I believe my Love Language is split between Quality Time and Physical Touch. I really value Quality Time spent with the ones I love because life has a way of keeping us busy and separated from each other for extended periods of time, at least that’s been the story my life. My husband and I met in the military and both served on active duty. When we met we were what you would call career Soldiers, each having over 10 years invested in our careers. We knew what this meant and the challenges it would bring to our plans of being together. Well, we weren’t surprised when, due to our military service, we were forced to live in two separate sates the first 3 years of our marriage. Yes, 3 years! He in Kentucky and I in Kansas. We made the best of it though. When I tell the story I just say we had an extended honeymoon because that’s how we handled it. We had date night “weekends” when we were able to travel to be with each other – movies and holding hands. We talked on the phone every night like two teenagers in love, really getting to know each other – “you hang up,” “no, you hang up.” I feel like this situation allowed us to grow closer, really get to know each other and become each other’s best friend.

So as you can imagine as we continued our careers we had many more opportunities to be away from each other due to deployments, schools, temporary duty and field exercises. I would estimate that during our first 5 years of marriage we physically lived in the same house for a total of 9 months. It blows my mind when I think about it. So now we truly value our time together. For me, special time together with my husband is important to me. We still have date nights, we sit and talk regularly and we have a few television shows that we enjoy watching together. We make a point of eating dinner together as a family. This time is especially important to me because we pray together, we communicate, and we create a loving environment for family interaction. Our Quality Time is just that – full of Quality.

My other Love Language would have to be Physical Touch. I describe myself as a touchy feely person, I like to give hugs! I especially like to share loving touches with the ones I love. I really appreciated that my husband figured this out early on and didn’t mind cuddling with me early in our relationship. He still likes to touch on me as I pass him in the house and when we leave each other’s presence we make a point to kiss goodbye.

I think when your spouse recognizes what your Love Language is and finds ways to fulfill it that strengthens you, your relationship and fills your love tank.