I've rarely been impressed by most pop psych books. They're popular because they're saying what people want to hear.

(For example: Yeah, okay, you WANT to express your love by doing. But I "get it" by hearing. Are you really going to tell me that you're so stuck in your ways that you can't manage an "I love you" every once in a while? That you can't pick out a card once or twice a year? If it's not your "Language" then I get that asking you for poems every week and a card for every holiday is too much, but that's not an excuse to not make an effort.)

I think ducks stay together in love better than humans!! ;-) No, love is as variable as people and their culture.

Agreed!

I will say this Aronia, there are feelings/emotions and then there is commitment. In a perfect world there is a marriage of both. This is not a perfect world. So the question is how to navigate it, if say I have several failed relationships under my belt. Maybe by being open minded to a different thought process. Truth: Every person has a different value placed on acts performed by those who love us. That is in indisputable. Why not be equipped with that knowledge about your partner?? Truth be told , most of us think our partner responds the way we would thus we love them in OUR way, not necessarily theirs.

The book is not gospel, merely a guide. As for your belief that struggle or crisis born together some how ensures a more permanent relationship well you may have never met a divorced couple who lost a child, or a couple that was disabled in a car accident or a couple with a disabled child.
At the end of the day, we only have ourselves to hold accountable for how we treat others, how we treat love, and how we respond to it. Tragedy or hardship does not necessarily bind us, it can indeed rip us apart.

Finally, I agree based on my life experciences with his belief that passionate long term relationships may fizzle after two years, it doesn't negate love or commitment, and that kind of love, committed love, is not less rewarding or fulfilling. Just my thought.

Don't follow the rule of thumb, be that exception! Don't let statistics define you.

I think the notion of a "soul mate" is part of the issue. That has completed effed up people's idea of love and relationships because it results in either disenchantment with your partner or when looking for a partner, it creates this narrow dating criteria where no one can live up to such a lofty standard.

There's that old David Crosby song "Love the One Your With." Sometimes I think it doesn't need to be much harder than that.

That is an interesting perspective. I really enjoyed the love languages book, because it helped me understand how my wife and I think differently. But it's been a while since I read it, and the part I remember most is the section about the love languages themselves. I think the best relationships are the ones that have survived internal and external challenges, whatever those challenges might be. The crazy "falling in love" feeling people often equate with love is amazing and exciting, but after twenty years of marriage I've found that love can get better and deeper later on -- although perhaps not as thrilling. My wife asked me once if I liked her better when she was young and skinny, and I told her I wouldn't change a thing. We've spent twenty years working to understand each other. Sometimes it was REALLY hard work, and though the years have stolen our youth and sexy bodies, I wouldn't trade the understanding we've developed for ANYTHING.

I think just being in a relationship is a challenge, by definition. But I agree, it can get better over time. The love does change over time though, but necessarily in a bad way. For me, it's a choice to love someone. I think that's what makes you survive the really bad times, or the things life throws at you than can start chipping away at your relationship- loss, illness, financial problems etc.

Oh, and I meant Stephen Stills, not David Crosby.

I spent 2 years in marriage counseling trying to salvage my marriage after my husband's affair. My husband and I both learned our love languages and talked about them in depth. I appreciate help with tasks and my hubby likes physical intimacy. My husband left counseling after a year because "he wasn't getting anything out of it". Here we are two years later. I do most of the work around the house(I work full time) and he can not understand why we don't have sex. He has no recollection of the love languages

Do you remind him? Do you talk about why you don't have sex? Why keep doing alI the housework? Maybe just stop doing everything.

I think like anything, what you learn in therapy, whether it's couple's therapy or individual therapy, you have to keep practising it, to perfect it.

I don't have a perfect marriage by any stretch of the imagination, but I find that when we occassionally fall back into old crappy behaviors and resentments sometimes, where are our worse selves find their way back to the surface, I just say, ok what are we doing and why? If I call it out, not just him, but call out myself too, it can reset the needle, where we remember, oh yeah, this is what works.

Every day, it has to be a conscious decision how to treat each other. It has to be. I didn't really get that until several years into my relationship. Otherwise, you slowly slip back into old habits.

The book helped my partner and I get past some relationship impasses, partly because it encouraged us to open a dialog about things we didn't really like to talk about. We had to get past the "I want the same things that you do, so you should want the same things that I do." delusion. The book also helped me to better understand what I usually wanted, in relation to things that I only occasionally wanted.

I agree love is a CHOICE, NOT based (solely) on emotions (or lust hormones) but on some very logical determinations that you are better for me than all others. This value judgment is made based on personality and similar sensibilities. Two people can have different love languages and still love each other, as long as those love languages coalesce, gel, in a way that is mutually pleasurable, and as long as there's mutual understanding and accomodation of each other's love languages.

Mutual understanding and accommodation is key!! It is very difficult to keep my partner's needs in mind when he has zero regard for mine.

I have to chime in on this my friend. I really enjoyed the book myself, but I am an extreme giver and that has made life really hard for at times as I have made it very easy for people to take advantage of me. Someone already said the book is a guide and that is how I took it and nothing more. It taught me a lot about why I didn't feel loved in past relationships. I was able to define my love language and learn why my partners very seldomely spoke to me in a way I could understand as love. It has helped me work on myself as it was written to do so.

This is my OPINION ONLY! There are so many factors that go into a healthy relationship. To me a relationship takes work and can last forever if you want to put the work into it. I am not saying this is one sided either as BOTH partners have to work at it. There are so many things in life that work against relationships. Jobs and carriers, kids, alcohol and drugs, sexual incompatibility, day to day bordom, bills and keeping up with the neighbors. If you want your relationship to work you have to put in the time and effort to make it work. Most of the things I listed are very insignificant in life with the exception of kids! None of the material possesions will do a damn thing for you in reality and when you die there will be lines of people waiting to take it all. SO that pretty much leaves two things in life that matter and they are children and the love of a good partner. Some people cant have children or don't want them and that is understandable also so they are left wanting the love of a good partner. I guess the point I am trying to make is if you want a healthy long lasting relationship then put in the effort to make it so. Take time every day to please each other in a way that both know it. Wake up and go to bed with a ILOVE YOU. Don't let temptation get in the way and fulfill that temptation with your partner if at all possible. I do agree with you that Americans do have it too easy and don't really know hard struggles like other countrys, but please don't lump all Americans into that as there are many that struggle each and every day.

I hope something I said helps!

I am not saying that we are not struggling here... There are people who have it REALlY hard, what I m saying is that our country is not devastated by war. Our suffering is normal, peace-time problems, unaffected by destruction and financial crisis, death and famine.
We have clean water to drink, we have health care and even if we are homeless, we don't have bombs flying over our heads, we don't have corpses lying on the street, we can easily find our relatives, etc