Speaking the 5 Love Languages in a Long Distance Relationship

In romantic relationships, speaking the love language of your partner takes a deliberate effort. It’s thinking of random ways to make your partner happy and keep their Love tank full.

What are Love languages?

Love languages are key ways that individuals receive and show love. The theory is that we each have a primary love language which when spoken, helps a relationship function better. 

Gary chapman in his book, the 5 love languages enumerates the 5 different love languages that exist. They include;

1. Words of affirmation

2. Quality time

3. Physical touch

4. Acts of service

5. Receiving gifts 

And if you think practicing this is difficult, try doing this via long distance relationships. A face to face relationship of course takes real and deliberate effort but it seems that to a lot of people, long distance relationships take an even more deliberate effort seeing that some love languages e.g physical touch seems difficult to achieve with distance between the couple.

When a person hears long distance, the first response is; no!

Why? Because the pressure gets wesser…lol 

On face value, long distance involves a lot of emotional strain and drain but when two people are willing, and actively put in the work, it builds a solid emotional strength and overflow of love.

I want to help by giving practical tips to keep your partners’ love tank full even when you’re both miles apart.

I’ll go through the five love languages individually to achieve this;

WORDS OF AFFIRMATION

A person who speaks this love language needs to be consistently reminded about your feelings towards them through words.

“I love you” “I want us to together forever” “I appreciate you” “you make my life complete” and the likes.

This is fairly easy to pull off in a long distance relationship but just to suggest ways you can spice it up, yes?

a. Leave random Love notes in your partners DM for them to wake up to in the mornings

b. Write officially unofficial emails to them expressing your love for them.

c. When you praise or give affirmations to your partner, try not to be random or too broad. Talk about the specific things your partner does that makes you love him/her the more.

d. Use a lot of endearments. Try getting a special or poetic nickname for him/her.

e. Tag your partner in posts and songs that remind you of them and give an idea on your love for them.

f. Write and send a hand written love letter through post or any medium you have access to.

It’s important to mention that when you speak these words, they must be sincere. Don’t just go and browse on “what every girl likes to hear” then copy and paste. No please!!!

If you find it hard to express yourself orally, try writing. Think about your partner and right down the things you genuinely love and appreciate about him/her. 

QUALITY TIME

This Love language is equally with a little thought, achievable via long distance. A person whose Love language is Quality time just needs to feel that you are paying him/her real and undivided attention. You can achieve this by;

a. Scheduling activities – I mean various kinds of activities like video calls, voice calls, date nights and even game nights.

The key thing to note here is the word “scheduling” because it’s easy to get carried away with other activities, work, school, etc so don’t leave these things to chance, actually take time out to plan and schedule them. Things like games, virtual date nights (dress up and order a 3 course meal then gist via video chat), studying the word and praying together.

b. When you schedule these virtual activities, try to deliberately avoid distractions and give undivided attention to your partner as though you are both all alone. 

c. Text through the day. You may want to consider giving your partner little random updates on how your day is going through the day. This in any case cannot substitute for actual quality time.

PHYSICAL TOUCH

This has to be the most difficult to pull off in a long distance relationship.

I’m tempted to say the only way this can work is through your imaginations i.e imagining your partner hugging and caressing you. Lol

Nothing can replace the physical presence and touch of your partner but I think holding on to objects can help. So I advise that whenever you do get to see your partner, leave them with something you own like a sweater, chain, journal etc.

I read about person who said she drew a hug on a paper and gave it to her spouse. This could also go a long way in helping partners feel close to each other. 

Just a side note, with creativity and a mature degree of patience , you can cope with limitations that distance creates.

ACTS OF SERVICE

This is one love language where there’s no specific thing to do that applies to all people who have this as their primary love language.

Personally, my love language is Acts of service and so I love it when people help relieve me of stress and make my life easier in anyway.

I appreciate you volunteering to help me type out a brief I’m working on, editing my blog posts, giving me ideas on things to write about, saving me the stress of cooking when I’m busy by ordering me food, etc. All these can be done even with Long distance. 

Some people believe that Acts of Service primarily have to do with house chores but I believe it cuts across all areas of Life. It’s basically just being of help to your partner in their activities.

To do this, you have to take note of the things stressing your partner out, or things they randomly complain about and get that burden off their chest. 

Always remember that Acts of service is more about doing (showing interest) than speaking and with little intentionality, you can achieve this even while doing long distance.

RECEIVING GIFTS 

If this is your partner’s love language then be deliberate about getting them gifts. Both thoughtful and random gifts.

Surprise her with lunch at work, order him shoes and have it delivered to his doorstep.

Take note of the items she’s been screen grabbing on her phone and surprised her with it one day.

Where it gets technical in achieving this, is when you aren’t in close proximity with your partner, you will need to know their address for starters and you will also need to be in contact with a friend of theirs who stays within close proximity with your partner because the chances that you will need their help sooner or later are high.

Always remember to send a love note beside each present.

Important things to note

1. Speaking love languages in long distance relationships will require the help of a third party in the long run; her Best friend, his close friend or colleague at work. You may need to work with them to plan a surprise and even better, form a bond for group dates and outings.

2. Plan visits- Don’t stay too long without seeing each other if you can help it. Plan visits together, it builds the excitement.

3. Get advice- When you love, you learn. You might not know how to speak your partners love language but love has room for learning and unlearning. In long distance one might not have a lot of ideas, learn to ask people for advice on how best to pull off these things.

4. Make use of time spent together in the same space(physical quality time)there are some things that must be said eye to eye, there are some body languages to be seen that affirms the sincerity of words spoken so that even when you are not within the same air space for a long time, you still know you love your partner. 

5. Be willing to start a practice of keeping a journal exclusively for her/him (a fancy diary will do). After those long calls with your partner, there are thoughts, questions and ideas you want to tell them when you will finally see them. Assuming you’ll remember is costly, so write those thoughts and questions down.

6. Have conversations with your partner on things you both can do to improve the quality of your long distance relationship. Not only the fun stuff but the ‘deep stuff’ that will stand the test of time.

Always remember that long distance relationships can work well when both partners are committed and intentional about making it work.

Long distance relationships can never go well with just ‘vibes and inshallah’ else you’ll be served breakfast!

For more information on how love languages work, please read the 5 love languages by Gary Chapman.

As always I’m open to questions, counseling and suggestions.

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Until my next Blog Post, Stay happy!!

Edited by Havilah Emmanuel