Imprinted Love Style (ILS)
Among the books I’ve recently received as gifts, there is one about love in marriage. Last Saturday evening, before falling asleep, I was reading this book and became intrigued by the author’s concepts of “love style” and “imprinted deficit” (where "deficit" refers to an area that is missing or imperfect). So, this Sunday morning, after having a quick meal of instant noodles, rice, and kimchi in the church office, I’m writing down my thoughts under the title “Imprinted Love Style” in an attempt to organize my personal reflections:
1. My wife and I inevitably have different love styles as a married couple. The reason is that both of us, from the moment we were born, have learned different love styles from our parents (without even realizing it).
2. For example, as I grew up, the way my parents loved me was different from each other. My mother loved me unconditionally, but her love was sacrificial, as she went through a lot of hardship because of me when I was young (though I don't remember this, I learned about it from her). During my teenage years, the love I received from my mother felt like overbearing love. On the other hand, my father's love for me was one that lacked words and expressions, a love that was more reserved.
3. As I grew up, I witnessed the different love styles of my parents, and as a result, there are certain "imprinted deficits" (areas that were either missing or flawed, making them incomplete) of love in my memory. Among these deficits, the one that stands out the most is that when my parents argued (during their marital conflicts), my mother would constantly complain about the love she felt she hadn't received from my father in the past. I will never forget hearing those complaints because I disliked hearing them so much. At the time, I didn’t understand why my mother repeatedly voiced her dissatisfaction with my father. It was only later that I realized that my mother had many unresolved issues in her relationship with her husband. So, I believe that whenever my mother had marital conflicts, she would repeatedly bring up past issues from her memory and pour them out onto her husband. Before getting married, while reading books by Pastor H. Norman Wright, I was challenged by the phrase ‘Commitment to be free from the past,’ and it led me to make this decision in my heart: ‘If I get married, I will live with my beloved wife and resolve our marital conflicts day by day, ensuring that my wife has no unresolved issues in her heart so that she won't complain when conflicts arise.’ By God's grace, when I met and married my wife, I made a determined effort to ensure that she would not complain out of dissatisfaction, as my mother had, due to a lack of love from her husband. I was determined to help my wife be free from the past in our married life together.
4. However, right after we got married, my wife and I had a big argument on our honeymoon. I wouldn't exactly say we fought, but rather, I was in the wrong and got scolded by my wife. The reason was that, in my view, my wife wanted to explore and visit different places since we had rented a car, but I just wanted to stay at the hotel. I ended up going to the hotel lobby, renting a movie from the video store, and watching it in our hotel room. Of course, my wife wasn't happy about that! So, I, not wanting to hear her complaints, went out to the hotel balcony and closed the door. My wife followed me there, and in her anger, she started venting her frustration. I then used the book I was holding to cover my face, avoiding looking at her, and preventing her from seeing my face too. This, I would say, was the first "imprinted deficit" in our relationship. Even though about 28 years have passed, I still clearly and vividly remember that moment. That shows how different my love style was from my wife's love style. In other words, the way my wife wanted to be loved and the way I could show love were vastly different. I believe the reason for this disparity in our love styles is because we, as a man and a woman, are inherently very different, and on top of that, we grew up in very different environments with different influences from our parents.
5. In my view (though my wife may see things differently), I believe that besides the fundamental differences between men and women, the individual differences between "James" and "Jane," as well as the imprinted deficits in our respective parents' love styles, have had a significant impact on our marriage. One unforgettable memory I have is when our family lived in Korea for a while. One day, my wife and I had a conflict about our beloved son. The reason for the conflict was that I wanted my son to learn to share with others at kindergarten, while my wife wanted him to freely do what he wanted without being influenced by other kids. It was only after this conflict that I realized the root of the issue. From that point on, I came to believe that there can be benefits to marital conflict (before this, I had heard a sermon on the radio by a pastor who spoke about the benefits of conflict in marriage). The benefit, in this case, was that through this conflict, I came to understand that my wife and I had been influenced by our parents in different ways due to the backgrounds in which we grew up. In other words, while I had been influenced by my father to share with others, my wife, as the eldest daughter, had to always make sacrifices for her parents (which meant she couldn't always do what she wanted). Therefore, she didn't want her beloved son to have to live the same way, constantly sacrificing for others instead of being able to do what he wanted.
6. Through our marital conflicts, my wife and I not only began to realize our differences, but also started to become aware of the imprinted deficits in each other's upbringing. As a result, we came to understand and accept that our expectations of each other's love styles were very different, and this difference inevitably led to marital conflicts. In my opinion, it took about 20 years for us to reach this realization. Haha. That's how strongly, in my view, our hearts had become hardened (stubborn) due to our respective imprinted love styles and the deficits we each carried.
7. Only after that did the Lord enable us as a couple to accept, embrace, and love each other with our imprinted love styles and deficits as they were. It was then that we discovered and began to cultivate our own unique common love style, and we also started to respect that shared love style. Although this common love style is not 100% what either of us individually prefers, through numerous conflicts, we came to understand each other's imprinted love styles and, to some extent, respected them. As a result, we were able to create our own love style. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit continues to imprint this common love style on our hearts.