RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships

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KnightofMists -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 9:51:12 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: leadership527 quote: ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael Part of the importance of understanding this stuff is that we then can learn to "hear" our partners loving us. BSB is very much a guy and LOVES fixing things for me and does it fairly often. On some level this really didn't do much for me but I am working on "hearing" that work as her saying "I love you" but it takes work on both sides to meet in the middle. I'm going have to disagree here Michael. I feel strongly that it is incumbent on the lover to love their partner in ways meaningful to them. Try as you might, you are never going to be able to feel "loved" in languages other than that which you need/want. Or, at least, I have never managed that. In my opinion, much as I'd always prefer to meet my partner in the middle, in this case, it just doesn't work out that way. We each meet on the other person's side laughs. Michael is right... we can learn to "Hear" that are partners are showing or expressing love. "Hearing" is not the same as feeling. However... in time you can evolve from just "Hearing" to "Feeling"... this is happening to me in my relationships. Quality Time in my past has never been a biggie.. but that has changed in the past few years. Secondly.. I do agree that it is incumbent upon all partners to make the effort to communicate effectively if you want the message to be understood. Part of that is communicating in a way that everyone understands what the message is. We can learn new languages... but only if we are willing to learn them. When we learn them... we will begin to feel the emotions that will come from the message as well. This is not immediate process... it takes time... but it does happen if you let it.

MaamJay -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 9:55:44 AM)
Well it's nearly 3am here but I just had to do the test ... curiosity! Found there was a lot of times when I wanted to tick both, I think I am more of a love all-rounder than the scores ended up indicating! 37% touch - no surprise there, I used to say I run on hugs! And Master is a huggy bear too. 30% quality time - also no surprise, Master and I love spending time together, which is just as well as We are contemplating travelling around Australia for a number of years in an RV! 17% acts of service - within an M/s context, it means extra when Master does things for me, His slave, as it's less expected, so that's scored a bit higher perhaps than it would in a different context. 13% words of affirmation - I'd rate that a bit higher I think in that I do appreciate sincere affirmation and His attention. I also like to leave Him little notes of love and affirmation and He really responds to those. 3% receiving gifts - well I do like them, but love would survive a forgotten gift. I like giving them even more! Fun to do though and I should track down the book. Thanks KofM! Maam Jay aka violet[A]

NuevaVida -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 9:56:53 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KnightofMists I do agree that it is incumbent upon all partners to make the effort to communicate effectively if you want the message to be understood. Part of that is communicating in a way that everyone understands what the message is. We can learn new languages... but only if we are willing to learn them. OK, the part I bolded is what makes what you said make sense to me. All people in that relationship need to be willing to learn each other's languages, speak each other's languages, and share each other's languages. If only one is trying to hear the other's language, I can't see it working out in the long run. Maybe my vision is limited, but it would be similar to any language barrier. My father spoke english and my mother did not. They learned each other's languages, rather than one simply learning the other's. This opened up a lot more for them than if only one of them was expected to learn the other.

KnightofMists -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 10:01:12 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: NuevaVida Been there, can attest to that for myself. Instead I spent more energy than I should have, trying to interpret the things he insisted meant he cared about me. So often I just couldn't see it, though, and in time it became exhausting and frustrating. No matter how often he said "Of course I care deeply for you - why else would I.....(insert whatever it was he did, here)?" But it was Greek to me, and as much as I tried, his language did not compute into mine. I would get it for awhile, but it wouldn't sustain. There were other reasons for that, too, but this was a big one for me. You are assuming that there is Truth in those words from him. From everything you shared... I find that truth of those words questionable. So... if there was no truth in those words... no amount of energy or effort was going to give you the results you where working for. Just another possibility of why you couldn't see it and as such it hardly proves you couldn't learn a new language. As someone that has.... I can assure you it can be learned.

KnightofMists -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 10:11:38 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: marieToo With dominant men in ds relationships, I've always been uncomfortable with the affirmations, other than "I'm pleased" and things of that nature. Compliments or romantic affirmations make me squirm a bit. But I'm trying to get used to that since I'm realizing that a part of me feels good when I hear nice things spoken to me and about me. So that is a language I am trying to learn and accept. Not to suggest that this is your situation Marie. But... sometimes a person's Esteem affects or filters a person's ability to hear and feel loved by different languages. I am reading another book at present that makes the following statement (something I have said on the boards in the past) "We have all heard the observation, "If you do not love yourself, you will be unable to love others." Less well understood is the other half of the stroty. If I do not feel lovable, it is very difficult to believe that anyone else loves me" We might have these different languages of communicating love... but there are other issues that prevent us from understanding and feeling these different languages. If we don't feel worthy of love.... do you thing a person will understand any language?

