27. How Attachment Styles Influence Your Love Languages

Have you ever wondered how your attachment style might be shaping the way you give and receive love? 

In this episode of Speak Honest, Jenn dives into the fascinating connection between attachment styles and love languages. Whether you're familiar with these concepts or just getting started, Jenn explores how understanding both can lead to healthier, more fulfilling relationships. She breaks down the five love languages and links them to different attachment styles, offering practical advice on how to better communicate your needs to your partner.

You might want to listen if:

• You're struggling to voice your emotions, needs, and boundaries without conflict.
• You're curious about how your attachment style influences your love language.
• You want to better understand your partner's love language and attachment style.
• You're looking for ways to foster deeper emotional connections in your relationships.
• You keep facing the same frustrating patterns in your relationships and want to break the cycle.

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DISCLAIMER: Speak Honest podcast content is informational, not professional or medical advice. Jenn is an ICF relationship coach, not a licensed therapist. Consult health professionals for specific concerns. Client opinions do not reflect Speak Honest’s stance. We aim for accuracy but are not liable for errors or outcomes from this information.

Transcript

  Hello and welcome to Speak Honest. I am your host and certified relationship coach, Jennifer Noble. It has been my passion for over a decade to help women like you heal. What's been holding you back from having the relationships you deserve? Are you struggling with a relationship where you can't seem to voice your emotions, needs, and boundaries without having it blow up in your face?

Then you have found the right podcast, my friend. Get ready for practical tips, empowering truths, and honest conversations. Now, let's dive in.  Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Speak Honest. On today's podcast, I want to talk about love languages. Now, I know love languages are something that a lot of people already know about, and it's not really anything new or exciting, but something I've been really learning about lately and has been really something that has sparked my interest is how do our attachment styles influence?

Our love languages, or really, what attachment styles have which love languages and why. And so today I actually hosted one of our weekly support sessions in our free Facebook group, and it was all about love languages and attachment styles. And the really great thing about these weekly support sessions is I spend about, you know, 10 or 15 minutes going over the concept of the week.

And then at the end, anyone that's there gets to ask questions. You can also ask me questions in the Facebook group, and then I will answer them in the weekly recording and then send you that recording. So you can have Whatever question is that you ask answered by me, by your relationship coach. And so it's a really great opportunity to get those nuanced questions in and to really start figuring things out for yourself.

You can join our free Facebook group by going to the show notes and clicking on the link down there. You can also go ahead and just search speak honest and Facebook and it should pop up. I would love to have you there. It's for women like you. who are struggling to communicate to their partners in their relationships or they keep failing in their relationships and they keep losing their partner over and over again reliving the same patterns.

Oh, it's just so frustrating, isn't it? It's okay. We got you. That's what that Facebook group is for. Come and join us in the weekly support groups. We also sometimes have silly meme discussions in there and silly dance offs. And it's just a really great supportive group of women that are all doing their best to get by in their relationships and to try to heal them.

But now let's get on with the episode.  So let's talk about love languages. Well, love languages have been around for quite a while. And again, I know most of you probably already know what they are, but just in case there's some people out there that aren't quite certain, I want to go over them again for you.

Well, first, I want to talk about who developed them, which was Dr. Gary Chapman. He's a marriage counselor and he wrote a really, really popular book about this. And basically the concept of love languages is that every person has a primary way of receiving love, which influences how they express love to others.

And another way to put this is the way in which you express your love to someone else is most likely the way in which you want to receive love, right? That's how that works because our brains are filled with our own perceptions. So if for you, you love giving people gifts, it's a high chance that you love receiving gifts.

But if your partner really loves doing things around the house for you, there's a high chance he loves it when you do things back like that for him. And so that's why understanding what your love languages are is incredibly important. Yeah. Because it's essentially explaining that. Love is like different languages and you wouldn't go into a relationship with someone who's speaking Italian and you're speaking French and thinking that the two of you can understand each other.

Sure, are there similarities to the language where you think you could get by, but to truly understand and just embrace and connect with another, you have to do more than that. You have to start actually speaking their language and that's why it's so important to be understanding this stuff. So let's go over the five different love languages.

Well, first we have words of affirmation and this one is the verbal expressions of love and appreciation. This is like when you get all dressed up in a pretty dress and your partner says, wow, babes, you look gorgeous. You know, that's a words of affirmation or when you did really, really great on a project and somebody says, wow, like great job.

Like you did really, really good. I'm so proud of you. Look how hard you worked. That is a part of words of affirmation.  But then we also have acts of service, and acts of service is the actions that show care and effort. So this can look like doing the dishes, grabbing a cup of coffee for someone, maybe making someone food and delivering it to their house, or, uh, something my husband does that I love is he notices that my gas tank is really low. 

He'll go out at night to go get it filled for me so I don't have to worry about in the morning. That's a love language of acts of service. And then we have receiving gifts. And this is thoughtful presents that demonstrate affection. Now this could be big elaborate gifts, but it also can be just tiny things like, Hey, I drew you a picture or he made you a card or I picked you this flower off the side of the road because it made me think of you.

