Hi Pleasure Seekers! Thank you so much for your support on my Cosmo article! I’m so grateful for your words of congratulations, encouragement, and appreciation.

This week I’m super excited to introduce you to a new friend and relationship master, Chelsea. She’s the founder of a fabulous website on modern relationships (preach!) and I knew we’d be perfect for each when, within 10 minutes of chatting, we already had talked about big dreams, sex, and religion.

Today she’s talking about a concept you may have heard of: the different love languages and how mastering them can add ease + pleasure to your relationship. What strikes me most about her story is how similar it is to my experience with My Life on the Swingset. Both books were dismissed only to teach us powerful lessons and inspire relationship-strengthening conversations. I said it once and I’ll say it again: books are  one of the easiest + best ways to start up a conversation about sex. And speaking of that, I’m sharing seven tips on her blog today. You should check it and all of her wonderful, witty, and down-to-earth posts out.

hi, i’m chelsea and run the new wifestyle, a community of empowered women living our best lives as bold women while still being loving and supportive partners! i am so thrilled to have connected with kait, because as you know, she is fantastic, full of helpful information and just plain FUN!

my husband and i have been together for over 7 years but it was just recently that i finally read the 5 love languages book by dr. gary chapman. i wasn’t expecting anything too wild and crazy because i studied social work so i totally get the touchy/feely side of things. i also felt like my husband and i just ‘get’ each other so what’s it going to do for us? do you see where this is heading? did i provide enough foreshadowing?

well, turns out this book was incredibly helpful to understand just how much my husband felt love through physical touch…and how i feel it through words of affirmation. no idea what i’m talking about? feel free to take the test but you should also read the book for more explanation.

it essentially means that my husband both receives and gives love through physical touch. that doesn’t necessarily mean that he just wants to have sex with me all the time (but it’s part of it), it means in order for him to feel loved and appreciated, he wants to be touched by me or to touch me.

‘word of affirmation’ means i feel most deeply loved when my husband says kind and encouraging things to me. when he tells me my booty is slammin’ in my jeans, how smart he thinks i am and how my curly hair drives him crazy!

being a touchy/feely person in my book means that i am in touch and have a lot of feeling inside. i’m deeply introspective and have been known to cry at cute commercials.

touchy/feely to him means that he wants to be touching and feeling ME at all times (if he had his way).
here’s the tricky part…i don’t always love to be touched, especially when i’m PMSing. i don’t even want to be in my own skin let alone be touched by anyone else sometimes.

can you see why knowing your partner’s love language is VITAL to showing one another love!?

here are 3 ways that i’ve found to show my husband love through physical touch, even though that’s not how i would normally express love. you will not find sex on the list because that is a given and not always directly related to people who seek ‘physical touch’ for love. i’m pretty sure all 5 love languages want to get down every now and then.

3 ways to show love through physical touch

1. massage. he loves when i crawl on top of him just before we go to bed and massage his whole body. i’m talking the bottoms of his (clean) feet, to gently over his eyelids and everywhere in between. he told me this makes him feel like he’s ‘recharging and absorbing all my life’ during this time. he loves the physical attention on his body.
2. random make-outs and hugs. before we started dating, i wasn’t naturally a ‘huggy’ person. i saved hugs for close friends and family upon greeting and goodbyes but rarely in between our time together. he, on the other hand, loves hugs and gives them whenever he is feeling happy or excited. he shared with me that he wants more random hugs and affection throughout the day so i work hard on being conscious of doing this since it’s not second nature for me. he also loves a good random make-out session for no reason other than us connecting. he does make the valid point that i’m the only one he gets to intimately hug and kiss since we are monogamous so he wants to take full advantage of these privileges. this plays out especially well when we schedule our “love day!“
3. putting my arm around him in public. since my husband enjoys the physical closeness of being next to each other, i make it point to show him affection when we are in public. sometimes it’s a gentle back scratch while we are waiting in line for a movie or putting my arm around him at happy hour with friends (because who doesn’t love a cheap margarita).

after you and your partner have read the book or taken the test, use your words to communicate how your love language plays out. what does your partner need from you and what do you need from him or her? listing specific tasks and examples of exactly what you want will help you both feel satisfied and ensure love is felt deeply.