Episode 20: The PRAISED Framework: A Better Way to Understand Romance Styles

Take the PRAISED Romance Styles TEST here.

Relationships are a lot more dynamic than we sometimes give them credit for. While many people are familiar with traditional love languages, newer insights—like those from Dr. Tamara Fackrell’s work, highlight a few additional ways people feel deeply connected, especially through shared experiences and meaningful communication.

What makes this perspective so powerful is that it goes beyond just how we express love, it helps us understand how our partner receives it. And when we get that right, everything feels a little easier: communication flows better, connection deepens, and relationships become more fun and fulfilling.

One simple way to remember these key expressions of love is through the acronym PRAISED:

P – Presents: Thoughtful gifts that show you were thinking about them
 R – Recreation: Having fun together and creating shared memories
 A – Appreciation: Genuine words that make your partner feel seen and valued
 I – Intimacy: Physical and emotional closeness that builds trust
 S – Service: Doing things that make your partner’s life easier
 E – Exchange of Communication: Open, honest conversations that build understanding
 D – Devoted Time: Giving your full attention—no distractions, just connection

When you start to recognize which of these matter most to your partner, it becomes a lot easier to love them in a way that truly lands. And the best part? It doesn’t have to feel complicated—it can actually make your relationship feel more natural, more intentional, and a lot more fun.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Mindful Marriage and Family Podcast with Dr. Tamara Fackerell and Jake Fackerell.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Well, Tamara, we're here on episode number 20. Can you believe it?

SPEAKER_02 0:15

It's a Hallmark episode. It's Hallmark. Yes. And we are going to talk about something that Jake and I have trained many years in the different trainings that we've done that's so important, and it's the love languages. Like, have you ever planned the date, got the gift, done the service, but it's just not quite hitting right?

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

It's not a lack of love, but it's a lack of love communication.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah, putting love in the right place.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Right. And so love isn't a one size fits all type of thing. Like everybody feels love differently. And so if you can fine-tune in to the love styles of your spouse, it works great. I actually did a survey on this, and um I had different participants come through it to develop these love styles. And um it's different than the love languages book. There's styles on it that I actually have as a style that isn't covered there. And so it's fun to be able to kind of dive a little bit deeper into this topic. And it's the praised P-R-A-I-S-E-D. So we're gonna go through each letter, it has one thing I'm crazy about acronyms, as you know. And I want to encourage you guys to get onto mindfulmarriage.love, download the praised instrument, the test, take the test so you can figure out what your love style is, what your spouse's love style is, and that way you can form a better, healthy, happy marriage.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, because if you know what makes you tick and what you like, then you can communicate that to your spouse. But if you don't even know, it's really, really hard for your spouse to know. Exactly. So awesome.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

And when I'm working with couples one-on-one that are trying to reconcile, I have them do this praise test and then we figure out where the matches are, what what's the synergy space, what's the two highest ones that match the most, or what's the lowest one that doesn't match, and what's the crisscross? Like I have no skill in this one, but you really need it, or vice versa. And so you kind of want to see where the synergy is, where you kind of match up, where hey, it doesn't matter where it does, or where the crisscross is where we kind of need to do the work. And the crisscross is a place where if like you're on your one, two, and three, I want to put my best, biggest efforts into your one, two, and three, and you vice versa want to do my one, two, and three. And hopefully there's one one, two, and three that match. But if not, it's harder work, there's more bridges to build.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah, but that's okay. We build those bridges, but I love it when there's that synergy space when we match on a one and a one, and it's like, oh, that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

And I think actually my love style's changed over time, and that's why you and I take that test about every third or fourth year. I've got it in our blue books, which is our marriage journals that we write in. And I actually write every question down. Hey, this is what Jake's like, this is how he's liking it. And so, and I've found some shifting that occurs over time in different seasons of different places. But let's start with the P, which is presents.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

Yeah, and who doesn't like presents? Well, some people don't.

SPEAKER_02 3:14

Ah, well, us. It's the lowest for both of us.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

But you know, presents are fun, and especially if you have a spouse who loves presents, then yeah, accommodate that and find out well what type of presents and know what she likes and when she likes them and what the presents are that she likes.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yeah, and my sister loves, loves, loves flowers. And even though my famous story about talking to Jake is when I told him I wanted fire and ice flowers, those have gotten more and more expensive over the years because I'm so frugal, I don't want flowers anymore, right? So you want to kind of know what to get. And the thing about presents is as a couple, we're gonna we have Valentine's, yeah, we have our anniversary. Yeah, we have a birthday in there somewhere, we have our birthdays and we've got Christmas, and we've got Mother's Day and we've got Father's Day. So we've got gifts we're gonna have to give, and for that reason, I really encourage people to get a gift list. And I actually don't do an Amazon gift list anymore. I prefer getting things from my favorite stores, and so I've got a registry that Jake has a link to, and then he can go in anytime on my registry and surprise me with a pre-planned gift, so it works out great.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

