MANSFIELD — Ah, Valentine’s Day — the day devoted to celebrating love.
Some show their affection with a bouquet of roses and heart-shaped candy, or a candlelit dinner and dancing.
However you choose to express your love, the key is to do so in a way your partner will appreciate. Dr. Blake Wagner Jr., clinical psychologist and president of New Directions Counseling Center, calls this “making deposits into his/her love bank.”
Wagner referenced Dr. Gary Chapman’s book, “The 5 Love Languages,” which suggests each person has a preferred way of giving and receiving love. These “love languages” include gift-giving, quality time, physical touch, acts of service and words of affirmation.
“Chapman posits that one of the absolute best ways to turbocharge our relationship satisfaction is to place emphasis on enhancing our partner’s specific love needs,” Wagner said.
“Often problems develop when there’s a disconnect between our way of expressing love and our partner’s preferred way of receiving love. So, for example, if your partner appreciates and feels most loved when you provide physical touch (e.g. cuddling on the couch, a tender kiss), yet you are focused primarily on acts of service (e.g. doing dishes, vacuuming), unmet needs and eventually dissatisfaction will result.
“Too often couples become stuck when they dwell on their unmet needs and badger their partner to change (e.g. ‘I want more sex’ or ‘You need to help out with the kids more’ or ‘You only touch me when you want to make love’).”
Not sure what your top love language is? You can find out by taking Dr. Chapman’s test online.
“I promise, reviewing each other’s preferences will often lead to some healthy communication,” Wagner said. “And deliberately shifting your focus onto your partner’s needs will often (produce) solid dividends in the romance department.”
Take it from Kim and Ruth Maurer, who will celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary this July. The Mansfield couple has made it a priority to speak each other’s love languages. For Kim, that’s words of affirmation and physical touch. Ruth’s top two are quality time and acts of service.
“I’d be happy if she’d be sitting on the couch with me and we’d be watching a football game together,” Kim said. “She’s filling my love tank with physical touch.”
But that’s not necessarily quality time in Ruth’s eyes, he acknowledged.
“Talking and doing something more personal, or if I clean up the house a little bit for her and pitch in, she feels very loved that way,” he said.
Ruth admitted speaking words of affirmation doesn’t come naturally to her, but because Kim appreciates an encouraging word she strives to give it. “That’s a good challenge for me,” she said.
“I think as far as the love languages, especially if each of you have different ones, you just have to be intentional and do those things even if maybe they don’t mean that much to you,” she said.
Love means placing your partner’s needs ahead of your own, Kim said. “To see you blessed just blesses me,” he told Ruth.
The Maurers got married July 12, 1980 after a long-distance courtship. Ruth’s uncle Art Haring helped forge the love connection between Kim and Ruth while Kim was on a three-year mission trip to Brazil.
“Right before I was to come home, he had gotten a letter from Ruth about a spiritual experience that she had, and I remember him telling me, ‘Kim, here’s a letter. This is from my niece. I want you to read this, and then when you get back to the states, I want you to look this young lady up. She’s somebody you need to meet,’” Kim said.
Their paths crossed at a church camp and they hit it off. They maintained a long distance relationship that stretched close to 2,000 miles with Kim living in Arizona and Ruth in Ohio.
“Back in the day we didn’t have texting. We had phone calls, but they were very expensive,” Kim said. Each call cost about $30.
“So we wrote all year long and got to know each other that way, with a few phone calls in between,” Kim said. “I proposed the next summer without really knowing each other too well.”
The first 12 years of their marriage were spent in Phoenix, Arizona. Kim later took a position as senior pastor at Ontario Christian Fellowship Church, so the Maurers moved to Mansfield. He retired from that role after 23 years in 2015 and now serves as deputy director of detention at Richland County Juvenile Court.
Ruth has held a variety of nursing positions, working primarily in pediatrics. She’s currently the clinic nurse at Discovery School.
It’s a full house whenever there are family get-togethers: the Maurers have four daughters and 16 grandkids.
One of the things that’s always been at the forefront of their marriage, Ruth said, is their faith.
“A few years ago, I just had a time where I really felt like God had called me to pursue how much He loved me, and I just see how that has had an impact on how I love others, especially Kim,” she said.
“When I really know how loved I am by God and what His definition of love is, which is (described in) 1 Corinthians 13, then it just makes it easier and more natural to give that love away because it never runs out and it never fails.”
Like with any relationship, they’ve encountered difficulties, but they’ve found healthy ways to navigate through them — like making every effort to resolve conflicts before bedtime.
“If we can’t resolve it, then we go to bed at least with the understanding that we’ll pick this up another time and that we do love each other,” Kim said. “We’ve learned as we deal with those difficulties and disagreements to not let them divide us.”
Prioritizing intimacy is another significant component to a healthy marriage, they’ve found.
“It’s not just the icing on the cake; it’s a necessary ingredient of the cake,” Kim said.
They’ve also made sure to show each other how much they care in the little things — whether that’s sending a sweet text or visiting each other at work.
Ruth packs Kim’s lunch every morning.
“Sometimes she puts a little note in my lunchbox, and that’s the word of affirmation that fills my love tank,” Kim said.
To all the young lovebirds and newlyweds out there: love your partner for who they are, the Maurers advised.
“Never make it your life goal to change or manipulate that other person,” Ruth said. “That only breeds resentment.”
Kim added, “Find some shared goals and values that you agree upon and really embrace those and go after those together. You need something in life that you can share together in and for us, it’s family and faith.”
Final thoughts
- Surround yourselves with people who will encourage your relationship
- Listen, really listen to each other
- Be quick to forgive; don’t hold grudges
