Holiday gatherings serve up delicate communication challenges. Between the dollops at the buffet are opportunities to show appreciation and even express love to those with whom we share meals and accomodation. It’s as good a time as any to note that while military families share all the fun and fretting that comes with the plans and preps, they’re also dealing with added variables to contend with over civilian settings.

Jocelyn and Rob Green

MilSuccessNet guest writer, Jocelyn Green, has addressed some of the unique communication challenges in a book she has co-authored with Gary C. Chapman. Dr. Chapman has authored a series of books on Love Languages.

This book is specific to the Military marriage and is adapted from the #1 New York Bestseller series by Gary Demonte Chapman on the concept of “Five Love Languages.”  The premise helps people speak and understand emotional love when it is expressed through one of five languages. Those categories are:  words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service or physical touch.

Chapman argues that while each of these languages is enjoyed to some degree by all people, a person will usually speak one primary language. That’s how they relate both giving and receiving love, and therefore connection.

So, if  you find yourself eyeing the folks you’re moving around the buffet table with as beings from another planet, chances are an understsanding of their love language might help. According to Chapman and Green, it often comes down to language, specifically says Chapman, “The primary emotional love language” that each person speaks. It can be confusing to the listener and a point of stress to the speaker who just doesn’t get why their message is not getting through.

We can imagine this dance of dialogues taking place in a military family – where there are strains and distances that really test a marriage and family unit. Where one faces dangers of combat thousands of miles away and the other mananges the homefront duties and all the decisions.

Real heroines on America’s home front, appear in her historical fiction novels. Widow of Gettysburg was highlighted in these pages on its launch.

Jocelyn Green, author (photo supplied)

Jocelyn graduated from Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, with a B.A. in English, concentration in writing. She is an active member of the Evangelical Press Association, Christian Authors Network, the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, American Christian Fiction Writers, and the Military Writers Society of America.

She has posted tips for writers on this site and also tips on transition when she and her husband experienced that phase in his military career. Jocelyn and her husband Rob are raising their two small children in Cedar Falls, Iowa, where life post deployment and in transition flourishes and inspires others.

Read her tips for writers in MilSuccessNet archives HERE.

Gary Chapman, PhD, is the author of the bestselling The 5 Love Languages® series, which has sold more than 8 million worldwide and has been translated into 49 languages. Dr. Chapman travels the world presenting seminars on marriage, family, and relationships, and his radio programs air on more than 300 stations. He lives in North Carolina with his wife, Karolyn.