Understanding your partner’s love language is vital to the success of any great marriage. When you and your partner become parents, two special love languages emerge that will dominate the course of the next few years of your lives as a parent couple. Learn more about your parent love language!

Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate links to some really awesome products and services that we highly recommend! When you follow these links, we may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you, which helps us to continue running Dating in Captivity.

The Love Languages Concept

Gary Chapman wrote an iconic book in 1992 entitled The 5 Love Languages which has now become the bible of marriage counselors and couples around the world. In his book, Gary introduces the concept that every person speaks and understands one of five love languages.

Unfortunately the love language that you understand best isn’t necessarily the same love language as your partner, much like someone speaking Chinese to an Italian probably wouldn’t get very far in a conversation.

We therefore have to learn to speak our partner’s love language – AKA show them that we love them in the special way that they understand and percept love rather than the way that we do.

via GIPHY

The 5 Love Languages

Gary Chapman’s five languages are as follows:

1. Quality Time
   Someone with the Quality Time language likes doing things together with her partner and having her partner’s undivided attention and interest. She needs to feel that her partner truly enjoys her company.
2. Physical Touch
   Someone with the Physical Touch love language needs to have lots of physical contact in order to feel loved. She need kisses, hand-holding, hugging, etc. to feel the love with her partner.
3. Words of Affirmation
   A Words of Affirmation-er feels most loved when her partner tells her so with words. She feels most loved when her partner expresses gratitude, provides compliments, and tells her how much she is loved.
4. Receiving Gifts
   Someone with the Receiving Gifts love language feels most loved when her partner showers her with heartfelt and thoughtful gifts. She feels loved when her husband comes home with “just because” flowers or buys her favorite candy he saw passing by a store because it made him think of her.
5. Acts of Service
   Someone with the Acts of Service love language feels loved when her partner does things for her or for the good of their family. She feels most loved when her partner takes the after-dinner clean-up when she’s tired or her partner does a project around the house because he knows it will make he will bring her joy to have it done.

You can take a quiz on The 5 Love Languages site to find out which love language you and your partner speak.

Love Languages for Parent Couples

I argue that there are two love languages – one for men and one for women – that dominate for every man and every woman in a marriage with kids during the first years.

Men’s parent couple love language is sex.

Women’s parent couple love language is domestic help.

via GIPHY

Men’s love language

Sex is the love language of all men during the first years of parenting.

I know most women reading this will think “well duh” or roll their eyes and snort that men are such sex-crazed pigs.

Hang in there with me.

Men have an inherent need for sex in any relationship to feel connected with their partners. Whereas we women need to feel connected to have sex, men need sex to feel connected. (Surely some greater being should have thought that through a little bit better in the beginning of mankind).

This gets emphasized even more when children enter the scene and your opportunities for connection as a couple are few and far between.

Our husbands lose us to the demands of screaming babies and messy homes and all of the other responsibilities that suddenly come with parenting. They desperately want to feel as in touch with you as they did before life shifted so drastically, and in order to do that, they seek sex.

Women’s love language

Every woman’s love language during the early years of parenting is domestic help – AKA help around the house and with the kids.

Find me a new mother who doesn’t love her husband more the more he contributes to the family dynamic. You can’t.

Becoming a mom is such an overwhelming (and wonderful) transition in one’s life that comes with an unforeseeable and unimaginable new set of experiences.

Many of these experiences are great – joy, for example – and others, not so great. Exhaustion. Stress. Overwhelm. Overstimulation.

If we ladies want to feel in love with our partners, we need them to step up and help us carry the heavy burden of responsibility that comes with parenthood. We need assistance in caring for the children, cleaning, planning, transporting, providing.

How to speak the love languages for parents

In The 5 Love Languages, Gary Chapman outlines that we should think of each other as having a “love tank.”

Think of your love tank like a gas tank that needs love language fuel in order to run. If the tank is empty, you don’t feel a loving connection with your partner and we tend to get grumpy, snappy, or closed in. When the tank is full, you feel loved, happy, and secure in your relationship.

