By nature, most people are controlled by their emotions. They feel sad, so they look sad.
Gary ChapmanRecent research has indicated that the average individual listens for only seventeen seconds before interrupting and interjecting his own ideas.
Gary ChapmanPhysically abusive and verbally abuse marriages are very, very difficult situations. I fully understand people in those kinds of marriages who think there is no hope. I also know that the advice that is given by most people is simply... get out of there as fast as you can.
Gary ChapmanLove can be expressed and received in all five languages. However, if you don't speak a person's primary love language, that person will not feel loved, even though you may be speaking the other four. Once you are speaking his or her primary love language fluently, then you can sprinkle in the other four and they will be like icing on the cake.
Gary ChapmanOur most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not instinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving.
Gary ChapmanWe cannot rely on our native tongue if our spouse does not understand it. If we want them to feel the love we are trying to communicate, we must express it in his or her primary love language.
Gary ChapmanI wrote this book [ Desperate Marriages] because of my own marriage. My wife and I struggled greatly in the early years of marriage. In spite of the fact that we were Christians before we got married, we prayed about getting married, we believed it was God's will for us to get married, and we still had great struggles.
Gary ChapmanThe one who chooses to love will find appropriate ways to express that decision everyday.
Gary ChapmanWe can certainly see contemporary examples of people who radically change. As long you believe your spouse will never change and you keep telling yourself that, then you live with no hope. But if you understand that that's a myth, then you open up the door to hope.
Gary Chapman