Understanding the nuances of love in relationships

To be able to love is one of the simplest yet most rewarding things we do in life. It starts from how we love our parents, our siblings, our friends, and, eventually, as we grow up, a significant other. All of these come into our lives as we transition into adulthood and are expressed in different ways.

The first time that we experience love, especially within our family, often shapes us. As we grow older, from a child to a teen, we feel a shift in dynamics within our family, whether it’s between us and our parents or between siblings. A lot of this is because of communication. Sometimes, we don’t feel cared about, not because the care isn’t there, but because the way it is communicated doesn’t align with how we understand it.

The more we focus on nurturing relationships with our family and our friends, the more it shapes who we are as adults. When we use them as support pillars and support them in return, it makes us more positive and more receptive to healthy romantic relationships as we grow up.

Now "love language" is a term we’re all quite familiar with, and while we know the traditional ones—physical touch, acts of service, receiving gifts, and words of affirmation—it could be said that people express love in more than just one way. And the way we express love also determines the way we are ready to accept it.

What often goes unnoticed when we talk about love languages is that they are not fixed. They evolve over time, depending on our experiences, the people around us, and even the phase of life we are in. The way we wanted to be loved as a child is not always the same as what we need as a teenager or an adult. Hence, understanding love languages also requires effort and intention. It’s easy to assume that others should naturally understand us, but in reality, expressing what we need takes a certain level of vulnerability.

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What’s also to be considered is how love languages can almost reverse during times of conflict. The very way we feel most loved can become the way we withdraw: someone who values words of affirmation may go silent after an argument, and someone who values physical touch may become distant. In those moments, it’s not that the love disappears; it’s that we retreat to the exact places we once felt safest, and that is often where misunderstandings grow the most.

A lot of people think that when it comes to love languages, the most important thing is knowing the other person’s. And while that is important, the first step is knowing your own. Once we understand how we perceive love, we can ask ourselves: what makes love worth it? What makes relationships work? What support do we want from our friends? How do we want love from our partner to be expressed? In times of conflict, should we take space or talk it out? We rarely ask ourselves these questions, yet we expect others to understand anyway.

Self-reflection helps us understand what we want from each of these relationships. And once we know what we want, when we find something that doesn’t meet that standard, we are able to walk away from it. This helps us stand stronger as emotionally aware individuals. Emotional intelligence is one of the strongest tools a person can develop, and it is something that keeps evolving.

When we talk about love languages, it’s the way we want to know love, the way we want to express love, and the way we want to receive care. After all, in such a busy, hectic, almost insane life journey that we are all on, focusing on the people that we care about and the people that care about us is hardly ever not rewarding and almost always precious.