NuevaVida -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 10:13:36 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KnightofMists quote: ORIGINAL: NuevaVida Been there, can attest to that for myself. Instead I spent more energy than I should have, trying to interpret the things he insisted meant he cared about me. So often I just couldn't see it, though, and in time it became exhausting and frustrating. No matter how often he said "Of course I care deeply for you - why else would I.....(insert whatever it was he did, here)?" But it was Greek to me, and as much as I tried, his language did not compute into mine. I would get it for awhile, but it wouldn't sustain. There were other reasons for that, too, but this was a big one for me. You are assuming that there is Truth in those words from him. From everything you shared... I find that truth of those words questionable. So... if there was no truth in those words... no amount of energy or effort was going to give you the results you where working for. Good point. I assumed it then, yes. Now, not so much. quote: Just another possibility of why you couldn't see it and as such it hardly proves you couldn't learn a new language. As someone that has.... I can assure you it can be learned. I'll trust your word on it. These days I'm too tired to try. But "these days" is not reflective of what's to come, so...

servantheart -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 10:17:19 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KatyLied link for test I scored high on physical touch, which surprises me because I don't consider myself open to that sort of thing. But if it's a choice between a gift or a touch, I'll take the touch any day. Kewl link. I also scored high on physical touch and, like you, would always prefer physical touch over gifts.

missturbation -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 10:19:34 AM)
quote: Just another possibility of why you couldn't see it and as such it hardly proves you couldn't learn a new language. As someone that has.... I can assure you it can be learned. In principal i would agree although i do feel the statement 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks' is also sometimes true. My question here would be though, even if you can learn a new language does that necessarily equate to you will feel it too?

marieToo -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 10:26:07 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KnightofMists quote: ORIGINAL: marieToo With dominant men in ds relationships, I've always been uncomfortable with the affirmations, other than "I'm pleased" and things of that nature. Compliments or romantic affirmations make me squirm a bit. But I'm trying to get used to that since I'm realizing that a part of me feels good when I hear nice things spoken to me and about me. So that is a language I am trying to learn and accept. Not to suggest that this is your situation Marie. But... sometimes a person's Esteem affects or filters a person's ability to hear and feel loved by different languages. I am reading another book at present that makes the following statement (something I have said on the boards in the past) "We have all heard the observation, "If you do not love yourself, you will be unable to love others." Less well understood is the other half of the stroty. If I do not feel lovable, it is very difficult to believe that anyone else loves me" We might have these different languages of communicating love... but there are other issues that prevent us from understanding and feeling these different languages. If we don't feel worthy of love.... do you thing a person will understand any language? Point taken. But in my situation this isn't the case. I'm capable of giving and accepting love on various levels in various types of relationships, as I spoke to in my first post. In fact, I have great relationships with family and friends. Ds relationships have always been a different story for me, however. But still, I don't feel like I'm not worthy or don't have self esteem, I'm just not used to my submission being received with love (of any language), though it has been given as such in several of the "languages". I don't want to turn this into being about me and my relationships, so I'll leave it at that.

SimplyMichael -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 10:31:31 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: leadership527 quote: ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael Part of the importance of understanding this stuff is that we then can learn to "hear" our partners loving us. BSB is very much a guy and LOVES fixing things for me and does it fairly often. On some level this really didn't do much for me but I am working on "hearing" that work as her saying "I love you" but it takes work on both sides to meet in the middle. I'm going have to disagree here Michael. I feel strongly that it is incumbent on the lover to love their partner in ways meaningful to them. Try as you might, you are never going to be able to feel "loved" in languages other than that which you need/want. Or, at least, I have never managed that. In my opinion, much as I'd always prefer to meet my partner in the middle, in this case, it just doesn't work out that way. We each meet on the other person's side laughs. Jeff, There are things I love doing for a partner that they may or may not appreciate, I "get" something out of doing, say giving flowers. I get far more out of that act if my partner's eyes light up and a smile blossoms on her face when I do them. The point being that saying "I am only going to be emotionally fed when you do it exactly how I want" is as silly as saying "You need to learn to be fed by whatever method I choose to feed you" Learning to ask for what you need and learning to give what they need is part of how one "makes" a relationship. My life is richer for asking for my needs to be met but imagine if I also learn to "appreciate" the ways that make them happy pleasing me. I DOUBLE the love my partner gives/expresses in my direction.

