When love languages get lost in translation

"So what do you and your wife fight about?" asked my husband's barber, because he and my husband have that kind of relationship. "Um. Mostly love languages."

"Oh yeah, those are big."

I don't know if that's the conversation verbatim--I wasn't there. I only know the essence of it that Loverpants reported to me. It's true, that's what we mostly Have Disagreements About in marriage. It's not that we dispute what our love languages are or their existence. We just read each other's wrong.

What does disagreement look like for us? It means Loverpants and I get in our invisible canoe and row the oars of our dissonance over and harder into the otherwise still waters of our life's little tributary until we make it out to that Island of Disagreement where we hash things out. There aren't usually tears, perhaps almost always some raising of voices. But there are also a lot of agonizing sighs and pacing back and forth.

That happens when you don't speak the same love language. You take things to mean one thing and they mean something entirely different in sentiment and tone. You expect certain words to be said, certain gestures to be made, and then you realize you are different people who communicate love differently. Like, way differently.

Loverpants is an acts of service kind of guy. He will fill your gas tank, he will call to ask if you need anything from the store, and you will never be without clean laundry. He prefers you to give him your quality time. Not your time divided by other errands or catch-ups with a whole slew of random people. Don't give your time at all if it can't be focused and intentional. That's my guy. He is also good at giving gifts and is horrendously bad at receiving them.

I am a gifts and words kind of gal. I like to give gifts, especially handmade or one-of-a-kind items. I like to give words and receive words of affirmation. I find many of the other love languages not only absent from my heart but also confusing. For example, I often feel oppressed by the time people expect me to spend with them or not knowing when someone is going to leave. I am big into social cues and hate to feel that I am burdening someone by overstaying. I love having company over and even having guests stay overnight but I need to know how many days so that I can pace myself socially. Solitude is oxygen. I also find acts of service a complicated language. I don't ever want people to feel obligated to return an act of service, but I don't want to be treated as a doormat either. I understand this makes me sound like a jerk and there is a certain jerkberry jam spread on my heart, that much is true. Marriage makes one realize this about herself quick-smart.

But all is not bleak.

I'm changing one thing about my life this year in order to learn to speak Loverpants' love language better. I'm planning to get up at an obscene hour to do my workout so that when he gets home from work, I can be more available. I can make some tea and while I'm twirling around the aromatic tea bag, he can tell me about the podcast he listened to on his ride home and what Steve Almond says about patronage and exactly how many pounds of skittles he ate at the 4 o'clock slump. I'm going to give him my quality time, try to speak a language that sometimes makes me hands-wringingly anxious and I'm going to do it by making one change that I hope will spur a few other changes around here.

Learning a new language is not hard. I hear it just takes lots of hours of practice and overcoming the fear of sounding stupid. I'd so much rather risk sounding stupid than practicing lots of hours of actual stupidity, though. More languages spoken and discerned = more love in my life. That doesn't sound stupid to me.