How the Five Love Languages Are Killing Your Relationship

Let me start with a desperate confession:

If I hear one more couple in my therapy room say,

“Her love language is acts of service, and mine is touch. I wash the dishes—but when it comes to me, she won’t give me the touch I desire,”

I might spontaneously combust and turn into ash.

Somewhere out there, Gary Chapman is sipping tea, unaware that his 1992 self-help book has turned love into a point-scoring system.

And look—I get it.

We are a society starved of language for love.

We’re taught long division in school, but not how to say,

“I feel unseen.”

Or, “I need to be held.”

We graduate with diplomas but can’t articulate our longing.

So when a neat little framework arrives—five categories, colour-coded quizzes, love languages in a printable PDF—of course people cling to it like a flotation device in the stormy sea of intimacy.

There’s a reason it took off—it gave people a map when most of us were walking blind.

But here’s the thing:

It’s not working.

Somewhere along the way, Love Languages stopped being alphabets of emotional literacy and became a vending machine:

You punch in the right code, and expect affection in return.

Let me tell you how it usually goes:

A couple sitting in my office, arms folded. Cue icy silence. Cue weaponised withholding.

“I leave him love notes around the house, but he never even thinks to load the dishwasher. And then he expects me to have sex with him.”

And my body tenses—not because of the complaint,

but because of the spirit underneath it—this quiet belief that love must be earned like points in a game.

Transactional.

Score-keeping.

And here’s an insider insight: there’s a gender pattern.

In my work with thousands of couples, especially in heterosexual relationships, I’ve noticed a pattern:

In heterosexual couples, physical touch is almost always the man’s love language.

Meanwhile, women?

Acts of service. Words of affirmation. Quality time.

So what’s going on?

It’s not that women don’t crave touch.

It’s that men and women are socialised differently.

Women are allowed physical intimacy in friendship.

They can cuddle. Kiss their sister on the cheek.

Cry into their best friend’s lap while she braids their hair.

Men?

They get two options for intimate touch:

• Romantic relationship

• Sexual relationship

They aren’t offered safe, platonic touch.

They’re not allowed to long for closeness outside of sex.

So it gets funneled into the only context permitted: sex.

That’s why I’ve heard so many, many, many men say:

“I miss holding her.”

“I just want to smell her hair.”

“I just want her to hold me.”

And it breaks me every time.

Because it’s not about sex.

It’s about skin-to-skin humanity.

It’s about being allowed to be tender.

Sigh.

Another problem with the Love Language gospel?

It implies that needs are fixed.

But we are not vending machines.

We are orchestras—changing rhythms, changing tempos, changing moods.

Some days, I want you to cook for me.

Other days, I want you to hold me and whisper something reckless in my ear.

One moment, I want silence.

The next, I want your words wrapped around my name like poetry.

Needs are not static.

They are contextual.

But instead of attunement, people go into relationships with a template:

“I know their love language.

Check. Done. Box ticked.”

Instead of asking:

“What do you need today?”

“How can I make you feel loved and desired—in this moment, in this breath?”

We assume.

We calculate.

We perform.

And here’s what I want to say:

Love is not a language.

It’s a presence.

An attunement.

A felt rhythm between two people who dare to show up honestly—even when the answers change.

So yes.

Take the quiz.

Learn the framework.

But don’t stop there.

Ask your lover:

“What makes you feel cherished today?”

“How can I adore you in this moment?”

“What does your body want—right now?”

Because sometimes, the deepest love language isn’t a word at all.

It’s the way you pay attention.