After two years of marriage I just yesterday came to a huge epiphany about my dear husband.
First, some clarification.
When someone looks at me and says "I love you", immediately a smile spreads across my face, my heart fills up with warmth, I see stars, hear birds sing, laughter rings in my ears . . . every good and beautiful thing seems to come full force into the moment.
Love sponge that I am, how naive of me to assume every other living breathing thing would have the same reaction I experience, let alone my husband.

Yesterday, while driving with the windows rolled down, sunshine pouring onto our laps and the radio singing to us loud, I turned to him smiling and said out loud "Brent, I love you."
I waited for the pure joy to spread across his face.
Nothing.
Maybe a slight nod of the head.
Don't ask me why I hadn't noticed this any earlier - I suppose I was simply more aware in that moment. Out of curiosity, I prodded "why don't you react when I say that, like it's not a big deal?"
He looked at me with half a smile and said through a quick laugh "well, you're just telling me something that you feel - it has nothing to do with me."
WHAT?!
Suddenly my world warped. Expressing "I love you" meant no more to him than me saying "my favorite color is blue." Brent, King of the love language Affirmation, needed to hear specifics about him, not about me. Here I was, thinking that being loved by me would be seen as a privilege. Ha! How not true. How silly of me. Instead, what he wanted to hear is "Brent, you are the most athletic person I know." or "Brent, I appreciate so much right now how sensitive you are." Either or would be better than "I love you . . . and my favorite color is blue".
wow.
Just to make sure, I called the number two. Number two was number one until I, through marriage, bumped him to number two. But yesterday, to my complete shock, I realized number two, even with the lower rank, knows my husband better than I: "Dave, Dave. You will not believe what I just discovered about your brother" - I relay the conversation in great detail. He's laughing so hard he can hardly get it out, until finally he says "And what he would REALLY like to hear is that he is the best looking."
I turn to Brent in shock. "Brent you are very good looking" I try it out.
He beams.
Who. Knew.