NihilusZero -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 10:45:29 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KnightofMists quote: ORIGINAL: leadership527 I'm going have to disagree here Michael. I feel strongly that it is incumbent on the lover to love their partner in ways meaningful to them. Try as you might, you are never going to be able to feel "loved" in languages other than that which you need/want. Or, at least, I have never managed that. In my opinion, much as I'd always prefer to meet my partner in the middle, in this case, it just doesn't work out that way. We each meet on the other person's side laughs. Michael is right... we can learn to "Hear" that are partners are showing or expressing love. "Hearing" is not the same as feeling. However... in time you can evolve from just "Hearing" to "Feeling"... this is happening to me in my relationships. Quality Time in my past has never been a biggie.. but that has changed in the past few years. Secondly.. I do agree that it is incumbent upon all partners to make the effort to communicate effectively if you want the message to be understood. Part of that is communicating in a way that everyone understands what the message is. We can learn new languages... but only if we are willing to learn them. When we learn them... we will begin to feel the emotions that will come from the message as well. This is not immediate process... it takes time... but it does happen if you let it. There is a difference between trying to change ourselves to better interpret the ways of another (which, although terribly cute and endearing, is silly) and learning to understand the 'language' of another. To me, getting to that point of understanding specifically doesn't mean I morph myself into a creature that can be emotionally stimulated by things just because they do them (that would be a passive action anyway)....rather it brings me to a better understanding of what to show/do to them that is more in line with what I know they'll appreciate better (an active stance). I'm sorry...but no amount of adoration for my partner, if they love NKOTB, will make me happy to receive a CD of the band, if said partner gave it to me as a gift, just because it would 'mean a lot' to her and I should learn the 'language' of nausea-inducing boy-band music because it happens to please her aurally.

KnightofMists -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 10:48:43 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: marieToo I don't want to turn this into being about me and my relationships, so I'll leave it at that. As I stated.. it wasn't a suggestion that it was you situtation. It was however a point that we have a variety of things that hinder our ability to effectively communicate our love. As I pointed out in this thread... Integrity and Esteem are two things just of the top that comes to me. We also have different reasons why we have the languages we do. Sometimes the will evolve by conscious effort. But many times they are what they are and we can look back and see some factors of why they are there. Acts of Service is my mom's primary way of communicating love she is always looking to do things for the people she cares for... she is also a big Gift giver... which is another way that she communicates love. I never adopted the Gift aspect of love... but Acts of Service are very strong in my world. Then there is words of affirmations. I believe like me... my Mom treasures Words of Affirmation.. I suspect she treasures them more than anything else. As I grew up... Words of Affirmation was just something that didn't happen in my youth. And here I am as an adult that wants them very much. In fact, I would say in my youth and young adulthood these are things I wanted more than all the others. As a mature adult.. I have learned. Alandra is different... she doesn't do words of affirmation or rarely... Kyra is only barely more expressive in giving words of Affirmation. This is one love language that I don't recieve in any consistent manner. But... I learned that Alandra communicated differently.. very much like my mom with regards to Acts of Service and then well it was Quality Time. I think the Author makes it sound very simplistic in his writings and maybe to simplistic. I don't believe that we just have a primary language in which we give and recieve our love. In many cases I think it can be very different on how we communicate it and how we recieve it. I also think that depending on the relationship we will be different with one person as compared to another. Another aspect that the Author communicates is the concept of a Love Tank. The communication of love fills our need for love. I don't actually believe that we have just one love tank either. I think those that are multilinguil as myself will have more than just one tank. I think words of affirmation is a very specific tank for me as an example. It might be smaller... but the volume of the tank doesn't indicate it's less significance. In fact, you could say that I get more milage from the fuel that goes in that smaller tank than would goes into the bigger tank. I started this OP in large part to hear a few comments and ideas... but also cause a few discussion in other people's relationships and plant a few seeds in those that are not in relationships yet. I think these concepts and ideas give us tools to have better relationships. I like to see better relationships.... I want people to have fanatastic relationships... but it's something we have to earn.

leadership527 -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 11:05:09 AM)
Basic relationship skills.... understanding that you pay into your partner's cup and THEY determine the value of your offering, not you. Understanding your partner's "language of love" is worth exactly nothing if you don't also understand that it is the only language that matters when you are speaking love to that person. It's all about paying up in the coin of the realm. It's all about actually seeing your partner, not navigating around them.