And I just have to go in and touch and push the button and it shows up and it's easy. I love the registry.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

And for me, I really love to give Jake thoughtful gifts, and so I'm always just when he says, Hey, I want this, I'll like take a note. Like he gets a stance sock uh subscription, and he gets a new pair of socks that come, and we got that for his birthday, and the next year I didn't. He's like, Wait, what happened to my stance socks? I really liked that. So we renewed it the next year. But you want to kind of find into what your spouse really likes, and that's something that can be really helpful on the presence. And so communicating good presence is something that's really, really important.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah, and the R is recreation, and it's something that's really high on my list, high on your list as well. Yeah, maybe not as high, but yeah, I love to recreate. I love to get out, especially in the outdoors, and just go do fun things outside, either play pickleball or go on a hike, mountain biking, even just going on a jog. I just love just being outside and um having fun doing some kind of recreation.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Yeah, and so we have spike ball that we do together, we have pickleball we do together, we hot tub together, we storical holding hands at least once a year, we swim together, we run together, we walk together, we have bicycle together. So there's a lot of recreating that we found in hobbies that match up with us that we do together that can be a lot of fun in the recreation. Now, some people build relationships through doing recreation together. Other people build relationships through talking. As you guys know, Jake and I are opposites attract. He builds main relationships through recreating, and I build main relationships through talking. So you might think, oh, well, what we should do is talk at the recreation. We should talk in the middle of the football game. How does that work for you?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Not good.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

What about on the way to the football game?

SPEAKER_00 6:23

I want undivided attention on the activity. On the way to the football game, sure, we can talk, but usually we talk about the football game, like what's gonna happen and what are we gonna do? What are we gonna play?

SPEAKER_02 6:32

So but meaningful talking shouldn't happen. You shouldn't mix zones. Recreating is for recreating. And then have your pillow talk is for pillow talk and have keep your lanes straight. And I don't think when we're starting to recreate, it's like, look, let's give undivided attention to the recreation. Get your phones out of your lives when you recreate. Don't be like, oh, I wonder what my friend is saying, or where that this hello. Like, let's give that undivided attention. We get in the car, when that door closes in the car, we're not talking about conflict. We can connect with each other. We commonly listen to podcasts together, there's things, books that we're in the middle of, and we start our recreation and we recreate together, we go do the big event, and you know, that whole time you want to give undivided attention to that date.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yeah, you're not bringing up work, you're not checking your social media, it's undivided attention, and that that makes all the difference when you're um focused on each other and nothing else.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Right. And instead of taking that work call, you're like it rings in and you're like, no, I'm gonna I'm gonna take that later. Like that can wait. I don't need that to interrupt this undivided connection time that we're having.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

And the studies show confetti time is when you have a breach in the connection. And so when you do take a call, that really does cut the connection time, and it causes little tiny bits of confetti. So you want to be really careful about how you're interrupting your recreating. So the A on the praise, so we've got presence, recreation, A is appreciation. Some people really need that appreciation, it's higher on my list than Jake's by a lot. And so just I think written letters of appreciation. Jake's so good once a year. He does a big, huge State of the Union of the Fackeral household, and he spends hours on these letters. He gives one to every single person in our family and writes specifically about what happened during the year, during that person's um life and in our own life, what our milestones were. And it's something that we really look forward to.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Yeah, one of the keys I found in our relationship is kind words, soft touch. Kind words, soft touch. And so Tamra loves those kind words. And when I can give her compliments, um it pays dividends for me later. But she loves those compliments that I I pay her.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Yeah, and what we did is we did our football journal. And so our football journal is one that passes back and forth from my bedstand to his bedstand, and so it's actually currently sitting on your bedstand. Just wanted to remind you.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Oh, okay. I need to look at that.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

But you know, you take the time and we take a time when we write a love note to one another. And Jake and I actually wrote a lot of love notes to another in our recording. A lot, a lot. We have books and books of love notes to one another.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

When we first met, I would write notes and go put them on her car while she was at school in high school, actually, guys. We're high school sweethearts, and leave her on leave them on her car for her to read when she got to her car.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Yeah, so love letters is continue to be a big deal, and that's a really great way to have that written appreciation is an extra bonus. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

And I, everybody, is intimacy. And there's different forms of intimacy, and I'll let Tamer talk about these.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

So, um, commonly, if you're talking about the intimacy connection with kids, it's talking about that kind of that physical touch, you know, the hugging and the touching. But when we also talk about it in the marriage setting, of course, you've got sexual intimacy that can be really important, and it can be um number one. And usually you're gonna have a high-level person and a low level person there. And so if intimacy is the number one, then you want to be um to have it talk about it, have a system, and you want to actually, if you're the low person, you want to initiate often.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

