Like many people getting ready to be married, CavWife and I read The Five Love Languages. It has become a cottage industry for Gary Chapman. It highlighted a very important truth that all married people need to understand: you perceive and show love differently!
In his book Seeing With New Eyes, David Powlison reveals some of the serious shortcomings of the rest of the book, particularly the concept of love tanks. I’m surprised I didn’t blog on this book. Since I’m not currently at home, I can’t refer to the book.
But this morning I listened to a sermon by Tim Keller on marriage that I think interacted with the concept in a significant way. He did this in terms of “leaving and cleaving.” I found myself thinking about my own marriage while listening to him (yes, that was the point, wasn’t it?).
In his wife’s family of origin, her father was very involved in family life and chores. He helped out around the house, changed diapers etc. This was how he loved his wife. And this was what Tim’s wife thought a husband does to love his wife.
In Tim’s family of origin, his mother did everything in the house. He father was not involved in changing diapers, vacuuming the carpet, folding clothes etc. This was how she loved him. She recognized he worked long and hard outside of the home. This was not “her duty” but her delight out of love.
What do you think happened when Tim had his first child? Their very different experiences rose to the service. His expectation to have her change the baby’s diapers was heard by her as “he doesn’t love me.” Her refusal to step in and remove that from him was heard by him as “she doesn’t love me.” Okay- this is not (NOT) about roles. This is about how we give & receive love. Which one of them was to “submit” and change how they give and receive love? Their views, oddly enough, we polar opposites. So either one of them caves, or they find a new way.
His point was that we need to “leave” those ways we learned to give and receive love we learned in our family of origin. If you don’t “leave” you place unexpressed expectations on your spouse. I have a friend whose former girlfriend expected him to take her car and fill the tank just like her dad did for her mom. She demanded it of him. Herein lies the problem- demandingness and the resultant conflict is the problem. You will always feel like your love tank is empty because they are speaking a different language.
When you “leave & cleave” you reset your love language. Rather than demand things be a certain way (your way), the two of you navigate a way to give and receive love that best suits your circumstances. Most couples have conversations, and arguments, that touch upon this but don’t quite get there. They are power struggles instead of consciously leaving so they can consciously cleave.
31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. (ESV)
This is one of those passages I just never “got” in the past. This morning, as I was listening to Keller it all sort of fell together for me. Union with Christ is the cleaving. But we must leave our prior primary allegiances. Whatever was most important to us before, all our functional saviors, need to be left. Additionally, our love language needs to be reset with respect to God. Many people don’t “feel” loved by God, and I’m talking Christians. Their spiritual love tanks feel empty. How can one united with Christ and his never-stopping, never giving up, always and forever love not feel loved?
They are expecting him to love them in a way different from how he has loved them. They are demanding love in one way instead of receiving the love he has expressed. They are expecting Jesus (and the Father and the Spirit) to love them like mom and dad did. Most of us have done this, and
God is love, as John declares, and therefore loves us perfectly. Rather than expecting God to meet our demands, we can submit to how they love us. To stick with our demands is to get out of step with the Spirit and to dishonor the Father. To be filled with the Spirit is to have the Father’s love poured into our hearts on account of the loving sacrifice of the Son.
Cavman Considers 
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