Sylvia’s primary love language was quality time. Before marriage, Mark spoke her love language fluently. On their dates, he gave her his undivided attention. She felt genuinely loved by him even after the in-love obsession faded. However, after the wedding, she discovered that living with Mark was far different from dating Mark. He was a superactive person, and there were always “things to be done.” There were lawns to be mowed, shrubbery to be trimmed, leaves to be blown, cars to be washed, walls to be painted, carpet to be replaced. There was always a project.

“He is a hardworking man,” said Sylvia. “The problem is that he never has any time for me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what he does. I do, but what good is it if we don’t have time for each other?”

On the other hand, Mark really didn’t get it. “I don’t understand her,” he said. “Most women would be glad to have a husband like me. How can she say I don’t love her?”

Instead of answering Mark’s question prematurely, I turned the conversation by asking, “On a scale of zero to ten, how much love do you feel coming from Sylvia?”

He was silent for a moment and then said, “About zero right now. All she ever does is criticize me. I never thought it would come to this. Before we got married, she was always so positive. When I painted the living room at her house and replaced the windows in her bedroom, she couldn’t say enough about how great I was. Now I do the same thing in our house and it doesn’t count for anything.”

Mark’s primary love language was words of affirmation.

Instead of explaining, I gave them a copy of The Five Love Languages and said, “The answer to your marriage is in this book. I want you to read it carefully, and two weeks from today I want you to tell me why neither of you feel loved.” I don’t think either of them was very impressed with my approach, but they both agreed to read the book.

Two weeks later the atmosphere was very different. They walked into my office smiling. “Now we know why you wanted us to read this book before we got married,” Sylvia said. “I wish we had listened to you.”
I resisted the urge to say, “I wish you had also.” Instead, I said, “You can’t relive the past two years, but you can make the future very different.”

Filling Sylia's Love Tank

“So, what is Sylvia’s love language?” I asked Mark.

“Quality time, without a doubt,” he said. “For two years, I’ve been doing projects when she needed me to sit on the couch and talk with her, take drives in the country, and walk around the neighborhood after dinner. I was always too busy for those things. Now I realize that I was wrong. Because I didn’t speak her love language, she did the only thing she knew to do—she grumbled.”

“And what is your love language?” I asked.

“My primary love language is words of affirmation, which is why her complaining hurt me so deeply. It was like a knife to my heart.”

“I realize now what I did,” Sylvia said. “My love tank was so empty. I didn’t even know I had a love tank, so I certainly didn’t realize that it was empty. I did what was natural for me; I tried to express my need. I see now that it came across as condemning him. Instead of affirming him for all the good things he was doing, I criticized him because he was not meeting my deeper needs. We both apologized to each other, and we know the future is going to be different,” she said.

“I promised her we will have a date night every week,” Mark said. “And we will take a walk after dinner at least one night a week, maybe two. And every three months, we’re going to take a weekend trip together.”

“It’s like we are starting our marriage over again,” Sylvia said, “only this time, we know how to love each other. Mark is one of the hardest-working men I’ve ever known. And from now on, I’m going to make sure he knows I appreciate that about him.”

It’s been over a decade now since that conversation with Mark and Sylvia. Sylvia recently said to me, “I can’t thank you enough for the time you spent with us. It literally saved our marriage,” and Mark told me, “I want you to know that I could not be happier.”

In the midst of crisis Mark and Sylvia discovered something that could have been figured out while they were dating. Unfortunately they did what thousands of people do—assume that the love relationship will continue after marriage without much (or any) effort. Before marriage they were speaking each other’s love language but were not conscious of what they were doing. The dating context made it easy for Mark to give Sylvia quality time. She was the focus of his attention while they were together. Because she felt loved, it was easy for her to give him affirming words.

If romantic love leads to marriage, be sure you continue to speak your partner’s love language. Remember, this takes real work—but it’s worth the effort. The marriage context is very different from the dating context. In the normalcy of married life, Mark busied himself with things he thought would be important to her, missing the most important thing—quality time. When Sylvia ceased to give him affirming words, his love tank drained quickly. Without emotional love, their differences became battlefields, and both of them questioned the wisdom of their marriage. And without an understanding of the nature of love, their marriage would undoubtedly have ended in divorce.