NihilusZero -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 11:07:06 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: leadership527 Basic relationship skills.... understanding that you pay into your partner's cup and THEY determine the value of your offering, not you. Understanding your partner's "language of love" is worth exactly nothing if you don't also understand that it is the only language that matters when you are speaking love to that person. It's all about paying up in the coin of the realm. It's all about actually seeing your partner, not navigating around them. I actually really like the 'currency' analogy here.

Icarys -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 11:11:49 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Darcyandthedark .nodnodnod.[:D] Sickening isn't it? [;)]I was really surprised that we equalled in three of the points though. And when we had a discussion about it after, it turned out the question I was very 50-50 on and just could not decide the way to go was the one that determined the 33/33 - 37/30 (holding hands vs going places). It was in interesting poll - I don't know if I would go for a book on the subject though, unless Darcy instructed but he is of the same thought. These kinds of things and relationship books are good 'fun' but we both agree that if we cannot sort it ourselves, or need a book to tell us or point us in any direction - our relationship would be pretty much fucked anyway. the.dark. Actually I think it's kinda nice[:D] When it comes to the last part I couldn't agree more on a personal basis. Sometimes, depending on what it is, it may take a few tries to get it right but it's so much more satisfying when I'm able to figure out things myself. I would say that others though might pick up good things for themselves out of books like that. You can learn from pretty much anything and anyone if your open to it.

JustDarkness -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 11:13:50 AM)
I was thinking...... many always advise other people to communicate. Now I wonder why they read a book about "the 5 languages". Is it just interest? Do they have problems communicating? Problems with emotions or giving/handling love? Or did love recently became part of their BDSm, and wasn't there love before? Personally I found the 5 languages..."basic knowledge"....but propably people need these books..as guide..or just as reading pleasure.

NuevaVida -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 11:18:24 AM)
People read books like these to gain awareness - about themselves, their relationships, the world at large, concepts they hadn't thought of before, etc. Picking up a book like this doesn't automatically mean there are problems in the relationship. Reading expands knowledge. I'm pretty sure, even though I have heard these "5 Love Language" concepts before, if I read the book I would learn things I did not previously know, and I would think about things I had not previously thought about. For some, myself included, it's a general interest in expanding my thoughts. It's the same reason I have read some of the other philosophical books that I have. I love having "Ah HA!" moments, when I discover something about myself - something that may be so simple - that I hadn't realized before. I'm not going to have those moments if I decide I don't need to read something because I know it all, already.

marieToo -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 11:25:30 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KnightofMists quote: ORIGINAL: marieToo I don't want to turn this into being about me and my relationships, so I'll leave it at that. As I stated.. it wasn't a suggestion that it was you situtation. I know. I was having one of those put-a-wall-up-moments. Sorry about that. <Mini hijack over.>

NihilusZero -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 11:27:46 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: KatyLied link for test Nifty. It doesn't seem I score very heavily on one specific thing. Quality Time: 30% (9) Receiving Gifts: 27% (8) Physical touch: 20% (6) Acts of Service: 17% (5) Words of Affirmation: 7% (2)

leadership527 -> RE: Communicating our love in our lifestyle relationships (10/19/2008 11:31:12 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SimplyMichael The point being that saying "I am only going to be emotionally fed when you do it exactly how I want" is as silly as... Well, you and I are going to have to agree to disagree here then. You know that my general feeling about relationships is always "let's meet in the middle". But this is one of those cases where I feel strongly that the way better rule is "receiver rules". It is not my belief that we get to consciously choose in what ways we need to be fed. Over time, perhaps, as KoM suggests, we can evolve. But from a pragmatic, day-to-day, how to ensure your relationship actually works standpoint, in my experience it is way easier for the lover to bend than the lovee in this case. I make it a point of delivering my "i love you" to carol in the coin of her realm, not my own. That's why she feels so loved. I personally find it relatively easy to see "spending meaningful and focused conversation time" with her as a warm and loving gesture. I think, however, that I could spend forever trying to learn to get loved myself that way with minimal success.

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