Speak Your Wife's Language - Episode: 033
We want to be on the same page with our wife. But it's hard to get there when we're speaking different languages. Today's podcast will teach you how to communicate in a way that will allow your wife to not only hear you, but she'll understand and connect with you.
Your relationship with your life partner is potentially the most important relationship to nurture. Yet most of us weren't taught how to do it. Today's podcast will give you tools that form the bedrock of a strong marriage.
Speaker 1
This is the Durable Dad podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. Alright, what's up guys? Episode number 33. So we are going to honor the number 33 in this episode because it was my nickname in high school, tg33. And I kind of laugh because it's a high school nickname, but that was my number on my jersey football baseball number 33 in high school in college. So you know, when I saw that it was episode 33 and I was going to say it, I thought I'd give you guys a little insight. So this episode is going to kick off a three part series and it's kind of the first time we're doing this.
Speaker 1
But the next three episodes are going to be focused on our marriage and making a stronger, better connection with our wife, and this is going to apply to you if you're divorced and it's your ex. It's going to apply to you if you're a woman and you have a husband. I'm going to use the words marriage and wife, but it'll apply to any type of relationship you're in boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever and we're going to prioritize a strong relationship with our wife, because the stronger the relationship, the better suited we are to take on life and the better suited we are as a family unit to create some success. And when we have a strong relationship and everything's cool in the marriage, there's a lot of stress that's lifted from our mind, from our body, and we feel better when we're communicating. Well Doesn't mean that we're always happy, but knowing that we're communicating and we're going to be there for each other and support each other, we're going to get through the hard things. That eliminates a lot of stress. So many of the guys that I talked to want to be on the same page as their wife. They want to be on the same team.
Speaker 1
But when we are in the time of life that we're in with kids in the house and we're running around with different activities, we have jobs that we're going to also prioritizing our marriage isn't always easy. We can run through life and we can talk with our wife and connect, but it's usually transactional. It's usually what needs to happen to survive the day when do the kids need to be, what are we going to eat? What needs to be done around the house, who needs to go to the store those kinds of logistical tasks that need to happen, that can monopolize our conversation with our wife. And what I want these episodes to do is maybe bring some self-awareness to your behaviors and what the relationship is currently like and what you want it to be. Because when we do start communicating better, when we start loving on our wife a little bit more, we do become more of a team and the house runs smoother and we start supporting each other's growth and, like I said, we're going to move through conflicts. We know we got a partner in this life journey together. When we create the self-awareness of how we're behaving in our relationship, it's going to influence our wife's attitude, her behaviors, when we own, how we're feeling and how we're communicating. If you listen to this podcast, you're wise enough to know that we're not going to control our wife's feelings. We don't have the power to make her feel better, but at the same time, we care. We care about her a lot and we want to show appreciation, we want to show gratitude, and that's what today's episode is about.
Speaker 1
We're going to talk about love languages. Basically, these are all about how we give love and how we receive love. I've heard about these love languages, but one of my coaches brought it up on a call recently and there were just things in there that I needed to hear again, and I think this will be helpful for everyone. So, first things first.
Speaker 1
What are the love languages? So there's five of them. The number one are words of affirmation. You give love by complimenting people. You receive love when people tell you you're doing a good job. Number two and that's very broad speaking, but number two is quality time. So the way you receive love is when people are fully present with you and give you their time, and that's how you receive love. Number three is receiving gifts, and this is usually an older generation thing and that's not a blanket statement, but I think of my mom and dad and my grandparents and one of my aunts that love to give gifts and they used to give gifts to me and my wife all the time, but then, when we had kids, they give our daughters a lot of gifts and that's how they show their love. It's not how I receive love. I don't like things. I don't like having more things, and this is actually what we're going to talk about today. Their love language to give love is giving gifts, but on the receiving end. That's not my love language. They don't talk my language and we're going to dive more into that, but I'm going to get through the five love languages. So, number one words of affirmation. Number two quality time. Number three receiving gifts. Number four acts of service. So to show your love, you do things for somebody else. Maybe you pick them up when they need a ride, or you try to clean the house as much as possible or help out with house projects. It could be cooking for someone else is an act of service. This is how I show my love, through cooking. Number five is physical touch, and physical touch isn't just sex. Physical touch is cuddling, hugging, holding hands. Those are physical touch examples of how you would communicate your love that way. So those are the five love languages, pretty straightforward. And how does this work in the real world?
