The 5 Love Languages Military Edition: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman, Jocelyn Green

marriage. Three years ago, we attended your marriage seminar here in Chicago for the first time. I was desperate,” she said. “I was thinking seriously of leaving Doug and had told him so. Our marriage had been empty for a long time. I had given up. For years, I had complained to Doug that I needed his love, but he never responded. I grew to hate him.
    “For years,” she continued, “I tried to be a good wife. I did all the things I thought a good wife should do. I had sex with him because I knew that was important to him, but I felt no love coming from him. I felt like he stopped dating me after we got married and simply took me for granted. I felt used and unappreciated.
    “When I talked to Doug about my feelings, he’d laugh at me and say we had as good a marriage as anybody else in the community. He didn’t understand why I was so unhappy. He would remind me that the bills were paid, we had a nice house and a new car, I was free to work or not work outside the home, and I should be happy instead of complaining all the time. He didn’t even try to understand my feelings. I felt totally rejected.
    “Well, anyway,” she said as she moved her tea and leaned forward, “we came to your seminar three years ago. I did not know what to expect, and frankly I didn’t expect much. I didn’t think anybody could change Doug. During and after the seminar, he didn’t say too much.
    “Then Monday afternoon, he came home from work and gave me a rose. ‘Where did you get that?’ I asked. ‘I bought it from a street vendor,’ he said. ‘I thought you deserved a rose.’ I started crying. ‘Oh, Doug, that is so sweet of you.’
    “On Tuesday he called me from the office to ask what I thought about his buying a pizza and bringing it home for dinner so I could enjoy a break from cooking. I told him I thought the idea was wonderful, and so he brought home a pizza and we had a fun time together. The children loved the pizza and thanked their father for bringing it. I actually gave him a hug and told him how much I enjoyed it.
    “When he came home on Wednesday, he brought each of the children a box of Cracker Jacks, and he had a small potted plant for me. He said he knew the rose would die, and he thought I might like something that would be around for a while. I was beginning to think I was hallucinating! I couldn’t believe what Doug was doing or why he was doing it.
    “Thursday night after dinner, he handed me a card with a message about his not always being able to express his love to me but hoping that the card would communicate how much he cared. ‘Why don’t we get a babysitter on Saturday night and the two of us go out for dinner?’ he suggested. ‘That would be wonderful,’ I said. On Friday afternoon, he stopped by the cookie shop and bought each of us one of our favorite cookies. Again, he kept it as a surprise, telling us only that he had a treat for dessert.
    “By Saturday night,” she said, “I was in orbit. I had no idea what had come over Doug, or if it would last, but I was enjoying every minute of it. After our dinner at the restaurant, I said to him, ‘Doug, you have to tell me what’s happening. I don’t understand.’”
    She looked at me intently and said, “Dr. Chapman, you have to understand. This man had never given me a flower since the day we got married. He never gave me a card for any occasion. He always said, ‘It’s a waste of money; you look at the card and throw it away.’ We’d been out to dinner one time in five years. He never bought the children anything and expected me to buy only the essentials. He had never brought a pizza home for dinner. He expected me to have dinner ready every night. I mean, this was a radical change in his behavior.”
    I turned to Doug and asked, “What did you say to her in the restaurant when she asked you what was going on?”
    “I told her I had listened to your lecture on love languages at the seminar and I realized her love language was