Page 156 - The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

Physical touch is also a powerful vehicle for
communicating marital love. Holding hands, kissing,
embracing, and sexual intercourse are all ways of
communicating emotional love to one’s spouse. For some
individuals, physical touch is their primary love language.
Without it, they feel unloved. With it, their emotional tank is
filled, and they feel secure in the love of their spouse.
The old-timers used to say, “The way to a man’s heart
is through his stomach.” Many a man has been “fattened for
the kill” by women who have believed this philosophy. The
old-timers, of course, were not thinking of the physical heart
but of man’s romantic center. It would be more accurate to
say, “The way to some men’s hearts is through their
stomachs.” I remember the husband who said, “Dr.
Chapman, my wife is a gourmet cook. She spends hours in
the kitchen. She makes these elaborate meals. Me? I’m a
meat and potatoes man. I tell her she is wasting her time. I
like simple food. She gets hurt and says I don’t appreciate
her. I do appreciate her. I just wish she would make it easy
on herself and not spend so much time with the elaborate
meals. Then we would have more time together, and she
would have the energy to do some other things.” Obviously,
“other things” were closer to his heart than fancy foods.
That man’s wife was a frustrated lover. In the family in
which she grew up, her mother was an excellent cook and
her father appreciated her efforts. She remembers hearing
her father say to her mother, “When I sit down to meals like
this, it’s so easy for me to love you.” Her father was a