It's really that concept of, Oh, Hey, I thought of you and I picked up this thing for you. And that. Is a way of showing your love for someone. And then we have quality time, which is undivided attention and shared experiences. So this is a lot of times like date nights and going out and having a really good time with each other, but it's also undivided time with one another.

And this one, I noticed there's a real prevalence of issues lately in relationships. Because of the amount of screens that we have everywhere. So we think we're spending time with our partners, but if we're looking down at our phone or, you know, if we're on our laptop or we're watching TV, we're not actually giving our partner that undivided attention that they need.

And this can be really hard for someone who doesn't have a love language of quality time. They might be like, I am listening to you. What is the big deal? And this again is why it's so important to understand that someone else who desperately loves and values this quality time is seeking that.  And lastly, we have physical touch, which is pretty self explanatory, but it's the physical expression of love and affection.

This can look like a hug, holding your hand, maybe, you know, coming in, just putting their hand on your leg, or as I explained in the support session, you know, it's like you're doing the dishes at night and it's like your husband comes up behind you and just smacks you right on the ass. You know, that's, that's a type of physical touch.

That's a love language that your husband is doing for you at that time. That's this playfulness that can be really loving. Now, some women hate that, right? And other women love it, which exactly is the point. We're all different and it's about communicating what your language is. To your partner.  And now let's get in to the different attachment styles and which love languages are most likely for those attachment styles to have.

Now, of course, there's always outliers. This is just a generalization. So if you're sitting out there and you're like, Hey, I'm anxiously attached and I do not have quality time as my number one love language. Great. Perfect. You are a nuanced individual with your own loves and your own needs. And that's perfect.

That's what this is about. But when we are trying to educate people, we stick with generalizations because it's just easier that way. But if you are sitting there and you're like, Hey, this doesn't make any sense to me. I have questions. Perfect. Come to the Facebook group and come ask your questions.

That's what I love. I love working with people's questions. Questions are my favorite things in the world. So. But let's get started. The anxious attachment, their two top love languages are typically words of affirmation and quality time. Why is this? Well, words of affirmation, you know, it's all about speaking your love to someone.

You're reassuring them, you're validating them. There's emotional intimacy and there's consistent support. And with quality time, there's closeness and connection. You feel valued and there's an emotional security there. And if you can tell kind of the ongoing theme with this, because an anxiously attached person.

They're, they're deep, limited belief. Their attachment wound is that they will be abandoned because they're not enough for that person, that they need to earn their worth in order to be loved. So what better way to know that you are loved than to be constantly reassured by that? So if you're dating someone.

that is anxiously attached and you're trying to figure out like, how can I make them feel loved? Just give them words of affirmation and quality time. Give them your undivided attention. Show them that emotional security and reassure them how much you love spending time with them. It helps so much. And if you have an anxious attachment, this is a beautiful opportunity to communicate to your partner what you need.

And so the reason why we want to learn about all of this, and we want to identify our love languages and our attachment styles, And so it can look something like this, where now you get to say, Hey babes, you know, I, I'm in learning that I have an anxious attachment style. And this comes from when I was a child, my parents treated me in a way that made me feel like I needed to earn my love.

And so I never felt like I was worthy. I never felt like I was good enough. And now when I'm in a relationship with you, it scares me that you're going to leave me if I'm not good enough. So what I really need is just to hear how much you love me. I love words of affirmation. I need that emotional support and I really love spending time with you because it makes me feel close and connected to you.

Can you see why I need all this now? Wow. Right. Imagine coming into your relationships, being able to communicate that way. Instead of saying you never spend enough time with me. We never go out on enough dates. You're always looking down at your phone. Yeah, we don't want to nag. We don't want resentment.

We want to be able to have these calm and collected conversations with our partners.  And so moving on, let's talk about the avoidant attachment style and their top two love languages. Typically we see acts of service, which is a really big one. I'd say that's the number one and then sometimes physical touch.

And so  with acts of service, why is it that this typically comes with an avoidant attachment style? And it's because it's practical actions, to be honest. It's just, it's less intrusive, it's more manageable for the avoidant. And because an avoidant values their independence so much, when they're doing something for you, they kind of get to be doing it on their own a lot of times, to be honest.

And it gives them that ability to be autonomous, to be independent. And so, for an avoidance, something like doing the dishes or going and putting something up around the house or going to go get gas. Those are all ways in which they're showing you love. And in fact, I had a client who, when we were talking, she was thinking like, Oh, you know, my partner doesn't love me and I do all this stuff for him.

And, you know, I want him to plan dates for me and I want him to tell, he never tells me he loves me and I don't know what to do. And then later on, she told me a story about how he. actually went out and bought a shelf and put it up in her office because he knew that she collected all these little trinkets from all over their travels together and he put the shelf up, you know, nailed it in, did all the work and unwrapped all of the trinkets and put it up on the shelf for her.

Isn't that amazing? That's his love language saying, Hey babes, I love you. And like, he even chose a wood color that matched her desk and the other shelves in her office. Like when she really started to think about this, she realized, wow, you put a lot of time and effort into that. That was really loving.

