So it’s a short book, but it shares the [00:35:00] concept and how important this is in their relationship with their parents, because parents need to feel loved by their children and their teenagers.

And this, this has helped many teenagers get the picture of what love is all about. And how I want to make sure mom and dad feels love. I want to make sure my sister and brother feels love. And so that would be the one I would put in the hands of, of teenagers. What book would I use that someone else has written?

Now that’s a good question. I’d have to think about that one a while. You know, I read a lot of other people’s books. Uh, sometimes they’re asking me for endorsements, you know. And so when I have time, I, I, I will, I will do that when I can. But you’re not talking now just about teenagers. You just talk about any book that I would recommend to couples or anything.

Melissa: Yeah. For that teenage age, and it could be like a spiritual book, it could be A health book, just a book that you feel like is essential reading. 

Gary: This is one that I wrote. Well, I did have a co [00:36:00] author, however, it’s, it’s, it’s called Seen, Known, and Loved. It’s a spiritual book. Uh, I wrote it with a man who grew up in a family that was atheistic, that did not believe in God.

And when he was at the university, he became a follower of Christ. And, uh, he speaks on college campuses all over the country. And we know there’s a pandemic, at least in America, there’s a pandemic of loneliness on college campuses. And so many, many tech, they’re still teenagers, they’re, but they’re in college and, and they’re wrestling with, you know, who am I and no, I don’t have any friends.

Because everybody’s on their phone and everybody’s playing video games on their phone and they’re not building relationships. And what this little book says is you are seen, known, and loved by God. And he wants to have a relationship with [00:37:00] you. I would put that book in the hands of every college student or teenager that possibly could because I believe.

If they can have a relation, a meaningful relationship with God, it will impact everything else in their life in a positive way. 

Melissa: Beautiful. I’ll link to that and all of your amazing books in the show notes so people can check that out. Now, I’d love to hear about how your day looks. I want to know what time you get up, what’s your routines, your rituals.

I’d love to hear a quote unquote typical day in your life. 

Gary: Okay, well, let me say this. Two years ago, I officially retired after 50 years on the same church stand. I said to the senior pastor, I said, I think after 50 years, I should get off the payroll. He said, well, Gary, you’re not going to leave us. I said, well, I’ll be around and do whatever you like.

He said, look, what if we just let you keep your office and keep your [00:38:00] assistant and you can do what you want to do. I said, Oh, I like that. So if, so here’s my typical day, if I’m in town, I’m doing a lot more traveling now, of course, I’m gone a lot more now speaking other places, but I typically get up at six o’clock in the morning.

That’s my typical time to get up and after a shower and all that, and then having breakfast, I go downstairs to my office and I spend at least half an hour. Just what I call sit down and listen time to God, in which I just sit down and I say, Okay, God, thank you that I’m still here. I’m going to read the next chapter in the Bible, and I want to hear anything you want to say to me.

And as I read it, I underline anything that jumps out at me, and then I go back and talk to God about what I underlined, sometimes asking Him a question. I don’t quite understand this. Or sometimes I’m saying, Ooh, I goofed on that yesterday. [00:39:00] Forgive me and help me to not to do that. Sometimes I’m thanking him for something I’ve just read for the reality of, but it’s just, it’s what I call a sit down and listen time with God, which is also what I encourage couples to have on a regular basis, a sit down and listen time with each other every day.

In fact, what I suggest to couples, what, what about making this a minimum? That you sit down each day. And each of you shares two or three things that happen in your life today and how you feel about them. It’s just a, it’s just like vitamin C. It’s a, just a fundamental sit down and listen time to each other every day.

And then when I’ve done that, come to the office. Typically, I get to the office about 830 or so. Sometimes I wait a little later because we have a school, our church, with a thousand students. And by eight, after 830, they’re all here and in, so I sometimes wait till late 45 before coming. [00:40:00] And then I’m in the office every day, all morning.

Typically I am either seeing individual, I’m not doing long term counseling now. This is the only difference in my, since my retirement. I’m seeing people once or twice and, and if they need long term help. We helped start a counseling center 40 years ago, independent counseling center in our city. They have 10 or 12 full time counselors, so I refer them to, typically, to that counseling center.

So I’m still seeing people, but I’m also doing a lot of what we’re doing. A lot of Zoom meetings, you know, all over everywhere. I do those, and sometimes it’s on some of my newer books that have just come out. In fact, I just released a book for parents. It’s called Your New Life with Adult Children, The Other Side of Parenting.

