Love

Falling in love is euphoric. Going to the wedding ceremony and you’ll see – and hear – for yourself. There’re wonderful sparks of marital bliss. But then, according to long-range studies by the American psychologist Dr. Dorothy Tennov, the average life span of a romantic obsession is two years. 

Dr. Tennov didn’t include me in the study but I am sure my memory of our wedding is evaporating. So much so that I answered the wrong year of my marriage recently. That has nothing to do with Alzheimer's disease. If anything, it's a clarion call for me to fill my "love tank". At a recent marriage seminar or couple course, I learned that running our marriage on an empty love tank may cost us even more than trying to drive our car without petrol.

After the first lesson on five emotional love languages, I decided to borrow Gary Chapman's bestselling The 5 Love Languages Men's Edition from the public library. That's the magic to speak the love language of spouse. In other words, we can't express love in English, when our spouse understands only Chinese. The secret is to find out the love language our spouse speaks: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, or physical touch. 

That's not a long book (who has time for those, these days), but the messages are important for all couples. The issue for me, however, is that I have completely forgotten that I did read this book in 2016. My goodness, that's indeed why we need to check the love tank level every now and then.

I will, I promise.