And now she gets to see, no, he didn't buy her flowers. No, he doesn't buy her jewelry. He puts up shelves. And that's the kind of love that he gives. And so then she needs to learn how to receive that and accept that. It's really beautiful. And so then we have the disorganized attachment and you know, surprise, surprise here, but disorganized attachment folks actually tend to have inconsistent preferences for their love languages.

And I know that's not very helpful in terms of wanting to understand what they're doing, but here's how you can utilize this information. If you are dating someone who is disorganized attached and You are trying to figure out how they like to be loved and you figured it out and you're like, okay, great.

They love physical touch and words of affirmation. So you start giving them words of affirmation and physical touch and you're giving them hugs and you're telling them how beautiful they are. You're telling what a great job they did with the kids or, you know, how amazing it is they are at work. And then you start noticing, I don't really like the word so much anymore.

And all of a sudden they start shifting it into something else. And it's like, Oh, okay. Cause here's what happens. Okay. And give you a little insight into a disorganized mind, because you know me, poster child of disorganized attachment style over here, this is how this works.  When we are kind of getting too much of something, and it's actually getting filled up, our little disorganized, sabotage y brain, subconscious part of us is like, nope, we don't want this anymore, push it away. 

I'm not saying it's right, I'm not saying that this is an okay thing to be doing. As a disorganized attachment person, we need to also be healing this. As it's happening, you can be helping out your partner by kind of noticing when they're starting to shift away from different love languages. Just check in with them.

Every once in a while about, you know, how are they feeling loved today? And if you are a disorganized person and you're trying to figure out what your love languages are, and it's always shifting on you too, and you're like, well, you know, I used to think it was words of affirmation, but now it seems to be more physical touch, but also it seems to be gifts.

I don't know what's going on. Well, just check in with yourself kind of monthly, maybe every three months and see where are you at? What level languages do you have this month? And explain to your partner. Cause you know, Listen, if you're a disorganized attachment and your partner's not, and they have no idea what's going on here, but you can explain to them what a disorganized attachment person is and you can say to them, Hey, listen, remember that attachment stuff I was telling you about and how I have a disorganized attachment because in my childhood, my parents were incredibly chaotic and they treated me really poorly, but also sometimes they were incredibly loving.

So I really messed with my head and now I don't understand what it's like to be in relationships.  See, that thing is causing me sometimes to change the way I like to be loved. And so I am going to be a bit better at expressing to you what I need, but if you mess up, if you don't get it right, it's not your fault.

It's not my fault either. It's just a thing that's happening and we're going to work on this together. Do  you see how coming at it from this way, where you guys are the same team, where you guys are working together on this thing, you see how much more repair you can have in your conflicts when that's happening?

And that's the beautiful part. about identifying and understanding your love languages and your attachment styles. So 

as we wrap up today, I want us to be using this knowledge to improve how we express and receive love to our partners. And really understanding our love languages and our attachment styles is going to help us foster healthier and more fulfilling relationships.  And so,  questions to consider as we're finishing up here and as you're journaling for the evening or if you're in the car driving at the next red light, you can start thinking about these questions and I want you to think about how does your attachment style and love language influence your relationships? 

And what steps can you take to better understand your partner's needs?  And lastly, how can you use this knowledge to create a more supportive and loving relationship?  Thank you all so much for coming along in this ride for me. And if something like this is really interesting to you and you want to learn how to utilize this information about attachment styles even more, well, I'm so excited because I'm actually hosting a workshop on August 14th.

I want you to save the date. It will be at 5 p. m. Pacific, 8 p. m. Eastern. And if you're interested in more information in the show notes is a link to register, or you can reach out to me at any time, or of course, join the Facebook group, the free Facebook group. You can get access to the workshops. You can get access to my free workbook.

You get access to the. free support groups. There are so many freebies going on in this Facebook group. I absolutely love it. It's such a great community. I would love for you to be a part of it. Please, please, please come to the workshop. It's something I've been working on, honestly, for  about like six months.

To be honest, it's, it's not something just I threw together. Like this is a thing I've been wanting to really work on for a really long time to start helping  To get those relationships that I know that they deserve. Now, is this one workshop going to heal everything about you? No, I mean, absolutely not.

That'd be ridiculous. If I even tried to pretend that was the case, but this workshop is a jumping off point. It's the top three ways that understanding your attachment styles can enhance your communication and your connections. and relationships. And I'm so excited to have all of you there and to be a part of this and, and to be able to answer your questions and to teach you a little bit more because that's what this is all about.

We're just about teaching and learning and growing and getting curious. Remember, you're not broken. There's nothing to fix. It's just, we want to be living in alignment. With what our values are, with what we want and what we need. And to get there, we need to start understanding this kind of stuff, like our attachment styles and like our love languages.

Thank you so much again for being here today. I will talk to you next week. Take care. 

As we wrap up today's conversation, always remember that healing is a journey, not a destination, and it is an honor to be a part of your healing journey. If you want to dig deeper into the topics we covered today, Be sure to head over to our show notes where you can find all of the valuable information mentioned in today's episode right there, and please remember to rate, review, and subscribe.

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