Over the course of my 25 year marriage, my wife and I have benefited greatly from the Enneagram and Love Language diagnoses. Not only has it helped me understand my wife’s perspective and motivations, it’s helped me understand my own.

Much to my surprise, even though we first took the tests many years ago, I’m constantly going back to them. Just this week she casually asked me if I wanted to drive her down to her doctor’s appointment and then swing by the mall afterward. She said, “If you’re busy, no problem.” I said I would, go primarily because I wanted to get out of the house. So I drove her down, dropped her off, waited in the parking lot, picked her up, and then walked around the mall. No big deal.

But then later that night at dinner she commented how much she appreciated me taking her. It clearly filled her cup of love. And, of course, her love language is quality time! I knew that, but something as trivial as taking her to the doctor never registered with me as “qualifying.”

I could go on about the Enneagram and Love Languages but I’ll just leave it at that.

I think it’s obvious that there exists a wide variety of opinions and preferences when it comes to sex. Has anyone tried to build a model around that? For instance, at a basic macro level, I think people ascribe fundamentally different meanings and importance to sex. To some people it’s a “big deal,” very special, emotional, almost sacred. To other people it’s just, well, sex.

My wife is a Type 1 (Perfectionist) with a Quality Time Love Language. That has really helped me best understand how she sees things and where she’s coming from. I want to augment that with a sex type or language. From previous counseling work I know that she’s essentially asexual (that was my assessment, no clinician diagnosed her as such), but I would like a richer more explanatory diagnosis. I can’t believe that I’m alone in wanting something like this.

Anyone know of anything?

2 comments
  1. It matters so much.

    My wife and I share 3 love languages.

    1. physical contact (slugging, sex and endless PDA)
    2. laughter (we joke all the time and easily laugh at ourselves)
    3. adventure (we love to travel and do new things together)

    Where we differed when we got together was that I was all about peace and she was all about justice. I tended to opt to give into situations for the sake of peace too much and she was too willing to fight every single battle. Over time we have moved towards each other on these fronts.

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