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The Naked Truth | Know your partner’s love language to understand how to respond to their emotional needs

  • We use love language to give and receive love through a mix of words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service and physical touch
  • You and your partner don’t need to share the same love language to have a loving relationship, but both need to know what makes the other feel loved

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Image: Marcelo Duhalde

Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu, affectionately known as Big S to her fans, recently remarried. This may not sound like big news, but it was to an old flame she dated 20 years ago.

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They broke up because Koo Jun-yup, a South Korean disc jockey, chose his career over love, as his country’s entertainment industry was very strict about dating back then.

So if you decide to rekindle love with an old flame, is having a mutual love language even more critical? And if so, how can you cultivate this love language to reinforce your bond?

Before we address that question, let’s look at the concept of love languages, developed by American author Gary Chapman. In short, Chapman believes there are five different ways of expressing and receiving love: words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service and physical touch.

Barbie Hsu (right) recently married her old flame, South Korean DJ Koo Jun-yup. Photo: Weibo
Barbie Hsu (right) recently married her old flame, South Korean DJ Koo Jun-yup. Photo: Weibo

The odds are that you and your partner don’t have the same love language, so it is vital to discuss how you both show and receive love.

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