Most of us have heard of the five love languages, a breakthrough work pioneered by Dr. Gary Chapman. In his endeavor to help the rest of us tune into how to fill our loved ones’ love tank, he wrote multiple books, including the classic The Five Love Languages and special edition books like The Secret to Love that Lasts and books written specifically for singles, coworkers, and parents. But what happens when our human frailties bump—or crash—into the ones we love most? What happens when we have that meltdown moment that highlights areas we still need to grow in or heal from?  

We all have moments we need to humble ourselves and apologize. It can be hard! And yet, in my humble opinion, it is a very needed way to express our love to the ones we are closest to. After all, in most cases, they are the ones who see the most human side of us.  

It’s easy to express love when it involves flowers, chocolates, and walks through a moonlit meadow or along the beach at sunset. It’s so much harder when we have to be vulnerable and admit that we aren’t perfect and those imperfections inflicted pain on someone else. Fortunately, Dr. Chapman also has a book for that. It’s called The Five Languages of Apology: How to Experience Healing in All Your Relationships.  

Before we continue, I want to make a statement of one point of disagreement. In his book, Dr. Chapman says that we cannot forgive if someone else has not apologized. I must respectfully disagree. It is my perspective that forgiveness is entirely an issue contained within my own heart and has NOTHING to do with anyone else. Forgiveness is about freedom within my own heart and releasing anger and toxicity. RESTORATION and REBUILDING involves the other person, forgiveness does not. Jesus forgave me before I ever knew I needed forgiveness, I simply accept the forgiveness HE ALREADY OFFERED in order to receive and experience it (see Eph. 2:8-9, Titus 3:5, and Rev. 13:8). 

Ok, now that’s out of the way, Dr. Chapman does have quite a lot of fantastic information AND templates in his book about how to speak in different apology languages so a genuine apology is actually received by the other person and does that initial grunt work of restoring and rebuilding in our relationships. The five apology languages are: 

While I personally believe all components have value and depending on the circumstance are NEEDED as part of the restoration process, understanding which language our loved ones respond to the BEST and the MOST is a HUGE help in those tough, tumultuous, sticky, and painful situations. 

Ok, moving on. When Dr. Chapman talks about expressing regret, he’s really speaking to the emotional impact of our choices whereas accepting responsibility is more about ownership of actions—without making excuses. Restitution is about How can I make this right? which may involve payment or replacement of an item but repentance is about a concentrated effort and commitment to behave differently. Finally, requesting forgiveness involves sending a signal and desire for healing and restoration in the relationship.  

Overall, this book has a lot to offer when it comes to understanding how to repair, restore, and rebuild after hard moments and even seasons in our relationships and in my opinion, does pair well with his other work with the love languages. Leaning in to our loved ones’ love languages definitely helps build a reservoir that proves extremely beneficial when we come home tired, grumpy, and totally drained. And then the apology languages give us practical tools we can use when planning how we express our love through humble acts and words that extend the proverbial olive branch as we seek to live in genuine, authentic relationships that show the kindness, love, and peace of our Father. 

Chapman, G. & Thomas,  J. The Five Languages of Apology: How to Experience Healing in All Your Relationships. Northfield Publishing, 2006.