And it’s a guide to what helps and what hurts and what heals. Relationships with your adult children. So, typically when I release a new book, I do a [00:41:00] lot of interviews on that particular book and just trying to get the word out to people that, that it’s available. So I do a fair amount of, of that, but then I’m doing a lot of speaking.

Some of it is normal, uh, local to civic clubs and other, other places locally. And then a lot of it is in other, other states. I’m not doing a lot of overseas. travel right now. When I was early younger, I spoke in I think 25 different countries all over the world, but not doing much of that right now at this juncture in my life.

But I am doing a lot of interviews like with you and people in other, other countries. And so, uh, I love what I do. And as long as I have energy, I’m going to keep on doing what I’m doing. And I’m always typically working on or thinking about another book that might be helpful to people. And sometimes I’m doing it, as I said earlier, with a co author that’s had more experience than I have in a particular area.[00:42:00] 

But at any rate, I love trying to help people, whether it’s writing or whether it’s speaking or, you know, whatever. So that’s my lifestyle. 

Melissa: And how old are your children now? 

Gary: My daughter is 60, my son is 54. It’s hard to believe I have grandchildren. My, my daughter has, has the two grandchildren. My son and his wife have not been able to have children, though they love children.

They work, they work with other people’s children. But, uh, my two grandchildren, my grandson graduated from college a year ago in May. And married in August to a girl that he met as a freshman, dated her all four years, and got married in August. And then two weeks later, they moved to, that was up in Illinois, and then he moved to our city and enrolled at Wake Forest University to get a master’s degree in [00:43:00] accounting, because he was a business major.

And after that, that training, they have now moved to her hometown, which is near Portland, Oregon. On the other side of the country, we live in North Carolina, he lives in South Carolina. So they’re out there, he’s got his first job, and they’re just doing wonderful. And our granddaughter was a, in college, she was a, a theater major.

But her thing is not acting, her thing is stage management. She loves what she does. She’s had two or three or four jobs in different kind of theaters. Right now, she’s working for the, the, the state, the governor’s school in South Carolina, where she lives, and she’s not married yet, but she’s open to marriage.

So, those are our two grandchildren, and, and both of our children, our daughter is a medical doctor. She said when she was 10 years old, when I grow up, I’m going to be a doctor, and her specialty is delivering high risk babies, and she loves what she does. Her husband’s an internal [00:44:00] medicine doctor, and then my son and his wife really have done mission work in several places around the world, in Prague and the Czech Republic for four years, and in Antwerp, Belgium for two years.

They actually are living in Austin, Texas, which is in the southern part of the U. S. And they work primarily with people who are on the fringe areas of society. People that sometimes are overlooked, and then they, they spend time getting to know them and helping them take steps in their life in the right direction.

So we’re very, very pleased with our children and where they’ve turned out. They both have a heart to serve other people. And I believe that, uh, that’s where life finds its greatest meaning. It’s not in getting, it’s in giving. And if we take whatever abilities we have and we use them to serve other people, there’s this great satisfaction in that.

Melissa: Absolutely. So beautiful. I’ve got three rapid fire questions for you now. Are you ready? 

Gary: Okay. [00:45:00] 

Melissa: What’s one thing that we can do for our health today? 

Gary: I think one thing would be some kind of physical exercise. I have a little routine I do every morning. I didn’t, I forgot to mention that. Every morning, every night before I go to bed.

It’s not the heart health exercise, it’s just muscle exercise. But keeping our bodies, you know, in working order, whatever, decide, just be consistent with it. I think that’s one suggestion I would make, and of course, obviously, it’s paying attention to what you eat. I’m not overly picky about what I eat, but I do try to eat things that I think are healthy.

Both of those things are important. 

Melissa: Yes, absolutely. What’s one thing that we can do for more wealth in our life, so more abundance in all areas of our life? 

Gary: Well, I think wealth is not, as you say, limited to money. There’s nothing wrong with having wealth, so long as you use it [00:46:00] to enrich the lives of other people and not just hoard it for yourself.

Because whenever we die, we’re going to leave it all here. We may as well give it away while you’re here, helping people. But I think, I think the, the greatest place where we are wealthy, in my opinion, is living with a sense of deep satisfaction that we are, have invested our lives in doing what we believe is helpful to other people.

And uh, I just think that’s, that’s the greatest wealth that we can ever, ever possess. 

Melissa: Yeah, absolutely. And what’s one thing that we can do for more love in our life? 

Gary: Well, I think love stimulates love. And so, well, if we love other people, typically they’re going to love us. And if we learn the concept that we’ve been talking about here, people’s love language, and at least with the people that we’re close to, we learn their love language [00:47:00] and we speak that love language to them.