The more your partner’s love tank is filled, the more they are able in turn to fill up your tank.

You have to fill up your partner’s love tank by speaking their parent couple love language. For ladies, that means prioritizing sex and for men it means stepping up and helping out with the kids and around the home.

via GIPHY

Women speaking the language of sex

Unfortunately for us mommies, wanting to have sex with our husbands after having babies isn’t always an easy or pleasant thing. We tend to be so exhausted, burnt out, overstimulated, and hormonal that sex often feels more like a chore than something to enjoy.

However, we need to reframe our thinking and remember that filling up our husband’s love tanks is going to make them more willing and receptive to helping out at home, which is going to in turn start giving you space for mental well-being, putting you in a better mindset to want to have sex.

It all works in a cycle that starts with you making the first step. The more you give the more you receive on the other end – remember that it isn’t a chore, it’s an investment in your happiness for yourself and your marriage.

Now that is obviously a very simplified explanation and I know that it’s much more difficult in practice to just “turn it on.” Get some tips on how to increase your sex drive after having kids to get the ball rolling.

Psst – If you are reading this and you know that sex is an absolute no-go for you right now, DO NOT force yourself to do it for your partner’s sake – it will only lead to resentment. Talk to your doctor or a licensed sex therapist to get professional assistance.

Men speaking the language of domestic help

Men admittedly have fewer hurdles to overcome when it comes to their contribution to your love tank, which is great news for you!

The biggest part of getting your partner to fuel your love tank is to communicate your needs with him and to follow up on your end with keeping his love tank full.

Start by sharing with your husband that it would be a big help for your happiness and your ability to relax if he could help pick up some more of the tasks around the home. Then specify which tasks specifically you would like him to take over and what your expectations are.

Try “it would really help me to be able to relax more at the end of the day together with you if you could empty the dishwasher every day when you got home so I could save some time cleaning up after dinner – then I can spend some time on the couch with you before the kids go to bed.”

Then be sure to genuinely thank him and make a big deal out of appreciating that he did that thing for you. I know it sounds a little ‘ick’ to have to have to stroke the male ego so much, but it works (just ask author John Gray who wrote Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus)! He needs to see that his efforts aren’t going unnoticed and that you truly are having a positive outcome from it.

Time to go fill those love tanks

Now that you understand what the parenting love languages are and how to fill each other’s tanks, it’s time to get to it!

via GIPHY

Speaking your husband’s love language with sex isn’t necessarily a hard concept to grasp, but it can be hard to put into practice if you. Make sure to spend some time caring for yourself, getting in the right mindset, and exploring options for kick-starting your libido, all of which will make wanting sex come more naturally to you.

And in the meantime, try making the effort as a way to show your husband you care and see if that doesn’t also stimulate your own desire!

Remember that the more you give, the more you get. Be open with your husband about your parenting love language and communicate how he best can help you around the house and with the kids.

The more he understands how filling your love tank is going to make you a happier and more giving the partner, the easier and more natural it will become for him to help out without you asking.

Don’t forget that your “original” love languages are still present for the both of you even while your parenting love languages dominate in the early years with children. Make sure you both are taking care of each other’s love tanks and you are sure to start moving your marriage in a positive direction!

Speak that language!

Are you ready, mama?

Don’t spend another day waiting for your marriage to magically get better as your kids grow older and you and your husband grow further apart. Take charge of your life and get the marriage you want and deserve.

Show your husband some love today!

This article is part of the series How to Revive Your Marriage After Kids Fundamental 1: Have a Constructive Attitude.

About me

Hi, I’m Bailee! I am a mom just like you who, after having my second baby, was struggling BIG TIME to cope with motherhood and marriage. Divorce seemed like the inevitable option until I decided to fight for the family life that I truly wanted.

I challenged my husband to give our marriage one more go and was able to pull us out of the abyss. With a change in my mindset and some other handy tools and tricks along the way, I brought us back into the light of a happy marriage with kids.

Now I am here now to help you do the same! Are you ready, mama? Learn more.