Book Review: The 5 Love Languages for Men -- how to speak clearly to your wife and strengthen your marriage

The 5 Love Languages for Men, Gary Chapman
with Randy Southern, Northfield Publishing (2015)

I remember reading Gary Chapman's original book, The 5 Love Languages, almost two decades ago. That groundbreaking book introduced me to the languages of words of affirmation, quality time, gift giving, acts of service, and physical touch. Now, 20 years later and almost that many books in this series, Chapman has a new book aimed at men in marriage relationships. And it's powerful and well worth the read. The love languages have not changed, but this book focuses on strengthening your marriage by learning your wife's primary love language.

After an introductory chapter, the first half of the book elaborates each of these five languages.  Chapters 7 and 8 are a little weaker, but the book ends on a strong point with two important chapters: one on anger and the last one on apologizing.  I found these especially helpful, as they highlight two of my weaknesses.

The book itself is very short, weighing in at less than 190 pages. When combined with numerous cartoons, it becomes a very quick read. The cartoons themselves are more miss than hit, and could have been omitted (it almost felt like they were added as padding).

Two particularly useful features of the book focus on practical application. The end of the book contains a love language profile for each partner, containing 30 questions to each discover your primary and secondary love languages. And chapters 2 through 6 contain a two-page phrase book for each specific love language giving tips to us hard-headed men on how to speak that love language.  This becomes the phrase book to turn to.

My wife and I took the profile survey at the end. I was reaffirmed in my primary language of acts of service, but discovered that gift giving and words of affirmation are so low that they are almost foreign to me. My wife, on the other hand, speaks acts of service and words of affirmation bilingually. This means I understand and speak one of her languages, but struggle with words of affirmation. Thankfully, the phrase book in that chapter has given me some tips to try.

Chapman points out that we can all learn to speak other languages, just like we can learn a foreign language. But it will be hard work. Yet, if we want to make our marriages the best they can be, we should be willing to put in the effort. After all, we ourselves will reap the benefit with heightened communication and deeper intimacy. Who in a marriage wouldn't want that?

Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing a free copy of the book in exchange for this honest review and post.