“You don’t love me anymore!” says Lucy.
“I do love you” says Liam.
“You don’t!” Lucy fires back…

You understand the scenario.  Perhaps you have experienced it.  Who is right?

Perhaps they both are.

Maybe they are talking about different forms of love.

The Problem with Love

The problem with love (in the English language at least) is that it means so many things. And,

The problem with love meaning so many things is that it ends up meaning so little.
~ Guy Mullon

We all realise that when we say we would “love a can of Coke” or that “I love my car” that we mean something different to loving our wives.

But when we dig a little deeper into the context of “loving our wives”, we discover that the love we need to develop has a little more to it.

The 5 Types of Love

In some languages, there are many different words for love. In modern English, we have a number of words that mean things which can be similar and/or components of love — things like: affection, tenderness, warmth, intimacy, attachment, endearment, devotion, admiration.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides quite a detailed exposition of the word ‘love’ and so hints at the different types of ways that the word ‘love’ is used.

But a cold, hard definition is not very useful to us.

What it Means For Your Marriage

In Real Talk 4 Real Men podcast episode #28, Guy and Chris pull this and more together into 5 categories of love that we need to expressly and intentionally develop in our marriages if we are to gain the level of depth in the relationship that deep down we crave.

We were made for relationship with others.  From the first man to us today, we have the need for ‘love’ in all its forms.

In this episode, we unpack those 5 forms of love and challenge men to identify which types of love you need to put some energy into making stronger in your marriage today.

You can stream episode #28 right here:

What is the reward?

It Is Not Good To Be Alone

The reward is having the deep needs God placed within you for relationship, fulfilled.

In Genesis 2:18, even before sin had entered into the world (which means everything was still “good”), God said:

“It is not good for the man to be alone.”

The reward then — the Holy Grail of marriage — is intimacy.  It comes from having a healthy amount of each of the 5 types of love in your marriage.

Not just physical intimacy, but the intimacy of the heart, emotions, mind and spirit.

Listen to episode #28 by clicking below: