I don’t think the acts described in love languages are meant to be equally effective independent of feelings. The common use case is “I X for my partner all the time and they never X for me, why don’t they care about me?” Love languages explains why not doing X/having to be prompted is not inconsistent with loving you. This comes up on r/relationships a lot.
I’ve also found it useful when love languages are actively opposed. An example: I show I value people by only making appointments with them I know I can keep and be present for. A good friend shows she values people by squeezing them in when she doesn’t really have time, making her late and grouchy. My reaction to this was to feel unvalued at best, deliberately insulted at worse. From her perspective, I was taking this token of of her love and spitting on it. We will probably never be as close as we would be if we didn’t have this inconsistency, but there were many fewer hurt feelings after I realized this is what was going on, that her actions didn’t symbolize disrespect.
I don’t think the acts described in love languages are meant to be equally effective independent of feelings. The common use case is “I X for my partner all the time and they never X for me, why don’t they care about me?” Love languages explains why not doing X/having to be prompted is not inconsistent with loving you. This comes up on r/relationships a lot.
I’ve also found it useful when love languages are actively opposed. An example: I show I value people by only making appointments with them I know I can keep and be present for. A good friend shows she values people by squeezing them in when she doesn’t really have time, making her late and grouchy. My reaction to this was to feel unvalued at best, deliberately insulted at worse. From her perspective, I was taking this token of of her love and spitting on it. We will probably never be as close as we would be if we didn’t have this inconsistency, but there were many fewer hurt feelings after I realized this is what was going on, that her actions didn’t symbolize disrespect.