Love Styles

Your first lessons in love leave an imprint on your soul. Your childhood imprints of intimacy mark the way you love the rest of your life.

Ask yourself the following question:

Can you recall being comforted as a child after a time of emotional distress?

I’m not thinking of situations like a scraped knee or stubbed toe. These are the more significant emotionally difficult situations of childhood.

How you answer that question could reveal a lot about your imprint of intimacy from your first love relationships. This imprint forms your style.

What Are Love Styles?

I’m not talking about Gary Chapman’s Love Languages here. Those are great- just not the topic of this series. Milan and Kay Yerkovich’s love styles help us get to the root of how our first lessons in love impact how we love today.

Your experiences as a child leave an imprint on your soul. This imprint informs the way you respond to the love of others even into adulthood. It also informs the way you express love to others.

You may have been imprinted to avoid, please, vacillate, control, be a victim, or more. Whatever the case, you may have grown up without the healthy, secure foundation that relationships are a safe place for you to go to receive comfort.

You may have had the unique ability to grow up as a secure connector. This is the ideal way to relate to others from a place of security, trust, and respect. Unfortunately, many of us have developed a destructive love style.

How About You? Do You Have A Secure Or Destructive Love Style?

For your convenience, you can access all of the posts about love styles here. I’m still working on adding posts about the remaining two styles.

Do You Have A Destructive Love Style? Take This Quiz

Link to Do You Have a Destructive Love Style?

First Lessons in Love

The Secure Connector

The Secure Connector

The Avoider

The Pleaser

The Vacillator

The Controller Love Style

I'm a Controller: What Now?

The Victim Love Style

Naming Emotions for Spouses and Kids

Trouble finding words to name feelings? Improve your relationship with your spouse with this free tool for naming emotions. Help your kids voice their feelings and improve their EQ.

Naming Emotions for Spouses and Kids

The Comfort Circle

How can you connect (rather than fight) with your spouse over difficult topics and build new neurological patterns in your brain related to relationship as well as healthier patterns in your relationship?

The Comfort Circle is one of Milan and Kay Yerkovich’s top recommendations for improving relationship for any love style. But what is it, and how do you do it?

The Comfort Circle

Want to Know More?

Milan and Kay Yerkovich wrote a great book called How We Love: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance Your Marriage. The workbook quoted and drawn from in this post is very helpful and practical for taking steps toward growth. They have a whole series for singles, couples, counselors, etc at How We Love. (note, I’m not an affiliate or anything. I just have benefited from these resources and want to share).

Sources:

The key teachings of these posts are consolidated from Milan and Kay Yerkovich’s excellent resources. I highly encourage you to find out more from them directly:

  • Milan & Kay Yerkovich. How We Love: Discover Your Love Style Enhance Your Marriage. Christian Audio.
  • Milan & Kay Yerkovich. How We Love Workbook: Making Deeper Connections in Marriage. Waterbrook: 2017.
  • Milan & Kay Yerkovich. How We Love Our Kids: The Five Love Styles of Parenting. How to End the Struggles and Tension. The Crown Publishing Group: 2011.

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