So I read this book a while back. It's a fast read and fairly simple, and overall I'd say it's one worth reading for no reason other than to understand what all the fuss is about.

Talk of "love languages" is all over the place now, from people looking for genuine self-discovery to "anal sex is my love language" fuckboys. Personally, I think the book has its pros and cons, but the cons are MAJOR.

First, the good: Chapman does a good job of breaking down the various ways to show affection. Quality time, gift-giving, acts of service, words of affirmation, and of course, sex physical touch. While you should ideally want elements of all five in your relationships, I do feel there's some variation between individuals in which language they respond to. I've come to realize that I respond best to words of affirmation, even if I'd also want to have the other four languages in future relationships. (I also suspect my dependency on words left me susceptible to being manipulated by exes, but that's a post for another time.)

Now, the bad.

Chapman presents these languages as if people only need one, maybe two, in their lives. He doesn't outright say this, but the lack of representation in the book says it all. Every relationship problem he writes about ends up getting solved by adding just one love language. (There is ONE exception - with an abusive man, no less! - that I'll go into in a bit.) Say I prefer words of affirmation and gifts. I want my partner to spend time with me and help with the housework? AND good sex? That's just greedy, I guess.

Second, the issues regarding "physical touch" as a love language. To be fair, he does state that it isn't strictly about sex, and chastises multiple men in his relationship examples for jumping to physical touch as a love language. But he does mention it as a "dialect" of the touch language, and so opens the door for "you must give me porno-style sex at my whim or you don't love me" talk. Now, can he be blamed for the misinterpretation of his work? Probably not, but I do feel he could've gone into this issue in more detail and discouraged readers from using love languages talk to coerce their partners into sex.

Third, and worst of all. Chapman presents any problems in a marriage as a failing on the part of the unhappy person's spouse. There are examples of men with one foot out the door in their marriage, one blatantly cheating and intending to spend his new life with the mistress, and the issue is presented as "your wife just wasn't loving you the right way, let's see if she can step up." It puts the blame on the betrayed partner for not doing marriage "correctly" instead of the cheater for cheating (never mind that if he wasn't happy, he failed to cOmMuNiCaTe properly from the start.) Don't worry, they got their "happy" ending and the husband ditched the mistress once the wife learned his love languages.

There's one chapter at the end that revolves around a woman trying to repair her marriage with a man she says she hates. He's verbally abusive to her, says he hates her, and refuses all counseling. He's convinced he hasn't done anything wrong and all fault lies with her. All her friends tell her to divorce. But she can't, because she honors her marriage vows too much. (Don't be this woman.) So she goes to Chapman alone, and he gives her this foolproof plan: Go to him and ask him if there's anything he wants her to do. Then do it without question. The thinking here is, of course, that's she's failing to love him in the right language. But he won't communicate what that is! So now it's on her to go and grovel at this man who makes her miserable, so that maybe he'll stop making her miserable. She does it, and their marriage "improves" to the point where he's no longer treating her like shit but he certainly isn't repaying her affections. He never visits Chapman either but will tell all his buddies what a great guy he is for saving their marriage. Hell, why wouldn't he?

In short, The Five Love Languages is definitely NOT FDS aligned and following it too closely WILL hurt you. But it's worth a skim.

Five Love Languages Website