By Dolly Ohanyere

Two people can love each other deeply and still feel neglected. The problem may not be love itself, but how each partner gives and receives it.

There is a conversation I have had with more couples than I can count. One person says: “I do so much for this relationship”, and the other person says: “I feel so unloved.”

They are both telling the truth, and that is precisely the problem. One of the most important discoveries in relationship coaching is this: love is not one universal language. It is five, and most people spend their entire relationship giving love in the language they themselves speak, without realising their partner is waiting to hear something entirely different.

The five love languages, a concept developed by Dr Gary Chapman, describe the five primary ways people give and receive love: words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service, physical touch, and receiving gifts. Most people have one or two dominant languages – the ones that make them feel most deeply loved when they receive them, and the ones they most naturally express when they want to show love.

The gap happens when partners speak different languages. A man who expresses love through acts of service – fixing things, providing, planning- may feel deeply unappreciated when his partner does not enthusiastically respond to his gestures. His partner, whose language is words of affirmation, is receiving the acts of service but not feeling the love because nobody is saying the words she needs to hear. He is giving, she is receiving, and both of them feel unloved.

This is not a love problem; it is a translation problem, and translation problems can be solved.

The solution begins with knowing your own language. Not what you think it should be. What it actually is. Then it requires the willingness to learn your partner’s language and speak it deliberately, even when it does not come naturally. That is not performance; that is love in practice.

5 signs you and your partner have a love language gap and what to do about it:

1.  You feel unappreciated despite doing a lot

If you are consistently giving but feeling unseen, ask yourself: “Am I giving in my language or in theirs?” Your partner may be receiving exactly what you are giving, and still not feeling loved because acts of service do not speak to them the way words would.

2.  You feel unloved despite your partner’s efforts

If your partner is clearly trying but you consistently feel empty in the relationship, consider whether their expressions of love are reaching you in a language you actually understand. The love may be real, but the translation may simply be off.

3.  Your arguments often circle back to the same feeling

Arguments that consistently produce the phrase “I don’t feel loved” or “I feel taken for granted” are often love language arguments in disguise. The issue is rarely the specific incident. It is the accumulated sense of not being received in the right language.

4.  Learn your language first

Reflect honestly on what makes you feel most loved. When has a partner made you feel deeply valued? What specifically did they do or say? That memory is your love language map. Start there.

5.  Have the conversation deliberately

Ask your partner directly: What makes you feel most loved? What do I do that makes you feel most appreciated? And then listen to the answer without defending what you have already been doing. The goal is not to be right; the goal is to be understood, and to understand.

Most relationship dissatisfaction is not about the absence of love. It is about love being given in a language the other person does not speak. Learn the language and then speak it consistently.

Dolly Ohanyere is a lawyer, relationship and marriage counsellor, NLP practitioner, and founder of The Healthy Marriage Hub and The Rediscovering Room. She writes on relationships and emotional growth from a faith-based perspective and believes that marriages can thrive.