The Easy Method to Meet Your Partner’s Love Language According to a Relationship Coach
Want a successful, healthy relationship? An expert reveals what the REAL focus should be on – that even couples together for decades can get wrong…
The five love languages (words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch and receiving gifts) have long held the crown when it comes to relationship compatibility and longevity. However, relationship expert Giovanna Smith reveals that the actual most important ingredient to a relationship that people are overlooking – attunement.
“It is certainly easy to brush this idea off as just consideration for the other person which is a basic standard for any relationship”, Giovanna says, “but attunement digs way deeper than the surface.
“It’s about really understanding what your partner wants and needs from their perspective entirely, not based on assumptions.
“Where consideration may have some selfis touches, attunement completely gives this up to be emotionally switched on to meet your partner’s needs in a way that isn’t about you at all.” Giovanna tells us.
To make a love language work, Giovanna Smith says that attunement needs to underpin them – no matter which one you identify with the most. She says: “Take ‘quality time’, for example. You might be enjoying your time together but are you really there with them or is it just going through the motions?
“Consider ‘acts of service’, too. When doing something helpful to ease your partner’s load, are you coming from a place where you really understand what they want from you – or are you just doing it to avoid an argument?
“Attunement ensures the quality of every single love language. Without this, what is even the point of listening to your partner if there’s no meaning?”
The assumption is that older couples who have been together for a long time will have attunement down to a tee. After experiencing all the highs and lows that come with a long-term relationship, surely you’d know more about your significant other than even they do when you reach later life?
However, Giovanna says that this isn’t always the case… “Older couples naturally have had a lot longer to understand their partner’s needs than newer couples, but this emotional intelligence can sometimes backfire.
“Complacency can set in after a while as there aren’t the same motivators to meet your partners needs that a newer couple has – the novelty of being with someone new, eagerness to please and attraction being at its strongest. With a long-term partner, you can end up making assumptions which then leads to conflict.”
Giovanna says, “There’s also a fine line to tread between attunement and just being controlling. Here, the key is simply being open. If your partner’s had a bad day at work and they’re not responding to your gestures, ask them outright what would help them to avoid them misinterpreting your behaviour as being dismissive.”
Even after a relationship’s biggest tests such as marriage and children, attunement plays an important role, according to the relationship expert, as later life can throw up new challenges.
With mobility changes, for example, research suggests that the quality of marital relationships can decline when a partner takes on more of a caregiving role for their significant other. Here, says Giovanna, attunement from both sides is ‘more crucial than ever’. “Suddenly, your ecosystem of a relationship has changed”, she says, “and there’s a need to adapt – sometimes overnight if your partner’s mobility has declined due to a fall.
“The beauty of the relationship ecosystem is that you can save it by welcoming honesty and developing better communication. You may be two separate entities, but in a relationship, you have to work as a pair to stay afloat.
“Consider practical needs alongside emotional ones to take the ‘mental load’ from your partner. If they now struggle with the stairs, for example, have a conversation about the best way to move forward so they don’t feel defeated by their own home.”
Being matter of fact can sometimes be helpful here alongside sympathy according to Giovanna Smith. “Facing it head on and saying to your partner ‘we’ve been through so much together in our life; we’ll deal with this and get through it together’ can give some much-needed reassurance.”
Attunement during this life stage might look different than to how it was before but, in their most vulnerable moments, it will mean so much more to your partner.