Love Languages

In his book, The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman details five ways that people understand and receive emotional love. He's broken it down into 1) words of affirmation, 2) quality time,
3) gifts, 4) acts of service, and 5) physical touch. His theory is that people develop a primary love language based on their psychological makeup and how love was expressed in their family.

Things get tricky in relationships because partners often bring different love languages to the table. Because we usually tend to give what we want to receive, our very best efforts to express love to a partner can be poorly received. The solution is to learn what makes your partner feel loved and be generous in supplying it.

So if you're with a partner whose desire for sex is tied into a primary love language of physical touch, lack of interest on your part is typically experienced as a lack of love. Negotiating differences in desire then becomes more than a simple compromise. If you're the one with less desire, one option is to make sex a higher priority, but you can also focus on increasing the physical affection in your relationship. Touch speaks volumes - especially to the person for whom touch is their primary language of love.