“Well, mainly sex,” Bob replied.
I probed a little further, asking, “Do you enjoy your wife running her hands through your hair, or giving you a back rub, or holding hands, or kissing and hugging you at times when you are not having sexual intercourse?”
“Those things are fine,” said Bob. “I am not going to turn them down, but the main thing is sexual intercourse. That’s when I know that she really loves me.”
Leaving the subject of physical touch for a moment, I turned to affirming words and asked, “When you say that ‘Words of Affirmation’ are also important, what kinds of statements do you find most helpful?”
“Almost anything if it is positive,” Bob replied. “When she tells me how good I look, how smart I am, what a hard worker I am, when she expresses appreciation for the things I do around the house, when she makes positive comments about my taking time with the children, when she tells me she loves me—all of those things really mean a lot to me.”
“Did you receive those kinds of comments from your parents when you were growing up?”
“Not very often,” Bob said. “Most of what I got from my parents were critical or demanding words. I guess that’s why I appreciated Carol so much in the first place, because she gave me words of affirmation.”
“Let me ask you this. If Carol were meeting your sexual needs, that is, if you were having quality sexual intercourse as often as you desire, but she was giving you negative words, making critical remarks, sometimes putting you down in front of others, do you think you would feel loved by her?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “I think I would feel betrayed and deeply hurt. I think I would be depressed.”
“Bob,” I said, “I think we have just discovered that your primary love language is ‘Words of Affirmation.’ Sexual intercourse is extremely important to you and to your sense of intimacy with Carol, but her words of affirmation are more important to you emotionally. If she were, in fact, verbally critical of you all the time and put you down in front of other people, the time may come when you would no longer desire to have sexual intercourse with her because she would be a source of deep pain to you.”
Bob had made the mistake common to many men: assuming that “Physical Touch” is their primary love language because they desire sexual intercourse so intensely. For the male, sexual desire is physically based. That is, the desire for sexual intercourse is stimulated by the buildup of sperm cells and seminal fluid in the seminal vesicles. When the seminal vesicles are full, there is a physical push for release. Thus, the male’s desire for sexual intercourse has a physical root.
Most sexual problems in marriage have little to do with physical technique but everything to do with meeting emotional needs.
For the female, sexual desire is rooted in her emotions, not her physiology. There is nothing physically that builds up and pushes her to have intercourse. Her desire is emotionally based. If she feels loved and admired and appreciated by her husband, then she has a desire to be physically intimate with him. But without the emotional closeness she may have little physical desire.
Because the male is physically pushed to have sexual release on a somewhat regular basis, he may automatically assume that that is his primary love language. But if he does not enjoy physical touch at other times and in nonsexual ways, it may not be his love language at all. Sexual desire is quite different from his emotional need to feel loved. That doesn’t mean that sexual intercourse is unimportant to him—it is extremely important—but sexual intercourse alone will not meet his need to feel loved. His wife must speak his primary emotional love language as well.
When, in fact, his wife speaks his primary love language and his emotional love tank is full, and he speaks her primary love language and her emotional tank is full, the sexual aspect of their relationship will take care of itself. Most sexual problems in marriage have little to do with physical technique but everything to do with meeting emotional needs.
After further conversation and reflection, Bob said, “You know, I think you are right. ‘Words of Affirmation’ is definitely my primary love language. When she has been cutting and critical of me verbally, I tend to withdraw from her sexually and fantasize about other women. But when she tells me how much she appreciates me and admires me, my natural sexual desires are turned toward her.” Bob had made a significant discovery in our brief conversation.
What is your primary love language? What makes you feel most loved by your spouse? What do you desire above all else? If the answer to those questions does not leap to your mind immediately, perhaps it will help to look at the negative use of love languages. What does your spouse do or say or fail to do or say that hurts you deeply? If, for example, your deepest pain is the critical, judgmental words of your spouse, then perhaps your love language is “Words of Affirmation.” If your primary love language is used negatively by your spouse—that is, he does the opposite—it will hurt you more deeply than it would hurt someone else because not only is he neglecting to speak your primary love language, he is actually using that language as a knife to your heart.