Celebrating 25 Years of The 5 Love Languages

Together explores the success of Gary Chapman’s book and looks at how it still impacts people today.

The 5 Love Languages was first published in 1992 by Northfield Publishing (an imprint of Moody Publishers) with an updated version released in 2015, which means this book has been on the market for over 25 years. Although not explicitly Christian, I expect most Christian retailers have stocked this bestselling title at some point over this time and still do. In its first year in the market it sold 4,000 copies, today that figure has increased to over 12 million. In his book Chapman explains his groundbreaking theory to help make sense of and improve relationships.

The theory is that there are main love languages – that is, 5 ways of communicating our love for and to others:

Dr Chapman explores these in depth in his book and offers guidance on how you can come to know your own and your partner’s love language. In an interview on American TV show 100 Huntley Street Chapman explained; ‘The simple concept is that each of us has a primary love language. That’s the one that really communicates love to us. And if you don’t speak your spouse’s primary [love] language, they will not feel loved even though you’re speaking some of the other languages.’

According to research, what is often referred to as the ‘honeymoon period’ at the start of relationships only lasts around 2 years. After that, relationships can start to falter. When I shared with friends that I was writing this article they told me that Gary Chapman’s book had changed their marriage. Pete said that ‘reading Chapman’s book gave us a whole new understanding of our relationship towards each other. It helped us for the first time to understand each other’s needs, both physical and emotional.’

Chapman has written a number of other books in The 5 Love Languages series including The 5 Love Languages for Men where Chapman offers guidance on identifying, understanding, and speaking their spouse’s love language; The 5 Love Languages of Teenagers, equipping parents with tools to help identify and communicate in your teen’s love language; The 5 Love Languages of Children, this will help you discover your child’s primary language and learn what you can do to effectively impart unconditional feelings of respect, affection, and commitment that will integrate into and be reflected in your child’s emotions and behaviour; The 5 Love Languages Singles Edition, we all need to feel loved regardless of our relationship status, and so here Chapman tailors his message to the unique situations of single adults. In our modern day culture, which increasingly seems to be fashioned around, “it’s all about me”, Chapman’s message is simple and clear, happiness comes when we truly learn how to understand the love language of those close to us.

Gary Chapman will be visiting the UK in October 2018 in a tour sponsored by Moody Press and CLC UK. His speaking engagements include Holy Trinity Brompton, London on Thursday 11 October and he will be speaking on the opening day at CRE, Sandown Park, Esher on Tuesday 16 October.

For more information on his speaking engagements contact; [email protected]

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