Speaker 1
So we have our love languages, how we receive love, how we give love. For me, I receive love through words of affirmation. That's probably my top one. I like compliments. Compliment me, that feels good for me. How I give love is usually acts of service. I like doing things for other people, I like serving other people and that's good to know. That's we wanna know our love language and we also wanna understand our wife's love language. How do they give love, how do they receive love? Because we usually don't give and receive love in the same language as our wife. So, example I give love through acts of service. I like to do things for other people and that's how I show my love.
Speaker 1
Brenda receives love with quality time, fully present with the family or fully present with just me and her. That's when she feels full of love. So last Sunday I dropped my sister off at the airport early. She was in town for the weekend and I was coming home and I was gonna go to Costco. I was like, ah, it's early, they just opened, I can get a bunch done, I can start checking off our errands for today. I can get gas and as this is going through my head, I'm thinking about this podcast that I'm gonna do. I'm like, but that's my love language, that's I'm gonna run errands and that's how I'm showing that I love the family and I'm providing.
Speaker 1
What's Brenda's love language in this moment? And she was at home chilling with the girls. It was a quiet Sunday morning. We didn't have anything to do. We just had a busy weekend with a bunch of people in our house. So I was like, oh well, quality time's her love language. If I just showed up at home with no agenda, poured a cup of coffee and hung out like that would probably mean a lot to her. And that's what I did, and we had a really nice morning. I could have called and asked her if I could go to Costco and she would have said yes, and that would have been fine too.
Speaker 1
But this is an example of deciding to communicate in my wife's love language instead of communicate in my love language. So when we're communicating love, we want to be aware of how we're doing it and it's gonna fall into one of these five categories. So we wanna get really clear on our love languages. And then we need to get fluent on our partner's love language. Let's say you were just trying to communicate to another person in a foreign country. You went to Germany. You only speak English, you don't speak German. Everyone in this small town you're at in Germany only speaks German.
Understanding and Communicating Love Languages
Speaker 1
If you try to communicate in your language, they're not gonna understand, it's not gonna land with them. And then you do like the stupid American thing and you say the same thing, but louder and slower, right? Do you know where the bathroom is? Blank. Stare on the other person's face, do you know? At that I think you get the picture right. It doesn't.
Speaker 1
If we just try to yell louder in a different language than the person understands, our points not going to get across. So if I just do more acts of service and do more around the house and Run more errands, and even if I tell Brenda I'm doing it for those reasons, hey, my way of giving love is acts of service. So I'm just gonna do everything today and that's how I'm gonna Show my love for you. She can understand that, but she's not gonna feel it. In order for her to understand Deeply that I am giving love, I'm gonna have to speak in her language. So your love language is for you and Then also try to speak the other person's love language.
Speaker 1
When we do this, when we Learn our wife's love language and communicate in the way that she receives love, we build a stronger relationship.
Speaker 1
And Studies show that when we have a stronger marriage, a stronger relationship, we're happier, we're healthier, and the quality of our marriage is directly gonna impact the quality of our parenting, the quality of our life, and there's a lot we can do to keep our relationship strong.
Speaker 1
So, to wrap up, people want to be seen, they want to be heard, and when we Work on an activity like this understanding our love languages, learning about theirs we're showing interest, we're seeing and we're hearing what our wife needs, and just that effort to listen, to have a conversation like that is going to keep the love and the spark between you two alive. So Do you know your wife's needs? What means a lot to her? Is it flowers once in a while, or is it that Quality time, fully present, or is it a compliment telling her she's doing a good job, she's an awesome mom? If you Don't know what means a lot to her, what your wife needs as far as receiving love, then have a conversation about this. I'm gonna put the five love languages in the comments and that's what I got for you guys today. So have an awesome week and I'll catch you next time.
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