• @andros_rex
    22•11 hours ago

    Fun fact, the “Five Love Languages” were invented by a Baptist pastor, and essentially have no research backing. It was basically “oh, your husband’s love language is physical touch, your love language is acts of service - love for you should be putting out and cleaning up!”

    • @[email protected]English
      5•6 hours ago

      It does help people identify where they have strengths and weaknesses, and has led to a larger conversation around how to communicate relative importance, even if it is a shoddy tool in and of itself.

      For example, I am a touch-averse person due to a childhood full of neglect (I am avoidant attachment myself), and that means that when I do show what passes as affection, it tends to be verbal affirmations, acts of service, or gift-giving. Because that’s what I can relate to.

      In a vacuum, love languages are meaningless. Sure. But as part of a whole range of self-identification strategies to learn about yourself and those you care about, it can be a valuable tool.

      It doesn’t really matter who made it. You’d be appalled to discover the roots of the more formalized systems we take for granted. That’s why we never hear about those things. But they are equally shaky-grounded.

      • @andros_rex
        3•6 hours ago

        My own experiences in couples therapy align with the other two comments. In my experience it was used against me, as a way of not acknowledging the burden of the domestic labor. My ex husband refused to do laundry, dishes, essentially do anything related to maintaining the home. But instead of “hey, adults have to clean up after themselves” the therapy speak turned it into “your love language is cleaning, and his isn’t, so he doesn’t have to do anything.” His love language was “gifts” and “words of affirmation” also, so I also wasn’t “matching” his love language, because I wasn’t constantly praising and giving him things.

        • @[email protected]English
          1•5 hours ago

          Any tool can be used for good or bad. It’s a tool.

          I’m sorry you experienced that, you shouldn’t have, but it’s not the fault of the tool, it’s the fault of those who used information improperly and abusively.

          Do you think they would have come to a different conclusion with a different toolbox? Because I mean… you have to want to be a raging pile of shit to use tools in such a way as to make you more of a raging pile of shit…

          It’s the same way most of the actual helpful clinical therapy language has been co-opted by abusers. It’s not the tools, it’s the abusers that are the problem.

    • Ben Hur Horse Race
      7•7 hours ago

      100%. And people eat it up.

      I have a close friend who’s partnership of 10 years (in their late 30s) ended partly because her partner spoke to a an absolutely hack therapist who told him that their love language was different (the therapist told him her’s was touch and verbal while his was acts of service cause he’d ask her if she needed anything from the shop), and rattled off some horse shit statistic about how 90% of relationships end hen the love languages arent the same, and they’re permanent (meaning your love language can’t change) so he left her.

      she’s still utterly devastated 4 years later

    • @[email protected]
      9•9 hours ago

      Oh, your husband beats you? You should have sex with him more! (Yes, that’s actually in the book)