How to Fix Your Marriage and Other Wisdom from Dr. Gary Chapman, Author of “The 5 Love Languages”
On February 28, 2024, Dr. Gary Chapman spoke at Mt. Bethel Church on the topic of “Building Better Relationships: Understanding the 5 Love Languages.” You can read a summary of his talk here.
At the end of the event, attendees were encouraged to submit questions through a survey. Dr. Chapman graciously agreed to a follow-up interview with our team where he answered many of the questions submitted. Below are some of the questions submitted and Dr. Chapman’s answers.
Q: In our last blog post, you suggested ways people can talk to their significant other about the love languages concept. And while you said it ideally takes two people working on the relationship together, you acknowledge there could be improvement if just one person was practicing expressing love in a primary language. What advice do you have for the person whose spouse isn’t on board?
Dr. Chapman: Ultimately, it does take two to fix communication gaps in a relationship. But here’s what I suggest to people: try a six-month experiment. And I say six months because nothing happens in three weeks.
Start with prayer. Say to God, “you know how I feel about my spouse. I don’t have positive feelings about them, and they’ve hurt me in some ways, but I know you love them, and I want to love them like I should. Will you pour your love into my heart and let me be a channel for loving them for the next six months? And will you open their hearts to receive that love?”
And for the next six months, with God’s help, speak their love language. You don’t have to have positive feelings for them, but you’re expressing love in a way that’s meaningful to them. I’ve seen it happen many, many times. When one person sets out to intentionally love the other, by the end of the six months, the other person reciprocates.
Q: What would you say to the person who did the six-month experiment of intentionally loving their partner in their primary love language, but saw no change?
Dr. Chapman: At that point, it’s time for some tough love. I’d advise saying, “I don’t know how you feel about us, but I feel like at least for the last six months, I have just totally loved you in the best way I know how. And it appears to me that you have no interest in our relationship. So, if you want to go for counseling, I’m willing to go with you. But if you don’t, I’m going to move in with my mother, because if you don’t care, there’s no reason for me to sit here.”
Giving that ultimatum is going to be hard. But chances are, after experiencing six months of intentional expressions of love from you, they’re going to miss it. And that’ll ultimately be what motivates them to start working on the relationship.
If the tough love doesn’t work–if you leave and they don’t care or they go out and find somebody else–then don’t feel like you failed. It’s never just one’s person’s fault, but you tried to fix things. You can’t stop someone from divorcing you. At that point, you can only do what you can to find healing for yourself.
But many times, if you’ve truly loved them for the last six months, that separation will be enough to convince them to try counseling and try to work things out.
Q: How do you recommend a couple “bring the spark back into their relationship?”
Dr. Chapman: One of the things I’ve suggested for a long, long time to couples is if you want to have a growing marriage, choose a book on marriage. And each of you agree to read the first chapter and then ask each other what can we learn in that chapter that might help us? And then read the second chapter and sit down and ask the same question, What in that chapter might help us? If you do that, chances are by the time you finish that book you’re going to have a spark in your marriage because you will be making some changes along the way.
And it can be any book. I typically suggest a Christian marriage book, and obviously, several people have used mine. But honestly, it can be any book on marriage.
In fact, I challenge couples who have good marriages to share a book on marriage once a year, work through a book by chapters and ask “what can we learn from that chapter?.” If you do that once a year, you’re probably going to have a growing marriage for the next 50 years if you live that long.
Check out parts one, two , three and four of this blog series to learn more from Dr. Chapman. And stay tuned for the final post in this series featuring more questions and answers!