Page 79 - The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

couple? Dating couples look at each other and talk.
Married couples sit there and gaze around the restaurant.
You’d think they went there to eat!
When I sit on the couch with my wife and give her
twenty minutes of my undivided attention and she does the
same for me, we are giving each other twenty minutes of
life. We will never have those twenty minutes again; we are
giving our lives to each other. It is a powerful emotional
communicator of love.
One medicine cannot cure all diseases. In my advice
to Bill and Betty Jo, I made a serious mistake. I assumed
that words of affirmation would mean as much to Betty Jo
as they would to Bill. I had hoped that if each of them would
give adequate verbal affirmation, the emotional climate
would change, and both of them would begin to feel loved. It
worked for Bill. He began to feel more positive about Betty
Jo. He began to sense genuine appreciation for his hard
work, but it had not worked as well for Betty Jo, for words of
affirmation were not her primary love language. Her
language was quality time.

I got back on the phone and thanked Bill for his efforts in
the past two months. I told him that he had done a good job
of verbally affirming Betty Jo and that she had heard his
affirmations. “But, Dr. Chapman,” he said, “she is still not
very happy. I don’t think things are much better for her.”