And we're really excited because this season, we're going to actually have an expert on the show to help us talk about intimacy. So I'm really looking forward to that podcast coming up in the future.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Sometimes it's hard to talk about intimacy, but it's very, very important in marriage, especially if you have uh somebody in your marriage who the intimacy is high on their praise list. So you want to make sure that is taken care of.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Yeah, and you want to talk about the patterns that you have, make it expected, and just, you know, have that fun. So I think that it's really, really important because I find that people that have compatible intimacy patterns have more successful marriages. It's literally that simple. Okay, the next one is acid service, and that is giving service to one another. Some people really like, you know, what my husband can do is clean the house for me. He can do the dishes. It's not one of my highs, but I have a lot of friends who like their number one is, you know, that service. And, you know, I've got the laundry man. We've got this Jake's the sweeper man. He does the counters and sweeping in the kitchen all the time, and he's so good at it. And that's something that he's awesome at. He also just took over some vacuuming responsibilities. So he went out and bought this vacuum that he wanted. We got it off of KSL, an old used vacuum that he special wanted. And now he like can vacuum the floor like he mows the lawn, and it has like all of these special wines.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

I love that vacuum. It's beautiful. And you love that vacuum because I love that vacuum.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

So service is is part of our family culture as well. So service is really high on both of ours. So we serve each other, but we also like to serve in the community. And that also builds up the love we have for each other is when we get to serve and provide a humanitarian together.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Yeah, and we're actually going on a humanitarian trip here, and we're so excited to serve together in the Dominican Republic. It brings so much love with one another, and to have these really special experiences. It's just a dream come true. I'm so glad you helped me catch that dream, Jake. You're awesome. The E is my number one. It is exchange of communication. So it's like that depth talk, talking about really important subjects and having the talking building. So it's like you are you build relationships through activities, I do through communication. So we've had to really work on having both parts. And so we do our weekly meeting, which is good communication. We do our pillow talk. And sometimes even if you're gonna stay up a little later and do things, I'm like, come on, just come in and pillow talk with me, cuddle me for just a little bit, and then you know, go back and do whatever you need to do. So I think that um communication and having rhythms around it is really, really important.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. The rhythms is the most important part, I think, of this exchange of communication. It's super high for you, super low for me. And so if we didn't have this kind of rhythm in place already where, you know, we know the time and place where we're gonna have these exchanges of communication together, it probably wouldn't happen. And so we know now, like, okay, we you know, we have our Sunday evening, you know, couples meeting where we talk and we can get in depth about some things, and we do our pillow talk every night, and we have other places and areas where we have these exchanges of communication together that we just know like this is the time that we use to communicate. It's not a time for to recreate, you know, for our recreation. It's not a time for you know these other love languages, it's time to uh communicate together, deep communication.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Yeah, and I think that I used to get offended like when we were first married, and you would be like, No, you go to bed, I'm just gonna stay up and watch TV. I'm like, uh he's choosing the TV over me. So, Jake, what would you say to the person that is high communication when I say they say to their spouse, hey, you know, come to bed with me right now. And that spouse is like, No, I'm gonna finish my show.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

I tell that guy, get off the couch and go to bed with your wife, and you can finish that show later. Now, today we have TiVo, we can like record the recorded or whatever. No, really, um what's more important? Like, like be mindful of that of your spouse. If that's your spouse's top love language, exchange of communication, and she's asking you to come and talk, that's really, really important to her and go make that happen for her.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Yeah, and then it you might just say, like, because Jake is more task-oriented, and so interrupting a show for him is really bothersome. It's like, like, let me finish my task and then I'll, you know, do the next thing. And so, you know, you might I might actually last night, we were just talking about this. Is last night, I actually went to bed earlier than normal. I went to bed at 10 p.m. And I said to hey, Jake, hey, come up and like just cuddle me for a little bit, and then you can go back down and finish your show. Because it was a 30, I went to bed 30 minutes earlier than we normally do, because we've had so much on our plate lately. And so he did. He came up and, you know, we snuggled and talked, and I loved it. And because that's my high communication, it was really important. And I've worked with some couples where what happens as the marriage disintegrates is they just do different things. Like, you know, one spouse will just stay in the room watching TV, like they just don't do a lot of connection. I think connection and communication, it makes a difference if you're sitting on the couch in the living room, whether than being in the bedroom on your phone or with your device. So you want to be conscientious when you're home, like represent, be with the family, be with your spouse, make those efforts.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, absolutely. It's super important that you're you're when you're together, be together. Like, like make those efforts. And we have a reading nook now, so we get to go read together when we're reading, right? Sitting side by side. Sometimes it's the same book, sometimes it's different books. But yeah, I I love that idea of don't get me wrong, there's times you're in the same house and you're doing your hobby, I'm doing my hobby or whatever, and we're separate. But when there's a bid for connection, especially on on a love language item is super high on you for you, boy, that other spouse should kind of drop what they're doing and accommodate that if there's a bid for connection in that way.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Yeah. And the last one is devoted time. And this one is like the people that want to like shop at Costco together. I've never understood that. It's like, why would you punish both of us? Like, let's just make one of us go to Costco, not both of us. But after I train this, I always will have that couple that shops at Costco together and tell me we're the shop at Costco together, people.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