As I said, love stimulates love. And so, if you want to be more loving or if you want to feel loved, you, you love. As you love, you’re going to stimulate friendships and you’re going to feel loved by numerous people. So, I think, I think it’s in giving, in giving love. And it’s, as I said earlier, it’s a choice.

It’s not that you have a particular feeling for a person. It’s that you, you want to enrich their life. That’s the attitude. And, uh, and yes, the emotional part is important that you meet that emotional need to fill up. But it doesn’t start with a feeling. It starts with an attitude and then behavior, and then the behavior stimulates the emotions.

Melissa: Beautiful. Gary, this has been so amazing. And I know that everyone is going to go and do the test as soon as this is finished. But is there anything else that you want to share with us [00:48:00] or any last parting words of wisdom? 

Gary: Well, I would just say, you know. If you read the book itself and then give it to other people, in fact, many, many people say, I’ve had singles, single adults say to me, particularly guys, I dated this girl and the third date she gave me this book called The Five Love Languages and asked me to read it, and I said, man, you should have known right there, that’s a good girl, okay?

But I do think that the book itself has saved literally thousands and thousands of marriages. In fact, when I do marriage conferences, which I do on a, on Saturdays. Many Saturdays. I’ll have people almost every week come up and say, Gary, that book saved our marriage 15 years ago or 20 years ago. The book’s been out now 32 years.

So it’s helped people for a long, long time. And I think not reading it for yourself. You will become a person who will give it to other people because you’ll see how much it helps you, and you want to help other people. It [00:49:00] has a lot of nuances, of course, that you wouldn’t get just simply by taking the quiz, though you certainly ought to do that for sure.

Think that, but think the book with people. And I think my challenge would be to anyone, take whatever abilities you possess and think in terms of how can I enrich the lives of other people with what I have. Because we all have different abilities. And if we have an attitude of love, we’re gonna end up at the end of the road being satisfied with the life that we have lived.

Melissa: Absolutely. So beautiful. Gary, you are helping. You are serving so many people, so I wanna know what I and the listeners can do to give back and serve you today. How can we serve you? 

Gary: Well, you know what I say to people when I’m, when I’m speaking and doing seminars and it’s all over, I said, if you ever think of me again, I say, you don’t have to.

But if you ever think of me again, will you pray for me [00:50:00] that God will give me wisdom? And how to invest my life on a regular basis and that, and that you will keep my heart so that I’m not steering off to the right or the left and doing crazy stuff, just pray that God will keep my heart and give me wisdom to continue to invest my life.

As long as I live in a positive, you can do that for me. 

Melissa: So beautiful. I love it. So beautiful. Thank you so much for all the work that you do in the world. Thank you for improving my marriage and my relationships with my children and with my friends. You are such a beautiful human being. Thank you for all the work that you’re doing.

It’s such a pleasure. You’ve been on my dream guest list for so long and I’m so glad that we finally made it happen. So thank you. I want to encourage everyone to go out and devour all of your books and your work. And if you ever come to Australia, you must. Let me know. But thank you for being here, for sharing your wisdom and for all the work you do in the world.

Well, 

Gary: thank you, Melissa, [00:51:00] for what you’re doing. And I do hope that things go well with the new baby. 

Melissa: Thank you so much. 

Gary: All right. God bless.

Melissa: Was that not amazing? I hope you got so much out of this episode and I really want to encourage you, if you have not already, to go and do the love language test, find out what yours is, find out what your partner’s is. and watch how this radically transforms for the better every relationship in your life.

And if you love this conversation, please subscribe and follow the show and leave me a review on Apple podcast. That would mean the absolute world to me. And as a little thank you, I would love for you to send a screenshot of your review to hello at Melissa Ambrosini, and I will send you a free meditation, my wildly wealthy meditation.

As a thank you gift for taking the time to leave me a review. Now, come and tell me on Instagram at Melissa Ambrosini, what your love language is, I [00:52:00] want to know, I want to know. So like I said, in this episode, my number one is touch and my second one is quality time. So what’s yours? I would love to know.

And before I go, I just wanted to say, thank you so much for being here, for wanting to be the best, the healthiest, and the happiest version of yourself. And for showing up today for you, my friend, you’re amazing now. There are many people in your life that will benefit from this episode. So be an angel and share it with them right now.

Take a screenshot, share it on your social media, email it to them, text it to them, do whatever you’ve got to do to get this in as many people’s ears as you possibly can. And until next time, don’t forget that love is sexy, healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn’t a dirty word.

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