The Five Love Languages: Gifts

We are right in the middle of our March series on the 5 love languages and today we are talking about gifts!

This is another one of the love languages that can be easily misunderstood. For the friend, family member or romantic partner of the Gift lover, it can often be mistaken for materialism or even greed, but with a better understanding you might find yourself loving better while spending less!

If you’re the one in the relationship whose love language is primarily gifts, I'll also cover the reasons that some gifts hit better than others for you and also talk about the ways gift lovers are hurt the most in relationships.

Birthdays, Holidays, Anniversaries and other special occasions; it seems like there are so many opportunities for gift lovers to both express and receive love through their primary love language. If you take your time and spare no expense in these times, you’ll probably be covered for year, right?

Wrong! While special occasions like those are prime opportunities to express love to a gifts person, those can’t be the only times they are really feeling loved and we still expect the relationship to be healthy. That would be like telling a physical touch person I’m only going to hug you 5 times this year but they are going to be really nice hugs. Expressing love is not as much about the “grand gestures” a few times but consistent reminders on a regular basis. When it comes to cost and extravagance, Dr. Gary Chapman, author of the 5 love languages, said this:

“The most important thing is not the gift but the emotional love communicated by the gift.”- Gary Chapman

So, if it’s not mainly about the financial cost of the gift, what is it about? For someone with gifts as they’re primary love language, they may feel most loved when they receive a small gift for no reason, when you make something uniquely for them, when you give them a card or letter, when they receive a small token that conveys “this reminded me of you,” or “I was thinking about you today.” And of course, they will also feel loved when you remember a special occasion with a gift or when you make the moment special with a gift!

For a gifts lover, the gift you give is an expression of your intentions towards them, so it is important to give the gift freely and from your heart. Gifts given with ulterior motives, built-in expectations of what you might receive out of or after it, or as a means of apologizing for misbehavior all stain the gift for the the recipient and become a reminder of what they owe rather than your love for them. Gifts should not come with a debt attached to them. Dr. Chapman put it this way;

“A gift is only a gift when given as a general expression of love, not as an effort to cover over past failures.” - Gary Chapman

Other ways the gifts person might be hurt are when they are forgotten or neglected on those special days. A small and inexpensive gift presented with love and forethought can be a priceless treasure for the gift lover but no gift at all or, possibly even worse, a gift bought in haste which clearly has no sentiment behind it and given out of pure obligation tells strongly sends the message that you weren’t thinking about them, you didn’t care to remember and, at the end of the day, they are an obligation to you. Again, it is not about the amount you spend but the time, thought and care evidenced in the gift you give.

We hope that our series on the 5 love languages is better equipping you with tools and ideas to love well in your relationships. If your love language is gifts, we would love to hear so of your stories of the times when you felt most loved! Please, share your stories with us in the comments below. We would love to highlight a few of them in our upcoming podcast!

If you’re not quite sure what your love language is, you can find out for yourself by taking the free online test at 5lovelanguages.com! If you have missed any of the videos in this months series, you can find them in our channel playlists on YouTube or in the media section of our website.