And we love it. And that's great. There's like love languages are for everybody. And some couples will get together, and that's their thing. They love to just spend that devoted time together all the time, whether it's Costco or walking down the street hand in hand, like whatever that is. And we like doing that too, but but it's not like Costco, let's go.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

It's like when Jake's gonna go get the car washed. I'm like, bye-bye, go ahead, see you later.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

But there's some couples, guys, they go on a date to run through the car wash with their car. It's it's kind of fun.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Yeah, so I think that you know, everybody has their different style, and it's important on the praise. We've got presence, recreation, appreciation, intimacy or touch, service, exchange of communication, and devoted time. And so I think they're all important. I just want to say what I encourage couples to do is to have a wipe out in their love style. So, for example, I'm just gonna give an example on to end this of each one, but let's just say presence is the number one thing for your spouse. Then a wipeout might be you saving up$1,000, a lot of money, and getting that perfect gift for your spouse once a year or every other year, whatever your budget can do, but make a big, huge effort, or maybe you don't want to do that approach. Maybe you're deciding what I'm gonna do. I had one friend where her husband got her flowers once a month, every month for a whole year. Wow, because flowers was her thing, right? So that would kind of be the wipe out on the recreation. Let's climb Kilimanjaro, Jake. Let's do your number one recreation, and I'm going with you, and I am not gonna complain. I am gonna put on that happy face. I'm going and I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

That was a wipeout. That was a recreation wipeout for us. We I loved it. Thanks, Tim.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Yeah, and we actually have on our recreation wipeout list we're gonna actually go to Antarctica in the next five years. So having those big goals for recreation and saving up big and then going for that recreation. Also, concert series we do, you know, there's a lot of things we do, but that Jake feels completely satisfied that we have recreated to our our utmost we can and making a big effort in recreation. An appreciation wipeout might be something like writing a love letter once a month and being consistent, or every day for seven days, but really giving that written long appreciation, not just one letter, but a series of letters.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

And handwritten is better than typed, guys.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

It is, but I even actually love AI. Jake will write a love letter and he'll have AI make it into a poem or something. I think it's so romantic. I am loving the AI love letters. So I'm just saying they're working great for me. Someone else told me that would never work for them. So obviously, you want to get the preference of your spouse, but I love it when Jake sends me the AI love poems. I just think it's la la land. So, intimacy wipeout. I think that's easy. You just go on a weekend getaway and have as much sexual intimacy until they're like no more. I can't even have it one more time. I like to do that once a year, and Jake loves it.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

That's a fun wipe out.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

It is a very fun wipeout, and 10 times in three days should do a trick. Just breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Not too difficult there. So just keep it simple. On service, you might have a weekend again of serving together. Maybe you want to do a humanitarian trip together, or maybe I had one guy and he they did some remodeling on the house together for a weekend. So that could be something that could be really great, or maybe you get down all the way to the down of the laundry basket and sort the last sock in the basket or whatever's important to your spouse, have them make up that service weekend, but do it once a year. Let's have a wipeout once a year on it. Exchange of communication. Hey, let's read a book together. Let's have a weekend of just talking about our goals, our dreams, our planning. Let's have conversation points. Let's get Tamra Fackerl's books on Amazon that have all 365 questions we can ask each other so I can know you know, what wasn't as important, nostalgic moment to you when you were younger. Younger, like go through the depth questions that we have in all of the books that I've written on marriage and go through them for a whole weekend and make it really fun. So that can be something that can wipe out the communication. And the next one is that devoted time. And that could be through a big vacation you plan or a retreat, but spending that devoted time. But the point is that you're making a once a year or twice a year really, really big effort to wipe out the other person. And it reminds me of my daughter-in-law. She they did a big recreation, and they went um to Universal Studios all day and they ran around and she was so exhausted at the end, and it was her dream. And I was like, You're wiped out. Like we got a recreation wipe out. So it's so fun to put in that specific effort in ways that really, really help the marriage grow. Because a lot of times people are putting efforts in the wrong categories because it's important to them, but it might not be important to their spouse.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Yeah, you want to put the efforts in where they count the most with your spouse. So it's 10 out of 10 items with that, with the praised model.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Right. And good marriages aren't built on loving harder, they're built on loving smarter. So take the time, do the test, figure out where you and your spouse are, and put all the efforts into the right categories to make your marriage great.